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Bethany Walrad
Sustainability Coordinator
Office of Facility & Project Management
Seattle Pacific University
Phone: 206-281-2592
Email: walrab@spu.edu
Sustainability: It’s More Than Just Another Word
“Sustainability” is a community’s ability to meet its needs without hurting its future generations' ability to do the same thing. For Seattle Pacific University, that means we must make decisions with these “three E’s” in mind: environment, economy, and equity.
Sustainability puts a name to many of the values and practices already in place at Seattle Pacific University, as evidenced by our Signature Commitments:
- SPU will be a place that knows and understands what’s going on in the world.
- We commit to being informed about environmental issues, human rights struggles, and other challenges in a global, postmodern world.
- SPU will be a place that embraces the Christian story, becoming biblically and theologically educated.
- We endorse the biblically backed Christian beliefs that all humans have worth and dignity, and that our Earth is a gift that must be cared for and cherished.
- SPU will be a place that masters the tools of rigorous learning, becoming a vibrant intellectual community.
- We commit to equip students to be able to enact change.
- SPU will be a place that models grace-filled community and practices racial reconciliation.
- We commit to practicing social sustainability.
- SPU will be a place that graduates people of competence and character equipped to change the world.
Though stewardship of the University’s natural and financial resources has long been the mission of the Facilities Department, recent years have seen an increased push toward environmental stewardship.
- A multi-faceted sustainability assessment was conducted in late 2007; it resulted in utility consumption profiles for the past five years, a draft carbon footprint, and an inventory of sustainable practices on campus.
- On March 26, 2008, President Philip Eaton signed the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment (ACUPCC), pledging SPU to pursue eventual carbon neutrality.
- The University’s first sustainability coordinator was hired in June 2008, and a campuswide Sustainability Committee formed in September 2008.