Sustainability has become a common word on the Grand Valley State University campuses. But despite the local and national recognition the university has received for sustainability efforts, many members of the GVSU community are still unaware of the people who do the work: the Sustainable Community Development Initiative.

The Sustainable Community Development Initiative (SCDI) was created in 2006 as part of the Brooks College of Interdisciplinary Studies in an effort to provide university administration, faculty, staff and students, as well as the community, with the skills necessary to become better stewards of the environment and responsible global citizens in the work force, communities and family life.

“I think the SCDI team has done an excellent job at spreading awareness about the importance of sustainable habits throughout campus,” said GVSU President Thomas J. Haas. “Norman Christopher and his team of talented and driven faculty, staff and students do an astounding job at creating awareness and educating the campus about being sustainable. It’s so critical that Grand Valley’s community understands why and how to be sustainable and the team at SCDI accomplishes that by providing campus events, like Sustainability Week.”

The SCDI team is comprised of 15 members, nine of whom are students.

“I enjoy being part of a team where others share my commitment to sustainability and leading a sustainable lifestyle,” said Emily Martin, the SCDI graduate assistant. “It leads to great conversations and idea-sharing as we all continue on our journey to an ever-greater commitment to sustainability.”

The team has been involved with almost every aspect of the GVSU community, helping to establish many projects and programs to integrate sustainability into GVSU’s liberal education foundation.

“Sustainability can be applied to so many programs and majors at Grand Valley, and the team at SCDI has done an excellent job at shaping courses to coincide with a vast array of programs,” Haas said.

Some of the SCDI’s programs include the creation of a comprehensive campus recycling program, a commitment to LEED building design and construction, regular university-wide campus sustainability reporting using the triple bottom line performance indicators, and the development of a community garden and weekly farmer’s markets.

The project manager for the SCDI team, Bart Bartels, said that he is extremely pleased with the team.

“I am privileged to work with such dedicated individuals,” Bartels said. “Every day is a new adventure with interesting challenges, and I can count on the members of the team to give me insight from their unique perspectives.”

The biggest feather in GVSU’s cap for sustainability work is the considerable and wide-spread recognition that the SCDI team has received in the last few years.

GVSU was named as the only Michigan school in the 2009 Kaplan Guide of cutting edge green colleges and universities, received the 2008 U.S. Green Building Council’s Excellence in Green Building Curriculum Recognition Award and the 2008 National Sustainability Innovator Award from the Sustainable Endowments Institute and received the Energy Star designation by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for the Mark A. Murray Living [email protected]