For just $5 every semester, you could help establish sustainability practices here at UNCW. At least, that’s the idea behind The Green Initiative Fund, which focuses on supporting green initiatives on college campuses. 

A group of students from the UNCW Environmental Concerns Organization is working to get this fund adopted by UNCW. The group proposes that by increasing student fees by a relatively small amount, the university can raise a large sum of money to put toward green initiatives.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency defines sustainability as creating and maintaining the conditions under which humans and nature can exist in productive harmony. 

Sustainability has been a key word on college campuses nationwide for a while now. As a result, TGIF has been spreading like wildfire. It has already been adopted by regional schools such as UNC Chapel Hill, Appalachian State, and UNC Charlotte. 

“The idea behind TGIF is that every student would contribute $5 per semester in student fees,” said Andrew Webber, chair of campus sustainability for ECO. “This would provide about $130,000 a year to put towards green initiatives on campus.”

Some of these green initiatives would include generating more student jobs, creating an on-campus recycling depot, starting a “green” apartment complex, developing sustainability courses and eventually making renewable energy available for the campus.

But in order to make this a reality, the team of students working on TGIF must create a proposal and present it to the Tuition and Fee Review Committee by the end of October. 

The fund was presented to the committee once before but was rejected. The team thought the wording of the previous proposal, as well as a shortage of concrete examples for the use of the money, probably contributed to the rejection.

The team strongly believes that this time, with their newly revised proposal and new examples of initiatives, the result will be different. They also have UNCW staff members working closely with them on the proposal this time around.

But they know their dreams will never be a reality without the backing of the student body.

“Student support is a huge deal,” said Webber. “We’ve emailed the president of every registered organization and are setting up meetings with them to discuss the fund and whether they would support it.” 

The team hopes to have a list of organizations that support the project to present to the committee next month. 

“The more diverse, the more likely TGIF will be passed,” said Chase Bennett, former ECO chair of sustainability. “We need to present a broad coverage of what it could affect. There are just still so many people who don’t know about it.”

Megan Taig-Johnston, president of ECO, said that there are short-term, medium-term and long-term goals as far as TGIF is concerned. 

“I really think the long-term goals are some of the most important because that is what will lead to renewable energy on campus,” said Taig-Johnston. “UNCW tries hard to be a sustainable campus, and the money from this fund will help it reach that goal.”

One of the staff members working closely with the team is Stan Harts, the director of environmental health and safety at UNCW. 

“I cannot overemphasize the importance of TGIF as far as the future of sustainability at UNCW,” said Harts. “It truly is key in taking it to next level. It’s so hard in the state system to reach these kinds of goals. It’s necessary to have additional funding and student backing.”

The team recognizes that some students may object to adding more costs to student fees. But they think that $5 per semester is a small price to pay for these ultimate goals.

“Just think: one burrito per semester could one day build a wind turbine on campus,” said Bennett.

The decision regarding the proposal should be made by January of 2013. For more information on ECO, visit their Facebook page.