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December 15, 2008
Greenbacks granted to ‘green’ projects

By Kelly Gray

With such an imaginative and resourceful faculty, staff and student base at Emory, the University called upon its sustainability-minded citizens to come up with creative ideas to help further its sustainable mission.

Many applications were received from various departments and individuals across campus for the second annual Sustainability Grant Program. At the end of the selection process, one sustainability grant was awarded in each category: student, faculty and staff, for creative plans to promote sustainability at Emory.

These award-winning projects will receive funding from the Office of Sustainability Initiatives:

• Kati Cooper, a Rollins School of Public Health student, will examine the factors that lead to the purchase and consumption of organic and sustainable foods. Cooper will also study attitudes, including perceived barriers, perceived benefits and perceived consequences that Emory undergraduate students have about purchasing and consuming organic and sustainable foods.

• Gretchen Neigh, an assistant professor in the School of Medicine, will explore “Going Green While Treating the Blues: Introducing Sustainability in Large and Diverse Departments.” This campaign will make it easier to practice sustainability in more than 11 large and diverse departments at Emory, including education, research and clinical practice.

• Jaine Perlman, a staff member working at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center, will expand the educational food garden at Yerkes to provide more variety and a greater volume of sustainable produce to the animals housed there. For one year, the educational food garden at Yerkes has been producing a variety of edible herbs and flowers to nourish the non-human primates housed on Emory’s campus.

Many of the “green” concepts implemented by Emory have had a direct impact on the community and have come from Sustainability Grant Program suggestions. Past ideas have included adding rain barrels and compost bins to Emory’s educational food gardens and sponsoring a program to provide recycled eyeglasses to members of disadvantaged communities.

To learn more about sustainability grants, visit www.sustainability.emory.edu.