Grand Valley State University hosted the Seventh Annual Sustainability Champions Breakfast to honor students, staff and faculty who promoted sustainability awareness and helped create better sustainability practices.

This year, the breakfast was part of a larger event – the environmental studies sustainability showcase. The showcase provided various presentations from three different GVSU courses where students worked on projects related to sustainability.

The showcase ties in with the university’s new upgraded focus on sustainability. After a year of planning, the university established a campus-wide sustainability advisory committee. Anne Hiskes, dean of the Brooks College of Interdisciplinary Studies, said the new committee has 25 members and includes a representative from each of GVSU’s eight colleges.

“It’s the first time we’ll truly have a university-wide body that will plan sustainability goals and enhance collaboration and communication across the university,” Hiskes said.

GVSU President Thomas Haas said sustainability is a core value at the university – students are helping lead the university in a positive direction, so it is important to honor the students who have done exemplary work related to sustainability.

Grand Rapids Mayor George Heartwell works with GVSU to create a sustainability plan for the future. He said living in a sustainable fashion will save the planet, and collaboration is key to that success.

“It is people who are working in the field of sustainability that come together, that support each other, that encourage each other, that challenge one another to be even better than we are,” Heartwell said.

Communications professor Frank Blossom and his team of students received one of the Sustainability Champion awards. The Ford Motor Company approached Blossom to work on a project to create a video on people who are “going further.”

The students’ video focused on David Millarch and his two sons, who are attempting to tackle global warming by cloning some of the oldest trees in the world.

Yulia Conley, president of the student urban planning association, helped organize a sustainable global cities conference. She was honored for her part in organizing the event, which brought together six cities to discuss sustainability.

Creating a video or being directly involved with the future of sustainability is not the only way to become a sustainability champion. Statistics students Paige Melick and Trisha Zimmerman analyzed student surveys that help GVSU gain understanding of how sustainability is taking place on campus.

Norman Christopher, executive director of the Office of Sustainability Practices, said many of these students are helping GVSU move to the next level. It is easy to get started on recycling and begin thinking about basis sustainability ideas. However, students and faculty at the university are driving sustainability ideas to new levels.

Christopher presented the first Legacy Award to Heartwell to honor his leadership throughout the university’s sustainability efforts.

“If you have to look at who brings us all together in West Michigan, it’s George (Heartwell),” Christopher said. “So during this last period, yes we worked together, but you always have to look at who sets the tone for the work that we do.”

GVSU will offer an environmental studies program this summer that will help students learn more about sustainability.

Learn more about the environmental studies summer experience at www.gvsu.edu/ens.