UNC Asheville’s 2020 Fall GreenFest celebrating sustainability and community will feature a free virtual webinar with Sapna Mulki, host of the Breaking Green Ceilings podcast, on Wednesday, Sept. 23, from 6-7 p.m. Mulki’s talk, “Building an Unconventional Path in the Environmental Profession- Navigating Race, Gender, and Immigration Status,” will chronicle her journey establishing a career in the environmental sector. To register, visit https://bit.ly/32f1sWI.
GreenFest will also include a series of socially-distanced, on-campus events for the University community, including a volunteer workday focused on tree planting and maintenance, Leave No Trace Yoga, a plant share event, a guided hike and more. Faculty, staff, and students can learn more about these on-campus events at unca.edu/greenfest.
The semiannual celebration highlights a year of sustainability achievements for UNC Asheville, including winning the 2020 Carolina Recycling Association Annual Recycling Award, and being designated a Tree Campus USA for the second year in a row. Details about UNC Asheville’s many sustainability initiatives can be found at https://stories.unca.edu/sustainability-at-unc-asheville.
UNC Asheville’s Dining Services received the CRA Annual Recycling Award for their efforts to incorporate the importance of waste reduction in everyday operations, including trayless dining and small plates to minimize over-portioning and conserve water and energy once used to wash trays. Other efforts include reusable and compostable dishes; “Project Clean Plate,” which challenges the UNC Asheville community to waste less by tallying post-consumer compost bins and donating food to the on-campus food pantry for waste reduction; and the Sustainable Dining Summit, which brought 53 individuals representing 21 institutions together to collaborate and share ideas.
UNC Asheville was also recognized as a 2019 Tree Campus USA, joining 385 campuses across the United States with this recognition. This is the second year the University has been honored for effective campus forest management and for engaging staff and students in conservation goals. With the UNC Asheville grounds crew spearheading the efforts, the University achieved the title by meeting Tree Campus USA’s five standards, which include maintaining a tree advisory committee, a campus tree-care plan, dedicated annual expenditures for its campus tree program, an Arbor Day observance and student service-learning project. Additionally, UNC Asheville has been certified as a Bee Campus USA, a designation that recognizes educational campuses that commit to a set of practices that support pollinators, including bees, butterflies, birds, and bats, among thousands of other species.
For more information about sustainability at UNC Asheville, visit sustainability.unca.edu.
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