Professor Adam Green recently announced he will be taking over the position as chair of the sustainability workgroup — a group of students, staff, and faculty putting in efforts toward sustainable projects for the campus.

The workgroup was established in 2017 by Vice President of Business Services Lyndsay Maas, who sat as chair of the workgroup up until this semester. 

Green has worked with the sustainability department for 15 years.

“He and I have always worked on it together so I feel like he’s the most appropriate fit,” Maas said. “He is already familiar with the [workgroup’s] efforts.”

Maas said she will be focusing on other groups on campus, but will still be involved through reviewing whatever proposals come out of the workgroup. 

“If we wanted to do a project with facilities, we would review that whatever is being proposed is doable,” Maas said. “We’re constantly working to bring sustainable efforts to campus.”

This switch comes at the end of Green’s turn as chair of the biology department, as the position is rotated out every three years. 

Green said the main goals of the workgroup this semester will be to find members to lead the task force groups and to establish a meeting time. 

The task force will consist of five subgroups within the workgroup which will focus on specific issues that the SBCC District Sustainability Plan aims to tackle, such as transportation, waste, water, energy and food.

“There is a pretty broad criterion like addressing food insecurity or housing insecurity, it’s not limited to environmental science,” said Green.

Once they have established members of the workgroup, the next goal is to review ways to make use of the Sustainability Fee, a three dollar increase in student registration fees aimed to financially support sustainable efforts on campus.

Green said he’s been working with Associate Dean Christopher Johnson to work out the details with the board. “I’ve been so intimately involved with this project and I didn’t want to see it collapse,” said Green. 

If finalized, the fee will be added to the student activity fee next semester. 

Last semester, the fee was approved through Associated Student Government and according to an e-mail from Johnson, “The Board of Trustees has placed this on the consent agenda and it was approved without questions.”

The reestablishment of the workgroup comes at an optimal time so that it can be reinforced by the sustainability fund, which would be open to the community and different departments for proposal ideas.