From Nov. 12-15 the University of Saskatchewan Students Union will be holding it’s Sustainability Week in an effort to help provide social awareness to students.

The intent of the week’s events are to bring out a variety of content that will appeal to all kinds of different demographics across campus. This is not the first iteration of the event as it has happened in years past under different names like Green Yourself Week and Let’s Do Local.

Each year’s event has tried to provide some knowledge to students so they can be aware of what is going on in the world around them as well as how they can affect it both negatively and positively. The focus with this year’s event is the environment itself, while later in the school year there are plans to focus on sustainability in other facets of life.

What sets this month’s event apart from past ones is that before the Vice President of Student Affairs only organized the event. Nour Abouhamra, who currently holds the position, took it upon herself to coordinate with other student groups around the university interested in holding a similar event.

Instead of spreading the event unevenly across campus, Abouhamra saw an opportunity to bring everyone together in one unified event. “I noticed there were a lot of campus clubs that were working towards sustainability initiatives and I wanted to get them involved,” she noted.

Abouhamra has been working with the School of Environment and Sustainability, the Environmental Studies Student Association, Green Legal and the U of S Debate Society. With such varying organizations to organise the event, each day is going to have new events that attract all kinds of different people to get out and see what’s going on.

Nov. 13 will be run by ESSA and the Environmental Bioresource Student Association, which will be hosting a career fair in the agriculture building. This is to show students that there are many opportunities within the environmental field that they could pursue.

There will also be a booth set up in Upper Place Riel on Nov. 12 for a one-day event called “Better Than Bottled” all in an effort to reduce or even eliminate bottled water usage on campus. The booth will contain a bunch of interactive contests that are fun and educational, along with free reusable water bottle giveaways.

The following day the Debate Society will take over and discuss controversial topics regarding sustainability at Louis’ Loft, where fair trade coffee and tea will be provided.

Thursday’s festivities will be held in Emmanuel and St. Chad chapels containing three workshops on sustainability.

The first is Getting Together… Without Garbage, which will show those who participate how to through waste free events. Leaving a Lighter Footprint is a workshop with the intent of showing how much waste individual create and how that number can be reduced. The final workshop for the day is Home Composting, which promotes ways to incorporate composting in your home.

Sustainability Week’s final day will bring a booth back to Upper Place Riel to show the results of an ESSA 2012 study showing how much energy is being used to generate a bottle of water as compared to alternative means. Following this at 1:30 p.m. will be a fair trade presentation by Audra Krueger at the Roy Romanow Council Chambers.

The week is bound to be full of informative and unique events that are worth checking out to learn how to just how much your actions are affecting the planet.

“When a student buys a bottle of water, they are not thinking about where the bottle will end up or the negative effects this plastic bottle has,” Abouhamra said. “They are more concerned about the water inside. I want to change that.”

—
Graphic: Mike Tremblay