For the second year The American College of Greece – DEREE celebrated International Campus Sustainability Day on the DEREE campus. The ACG – Center of Excellence for Sustainability and the student organization, Together for Sustainability, organized the activities that took place in the DEREE Main Corridor on October 23^rd to raise awareness about sustainability and sustainable development.

Since 2003, the annual Campus Sustainability Day has celebrated the cause of sustainability in higher education. CDS takes place each October at colleges and universities that want to encourage sustainability initiatives at their institution and in local communities.

This year’s event at DEREE aimed to raise awareness of efforts to make ACG a sustainable college and community and publicize the sustainable initiatives the college has undertaken in  recent years. It also aimed to promote recycling of plastics and composting of organic waste.

For a week, anyone could dispose of plastic waste in a blue recycling bin in Deipnosofistirion and dispose of organic waste – raw vegetables, fruit, coffee and tea bags – in another container.

Together for Sustainability members are going to use organic waste that they collect as compost in the organic garden they have planted on campus. Deipnosofistirion and Starbucks have contributed compost to that effort.

Another feature of this year’s event was the promotion of ACG Cares commendable plastic bottle caps recycling initiative.

Visitors could pick up information about and view photographs documenting Together for Sustainability initiatives and achievements in sustainability at ACG and other colleges and universities around the world.

The United Nations has defined sustainability as a key issue for the world today. The 1987 UN World Commission on Environment and Development report, Our Common Future, called sustainability the way to meet “the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”

Sustainability incorporates and presupposes the harmonious co-existence of economic activities, ecosystems, social justice and quality of life in achieving a balanced social, economic and environmental integration. It is that harmonious relationship that can help societies flourish even in the midst of a dire economic crisis.

In order to propel the efforts of The American College of Greece to become a sustainable College, the Center of Excellence for Sustainability was established at ACG in the fall if 2011, as many other universities, such as Harvard and Stanford, have done.

The mission of the Center of Excellence for Sustainability is to create a culture of sustainability on campus, to promote sustainable operations and to make the College a sustainable learning community. Most of the initiatives the CES has undertaken during its two years of operation relate to awareness-raising events and activities such as the annual event of Sustainability Week, educational activities such as the Green Roof course, and technical or scientific events such as the waste and water audits that were performed in conjunction with the Environmental Studies Honors Course, Greening the Campus.

The CES works closely with the student organization Together for Sustainability, which was established in the 2012. Together for Sustainability provides opportunities for students to contribute to making the ACG educational community and the world more sustainable.

The CES collaborates will work with any department, student society, organization or club that would like to promote sustainability at ACG. “Interdisciplinary” is a key concept of sustainability and of the Center’s mission.