Telecommuting a Quiet Environmental Success Story

One of the most effective and certainly one of the easiest steps that can be taken to reduce greenhouse gas pollution and cut US dependence on foreign oil – and the balance of trade, national security, economic and other problems directly associated with that dependence – would be the widespread use of telecommuting or telework by US businesses.

The term “telecommuting” and the associated term “telework” were coined in 1973 by Jack Nilles. As Wikipedia puts it, telecommuting involves a management style based on objectives (MBO) as opposed to a style based on direct observation. The term was first used in Peter Drucker’s 1954 book, The Practice of Management, and is based on a consensus arrived at by both management and employees concerning both the objectives of the organization and the employee’s role in implementing those objectives.

Prior to the industrial revolution most of the workforce was headquartered at their homes, which were usually family farms. The new technologies of that revolution – the steam engine, turbines, industrial furnaces, assembly lines, etc. – moved most workplaces to centralized locations within large metropolitan areas. This caused secondary problems such as pollution, urban congestion, crime and social breakdown that we are still dealing with today.

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The Campus Green: RecycleMania!

“Leeeeeeeeeeet’s get ready to RECYCLEEEEE!” We’re not talking about wrestlemania, but RecycleMania!

RecycleMania, a competition across the nation, is a benchmarking tool for college and university recycling programs to promote waste reduction activities to their campus communities. After 10 weeks of fierce competition, the results are in! The title of “Grand Champion” goes to California State University, San Marcos. In this short span of time, 510 different schools from all 50 states, Washington D.C., and Canada collectively recycled or composted just over 69.4 million pounds of waste. Now that’s a lot of party clean-ups. With 4.7 million students and 1.1 million faculty and staff participating in the mania, the word is definitely getting out about reducing, reusing, and recycling across college campuses.

So how did the mania begin? In February 2001, Ed Newman from Ohio University and Stacy Edmonds Wheeler from Miami University decided that something had to be done to increase recycling in the residence and dinning halls on their campuses. (Miami won that first year). This friendly competition between rival schools gradually evolved into the national college recycling craze it is today.

RecycleMania is not only a great way to gain bragging rights for your school, but also very important in raising awareness about waste management and recycling. Colleges are basically small cities that consume a lot of resources and generate a lot of waste. RecycleMania helps schools realize their potential to reduce both the amount of resources they consume and dispose of. The competition educates students about campus environmental programs and instills in them a love of recycling they can keep for life! And this just proves that recycling can be super fun. Besides helping the environment, what else could motivate students better than beating their biggest rivals in competition! Ultimately though, every school’s efforts contributed to amazing results for the environment and in the end, we’re all on the same “green-team.”

To see the final results in all categories and learn more about RecycleMania check out http://www.recyclemania.org/

The Campus Green: Today’s Universities will Ensure a Greener Tomorrow

Going green is becoming all the rage at colleges and universities around the nation, and we’re not just talking about the Cal-Berkley’s of the world. I should know, since I’m a part of the growing crowd of environmentally-aware young adults! Our institutions of higher education are increasingly providing environments to foster critical thinking and creativity in sustainability with new course offerings and majors. Better yet, our exposure to new media and social networking provide access to the information and social “cool” factors necessary to drive eco-friendly actions from our future leaders.

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