There is a group of eight students at PSU who control how our $12 million in student fees are spent every year. This group, part of the PSU student government, is called the Student Fee Committee (SFC).

Every dollar spent by PSU ultimately has some impact on the environment, because every time we spend money we are trading it for some product (which directly requires natural resources and energy to produce) or some service (which is indirectly supporting the use of products, food, energy, travel, etc). Obviously, since the SFC is responsible for deciding how money is pent, they have an important role to play in sustainability at PSU.

This year we are lucky to have SFC members who care a lot about the environment, but unfortunately they don't have a lot of free time due to how much work goes into figuring out a $12 million budget.

I'm looking for ideas for how PSU (through the SFC) could be more environmentally friendly in spending money. I'll bring these ideas up with SFC members in January.

Thanks.

~ Peter W
Senator, ASPSU

Here are some things the SFC can do.

- Airfare - carbon credits purchased?

- Does the group purchase recycled paper? What content?

- Water bottles? Tally the # purchased.

- Office supplies: Our office recommends that people purchase from Blue Ribbon Business Products Co. They have a "Greener Office Products" catalog and are located in SE Portland. Website is brbp.net.

- Encourage the use of local, organic food from small businesses.

- Encourage people to use Zero-waste event planning. Here's a quick guide we could tweak for use at PSU.
www.ci.olympia.wa.us/cityutilities/garba...ioneventplanning.htm

Hope that helps some....

Only 8? Wow, they should hire some more people, for $12!

I am glad to see that we are thinking of creative and sustainable ways to spend the student fee money. One of the guiding principles of the SFC this year is the promotion of sustainability on campus, and we have been working with student groups and departments to decrease our carbon footprint. As the SFC vice chair, I can tell you some ways we have attempted to be more sustainable. As you can imagine, we deal with a lot of paperwork as some budgets run hundreds of pages, so one of the things we have been doing is using our laptops to have access to various budgets. While most of the members have laptops, other do not, so we have encouraged the use of recycled paper.
We have asked each department and student group how they promote sustainability on campus as a prelude to their budget process. We hold them accountable and stress to them that they need to do as much as they can to cut on their waste and misuse of our resources. We have also been very supportive of proposed projects that promote sustainability on campus.
One discussion the SFC has had is related to travel. Departments and student groups request a lot of money for plane and automobile travel, which we know is very deteriorating to the Environment. Reducing such travel to those most vital to the groups/departments will decrease our complacency to fossil fuel based travel.
This is just a short overview of what we have been doing as the Student Fee Committee. Because we represent students and student money, we are always open to any suggestions and ideas from fellow students. If you have questions or comments, please feel free to contact me.
Thanks,
Tanja Miljevic
SFC Vice-Chair