According to the GEC website, the group’s goal is “to provide student groups with pragmatic suggestions for minimizing the waste of resources, whether these resources come in the form of food, paper or even wattage.”

Former SU president Jeff Nelson filed an executive order for the GEC to nominate a student advisor for the commission when the GEC was chartered in Aug. 2009.

The EAS is supposed to help direct the GEC’s agenda and coordinate activities and initiatives with other parts of SU and the Washington University campus.

“The main reason we don’t have [an EAS] right now is because we couldn’t identify a sufficiently qualified candidate,” said junior Emily Averna, co-chair of the GEC. “We’d like to see someone who has knowledge of sustainability and also a really good working knowledge of Student Union.”

Averna added, “We anticipate that an EAS will be appointed once the next exec board is elected. He or she would be appointed by the new student body president in early March and begin fulfilling duties in fall 2011.”

Averna did not think that the lack of an EAS, whose job is to communicate with the rest of the Student Union, obstructed the GEC’s activities this semester.

“There is synergy between GEC and the rest of Student Union right now, and the lack of an EAS did not impede our progress this semester,” Averna said. “In future semesters, it will be important to have one.”

Neither Averna nor SU President junior Morgan DeBaun anticipate any penalties for the absence of an EAS.

Junior Justin Taylor, chief justice of the Constitutional Council, explained the actions that could be taken if one finds fault with the lack of an EAS.

“The most obvious thing you can do is to file an interpretation request with the Constitutional Council; we’ll take up the case,” Taylor said. “If you can show that A, the constitution is not followed, and B, there is harm done because of that, you can submit a petition to us, and we’ll review it.”

According to DeBaun, “If [anyone] filed a grievance, they could come to Justin Taylor and [the Constitutional Council] can determine if I had acted constitutionally. I’ve been pretty transparent about it. I’ve told Senate and Treasury what’s going on.”

There are two types of requests that can be filed.

“An interpretation request is a request which we review and make up a rule, which is binding,” Taylor said. “A grievance request would potentially remove someone from office.”

As for the grievance request, only the Student Union president would be affected.

“If you would like to remove [the SU president] from office, file a grievance request,” Taylor said. “I don’t know if you can punish the GEC for not having an [EAS], when they don’t have the power to get one.”

So far, no requests have been filed.

The GEC is an executive commission of SU. It is comprised of 16 students including two co-chairs, a public relations chair and liaison teams.

The commission plans to meet with SU senators, treasurers and current SU executives to develop effective strategies for implementing sustainable practices on campus.

Sarah Maurizi | Student Life

The Green Events Commission partnered with Bauhaus this year to create a more sustainable event.

In an attempt to make Bauhaus a more sustainable event, the Green Events Commission (GEC) worked in collaboration with the Architecture School Council to install these bins.

The GEC exists to help student groups put on more environmentally friendly events. This was the first year that the GEC partnered with Bauhaus, and the commission helped institute a number of changes at this year’s party.

“We partner with [Bauhaus] and focus on making their food options more sustainable and reducing the waste generated at their events,” said senior Emily Averna, co-chair of the GEC.

The GEC pushed the Architecture School Council to serve food from Chipotle at the event, instead of Chick-fil-A and McDonald’s.

“Chipotle has an emphasis on responsible food. A lot of it is naturally raised and organic,” Averna said.

A larger part of the budget was dedicated to buying utensils than in the past to assure that all napkins, plates and cups were compostable.

Unfortunately, all of the work put in to ensure that the waste could be composted did not pay off. Attendees threw the foil wrappers in the composting bins, and many compostable items were thrown in the garbage.

“It didn’t work out as well as we expected,” said Tristan Sopp, president of the Architecture School Council.

“Obviously, drunk people aren’t the best at putting trash in compost bins. Students aren’t that great when they’ve been drinking at making sure they separate things correctly,” he said.

Ultimately, the Architecture School Council was unable to compost anything because the bins contained the wrappers and other non-compostable items.

“It did cost a little more to [compost]; it was frustrating. I just don’t know if it was the right scenario to make composting work,” Sopp said.

In organizing the event, Architecture School Council found compostable wrappers, but by the time they had contacted Chipotle, the food had already been wrapped.

Averna hopes that this mistake can be avoided in the future.

“We’re still a new group, so we’re hoping to learn,” Averna said. “We always expect curveballs, so I guess at this one we have to appreciate the victory of sustainable foods.”

Bauhaus was already making efforts to be sustainable before its council met with the GEC. In previous years, the council already used paperless advertising and reused decorations, according to Averna.

Last year, the GEC worked with Dance Marathon to reduce water bottle usage by hosting a raffle in which only those who brought their own water bottles were eligible to enter. The GEC also brought in local pizzas and other locally and more sustainably packaged snacks.

The GEC has plans to work with Relay for Life, Thurtene, Celebrations Weekend, Dance Marathon and the First Year Center throughout the year.

“What we’re doing is trying to make a specific contribution to the entire dialogue about sustainability on campus, and one thing that I don’t think we have talked about is sustainable campus events,” said senior Jeff Nelson, Student Union (SU) president.

Senior Will Fischer, former president of Green Action, will be spearheading the effort to make campus events greener. Fischer, a senior, has been appointed SU’s executive advisor for sustainability and will lead the newly formed Green Events Commission (GEC) to research ways of making University events more sustainable.

“The responsibility for me is to work with Jeff on implementing sustainability at Wash. U.,” Fischer said. “We’re going to be working together to try and instill sustainability in the student body.”
Fischer will work with a group of other students on the GEC to research sustainable practices that can be incorporated into SU policy.

“We’re looking to build some system through which we can quantify whether or not a given student group is running a sustainable event,” Fischer said.

The commission will focus on special issues like using limited paper in publicizing and monitoring the sources and disposal of food.

“Mainly, we’re going to focus on reducing waste,” Fischer said.

Fischer suggested that alternative disposal options, such as turning unused food into compost, could eventually be used to take event waste “beyond recycling.”

After researching sustainable practices for campus events, the GEC will then submit a list of recommendations to the newly formed Special Executive Task Force for Sustainable Events (SETSE).
The SETSE will be co-chaired by Fischer and senior Trevor Mattea, SU vice president of administration, and will include representatives from the Senate, Treasury and student groups like Team 31, the Greek community and Dance Marathon.

“I know there are a lot of things we can improve on,” said senior Andrew Seidl, executive director of Dance Marathon.

Seidl mentioned reducing bags, serving soda in two-liter bottles instead of cans and using less electricity in the Athletic Complex as possible ways for Dance Marathon to go greener. He said he is looking forward to working with Fischer and the GEC in new these initiatives.

“I’m really excited to be one of the first groups to work with Will and to really get this off the ground,” he said.

After SETSE representatives from student groups and SU deliberate, the SETSE will then form campus event guidelines that will be sent to the Senate for approval as SU policy.

Regarding this phase of the process, Nelson emphasized that he wants to see the taskforce shape specific, concrete policies.