The Office of....

Some great things have been happening this year in our new section of SIFE, Environmental Impact. We have 3 projects this year that are committed to helping students, citizens, and businesses make more environmentally sustainable decisions. Our key project for this division is "Print Less Anderson". The name of this project is a bit deceiving as one might think that this project is about using less paper (or really printing less). But this project is much much more!

Under student leadership and direction, this project is creating its own Environmental Standard. An environmental standard is some type of policy or initiative that regulates how people and organizations treat the environment. There are standards that are unique to states, our country and some standards that are accepted globally. So we are making our own policy of how our local businesses here in Anderson can treat the environment. We are calling this standard, "The Anderson Green Seal of Approval".

One might think that creating this Seal of Approval would be an extremely difficult task and that getting businesses to change based on a student initiative would be near impossible. Well do not fret; our SIFE team has the FULL support from Kris Ockomon, better known to the community as Mayor Kris Ockomon.

Creating this standard is very exciting and we are almost complete with our initial phases. Soon we will be taking our new Environmental Standard to the community and we expect to start seeing certified green businesses becoming visible as soon as next semester. What is even more exciting is that this project has job creating potential. And when I say potential, I actually mean that one job has already been created....so we expect a few more :)

At the recommendation of our SIFE team, the Mayor has created a new department in his administration, "The Office of Environmental Sustainability". The Mayor is setting aside an office space within City Hall, providing a couple of computers, and a printing accounting for this new department. The Office of... will be staffed by SIFE students and a City Official Task Force. In addition to this new "Office" the Mayor approved our proposal to have an internship position created for the project manager of "Print Less Anderson". That’s right; the project manager next year will be on city payroll and play an essential part in not only developing and furthering the Green Seal but also an important role in the new partnership that SIFE now shares with the city.

If you're interested in getting involved and having an economic and environmental impact in the businesses which we recruit, shoot us an email!
tlbaden@anderson.edu
ajtaylor2@anderson.edu