Title

Expanding Sustainable Reporting & Practices Across BSU

Document Type

Student Presentation

Presentation Date

4-16-2018

College

School of Public Service

Department

Environmental Studies

Faculty Sponsor

Beau Hansen

Abstract

Businesses across the nation are increasingly producing non-financial reports—or sustainability reports—to ensure ethical business practices to both employees and customers that invest in those businesses. Sustainability reports entail a three pillar structure: finance, social (ethical), and environmental practices. While Oregon and Washington alone have 41 campuses that meet various AASHE-STARS grading, not one Idaho university meets their criterion. For BSU to become Idaho’s leading example, a foundation must be set to meet national standards. Two BSU colleges have produced sustainability reports: College of Business and Economics (COBE) and College of Health Sciences (COHS). Working on both colleges’ 2017 reports, our three-person team learned the logistics of what non-financial reports entail and the data needed for key stakeholders. Our team networked with department leaders across campus to analyze progress on recommendations from previous year’s sustainability reports, and collected data on transportation emissions and on paper purchasing practices. Transportation emissions were estimated by surveying BSU students and staff on how they get to and around campus, and evaluating the results using Qualtrics software. We discovered COBE is currently purchasing paper with 100% recycled content, but more work is required to verify how uniform this practice is across the university. Our results will be included in this year’s COBE and COHS sustainability reports. In the future, we believe that there would be value in organizing a large multidisciplinary team to collect data from across campus to put together a sustainability report for the entire University.

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