What is Fairfield doing?
The short answer? A lot. Fairfield University promotes environmental awareness through academics, campus energy use, everyday practice - really, any way we can. As a member of the global community and as a Jesuit institution, it's part of our mission to protect and preserve our planet. Don't believe us?
"Faced with the widespread destruction of the environment, people everywhere are coming to understand that we cannot continue to use the goods of the earth as we have in the past. A new ecological awareness is beginning to emerge... The ecological crisis is a moral issue."
-Pope John Paul II
A lot of what the University does isn't as flashy as, say, a Live Earth concert. But any and all efforts make a difference. Here's a rundown of some of the green highlights at Fairfield:
Academics and Student Activities. In 2006, 17 environmental economics students embarked on a campus-wide inventory and environmental policy review. They offered University officials recommendations and their research became the basis for Fairfield University's Green Movement Initiative.
Conservation. One of the biggest environmental efforts comes in the form of the massive COGEN project, a combined heat and power plant, behind the Fairfield Prep buildings. The plant - one of very few on U.S. college campuses - will produce its own electricity via turbine.
Facilities. Fairfield now builds facilities with an eye to energy efficiency, recycling, and high marks from Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED), a rating system of the U.S. Green Building Council that promotes responsible building practices. Read More: Fairfield University receives $2.3 million grant for CHP power plant
What's to Come. Fairfield's green initiative is - and probably always will be - a work in progress. That's a good thing. This campus is committed to investigating new ways of protecting and better understanding our world.
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