Sustainability Intro | Green Scene News

Sustainability at Blair

Members of Earthshine, Blair’s student environmental club, created and sold T-shirts urging community members to “Flick off” the lights; sales allowed them to buy 225 CFLs to replace all the incandescent bulbs in the campus dining room for a significant reduction in electrical use.

As the result of an assessment by Seattle-based Bluegreen Consulting, Blair Academy formed an internal sustainability committee to explore ways to raise awareness of such issues facing the School and how to best implement conservation approaches at Blair – and beyond. The committee – comprised of Blair students, faculty and staff – developed the following mission statement and initiatives:

Blair Academy Sustainability Mission Statement

It is the intention of Blair Academy to promote environmental awareness, global thinking, and local action. Since we live on a planet with finite resources, we must embrace the responsibility of acting as stewards of our environment. With philosophical and financial support from the Headmaster and Board of Trustees, the three central goals of our plan are to educate and raise consciousness inside our school community, to craft solutions to on-going environmental concerns to reduce Blair’s ecological footprint, and to promote long-term commitment to sustainable living.

To accomplish our mission, the following three initiatives are underway:

Education and Awareness
As an educational institution, we feel compelled to bring greater attention to the moral and practical benefits of a society acting sustainably. Through events such as School Meetings, Vespers, Chapels and Society of Skeptics, we aim to help both student and adult members of the Blair community distinguish needs versus wants and promote behaviors that serve the long-term needs of our environment.

Community Projects
We have the opportunity to substantially reduce our consumption of electrical energy, improve the efficiency of heating our buildings, reduce water consumption, eat more locally grown and nutritious foods, improve the efficiency of our fleet of vehicles, reduce the purchase and use of non-renewable materials on campus, and increase participation in recycling.

Sustainable Living
We will make every effort to instill an appreciation of the beautiful and interdependent world in which we live. The shared obligation to protect it requires our utmost daily attention. Ultimately, we look to graduate responsible citizens of the planet.

An “earth-friendly” attitude – one that embraces the concept of sustainability – has long-prevailed in some corners of campus, considering that the School’s weekly recycling program and its student environmental club – dubbed Earthshine – have been around since the 1980s and ’90, respectively. The Express-Times, a daily newspaper based in Easton, Pa., ran an April 2008 article touting Blair’s Earthshine members and their efforts to light up Blair’s dining hall…for less. The article read in part, “Students in Blair Academy’s Earthshine environmental issues club had a bright idea for today’s Arbor Day. They designed a T-shirt fundraising project to reflect their message of preserving the Earth’s natural resources. The students created the T-shirts with an image of a compact fluorescent lamp (CFL), accompanied by the admonition to “Flick off” the lights, to raise money to buy 225 CFLs to replace all the incandescent bulbs in their campus dining room for a significant reduction in electrical use.”

The Spring 2008 edition of the Blair Bulletin included a feature article (page 16) on “The Greener Life” highlighting related efforts already in place across campus. Click here for a pdf of that issue.

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