Renew School is a student initiative at The New School that explores, documents, and works to mitigate higher education’s negative impacts on the local and global environment by facilitating interdisciplinary, intergenerational collaboration towards sustainable development.
In a nutshell: we’re the resident New School environmental group.
We generally wonk-out behind the scenes on romantic issues like trash, energy efficiency, water fountains, paper procurement, etc. Sometimes we do normal student-group stuff, like hosting movie screenings and speakers. Every once in a while we do really cool things, like hosting field trips to beautiful spots around NYC and beyond.
Every once in a longer while we do REALLY cool things: last year, with the help of the student senate, we were one part of a coalition that helped switch The New School to 100% renewable-source electricity.
Our mission, simply put, is to work with The New School – mostly with the fantastic people in the Facilities department – to create tangible changes: more water fountains mean less plastic water bottles, which means less landfill and fewer pollutants like bisphenol-a (a hormone disruptor in humans and animals) in the water table – it also means more interest in tap water and therefore more interest in conserving the upstate watershed lands; renewable-source electricity powering our lights and computers means less pollution, less spent nuclear fuel, and most importantly, less carbon emissions; there’s not enough space to list everything here.
These are real changes, happening now. All of this is due to work being carried out by a coalition of students (us), faculty working within their curricula, staff working in the Facilities department and elsewhere, and school administration.
This is change you can see, feel, and shape. It’s tangible; it matters. Come be a part of it – we need all the help we can get.
Group blog and calendar: renewschool.org