The University of Massachusetts Amherst placed 9th in the international MobilizeU Month competition for “Most Green Acts on Campus.” Through the Eco-Rep Program, which focuses mainly on responsible consumption and recycling. UMass Amherst mobilized its campus through a variety of events that together generated many ‘acts of green.’ Through the Green Office Program. students provided awareness kits to each office on campus, helping faculty and staff record their buildings’ energy use. Another venture was the school’s Sustainable Move-Out publicity campaign, where students created a fully functioning website, sent out advertisements, and e-mailed the student body informing them of the greenest ways to vacate their dorm rooms at the end of the school year.

Earth Week 2012 was a huge success at UMass. A student fair took place on Earth Day to showcase student efforts towards a more sustainable campus and 40 student groups displayed their environmental projects. Robert Kennedy Jr. gave a speech entitled “Our Environmental Destiny”. Approximately 1,050 people attended this lecture through which he tied together environmental initiatives with economic viability and political challenges.

Thousands of students and campus community members were reached through the hard work of the UMass students and the Earth Day organizing committee. The environmental messages and heightened awareness reached across campus and beyond!

Coordinator: Sarah Hebert, an environmental science major and the campus’ student sustainability coordinator

http://www.earthday.org/MobilizeU