John Cabot University Community Celebrates Sustainability Month
Environmental Cleanup Trash Collection
During Sustainability month, JCU promoted various events to showcase the student body’s commitment to go green. JCU’s Grassroots Club is dedicated to encouraging community members to make informed choices about the environment. Grassroots’ Triggering Change Competition invites students to use creativity to spark sustainable action with a two-minute pitch that addresses a specific environmental issue.
The Office of Community Service organized five environmental cleanups in collaboration with Grassroots this Fall. Throughout the semester, students collected over 60kg of trash. Student Naomi Vitiello says she was motivated to participate because environmental cleanups are “not only a way to help the environment but also to know and create relationships with others who share the same purpose.”
Additionally, the Grassroots club organized a lecture called “Plastics– Useful but Dangerous. The impact of plastics on human health, on animals and the environment, not just on climate change,” on October 4, 2022. The club’s Vice President Eleonora Cammaran facilitated a discussion with guest speaker Delia Dumaresq, a former barrister and active environmentalist. Dumaresq researches the effects plastics have on soil, plants, and the human endocrine and fertility system; her goal is to raise awareness and to support campaigns on its reduction. Eleonora says a vital lesson she learned from the lecture was the importance of the “6Rs of Plastics: Refuse, Redesign, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, and Recover.”
Grassroots Social Media Manager David Simpson led “Fast Fashion and Consumers’ Responsibilities” in the context of Professor Bailey’s Business Ethics class. The event was an overview of ‘fast fashion’ and its implications, and was intended to present possible actions students can take to minimize its environmental consequences. David is motivated to educate the community about environmental issues because he believes people should take them seriously as a collective. He hopes that students understand that their fashion choices have a permanent impact on the environment.
Four Grassroots board members represented the JCU delegation at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27), that took place this November in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. Delegate Carlos Santander describes both his and fellow board members’ participation in conferences and events related to topics like water scarcity as both “stimulating and encouraging.” Delegates not only learned about how vital water is to the world, but also how negotiations are carried out to enact both environmental change and protection. Everyone is invited to participate in JCU’s town hall where COP27 will be discussed on Tuesday, November 29 at 7pm in the Tiber Cafeteria.
(Brianna Phelps)
