Maureen Wolff  |  Contributing Writer

On April 22, environmentally minded citizens will gather in areas across the globe to celebrate the 46th annual Earth Day. The slogan of Earth Day 2015 is “it’s our turn to lead.”

This year, the Earth Day Network and Global Poverty Project will partner for Global Citizen Earth Day. This event will take place Apr. 18 on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., and feature performances from artists including Usher, Fall Out Boy and Train.

According to the Earth Day Network, Earth Day is the largest civic event in the world, representing an international interest in sustainability and conscientiousness toward natural resources.

APU sociology and global studies professor Richard Slimbach believes that Earth Day is a critical opportunity to address human impact on the world, contending that a movement toward sustainability must address environmental, economical and social issues.

“A sustainable society is a ‘durable’ society; it is able to persist/sustain over generations, meeting the basic needs (and more) of its members without undermining its physical or social systems of support,” Slimbach said. “For those alive today, the sustainability ethic, simply follows the ‘Golden Rule’: ‘Leave the world better than you found it, take no more than you need, try not to harm life or the environment and make amends if you do.’”

APU’s assistant director of environmental stewardship, Toney Snyder, believes that while the university’s primary focus is on people, environmental efforts should be an important secondary emphasis and Christian practice.

“I’m sure Jesus didn’t throw litter on the ground,” says Snyder. “I’m sure he didn’t do things to harm the planet. I think he was a good steward as well, and we should be too.”

In 2007, a class at APU evaluated the university’s environmental impact compared with other schools and presented the findings to the administration. In December that year, APU created its Environmental Stewardship Department, now a branch of facilities management.

The department is what Snyder calls a “break-even program”; in other words, it functions without a budget from the university. The recycling collected by the department is used to pay environmental stewardship’s four student workers. Snyder explained that unlike universities that follow top-down mandates for sustainable practices, APU’s program takes a more grassroots, bottom-up approach.

Since its inception, the department has worked to save the university money and increase energy efficiency. Although some initiatives like student paper-ink cartridge recycling did not take off, the department has experienced considerable success through numerous projects, including the installation of lighting retrofits and the development of a cardboard recycling program.

The department often partners with APU’s Sustainability Club, founded last year by junior political science major Jamie Warren. The Sustainability Club works with Snyder’s department and the Student Government Association to facilitate green practices like recycling, composting and spreading awareness about sustainability.

“I think the coolest thing is seeing that people are very interested in moving toward more sustainable practices, but most people don’t have an idea of what that looks like,” says Warren. “And I think that’s a way that the Sustainability Club has filled that [need].”

Warren added that the club is currently working on putting raised garden beds behind West Campus and partnering with the ranger station in a watershed restoration program to plant trees in the area.

National issues relating to environmentalism and sustainability became increasingly prioritized over the 20th century. The first legislation related to air pollution was passed by Congress in 1955, according to a PBS timeline of the modern environmental movement.

The environmentalist movement gained momentum in the 1970s as Congress passed environmental legislation including the National Environmental Policy Act (1970), the Marine Mammal Protection Act (1972), the Energy Supply and Environmental Coordination Act (1974) and the Toxic Substances Control Act (1976).

A more recent measure was President Obama’s 2013 Climate Action Plan, which featured statistics and action points to help reduce pollution and streamline energy efficiency. In addition, the president signed an executive order in March keeping federal agencies on track to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent by the year 2025.

While both the Sustainability Club and the Environmental Stewardship Department have already instigated significant transition toward greener practices, Snyder and Warren are looking toward the future for more opportunities for sustainability at APU.

Warren hopes that the Sustainability Club, which currently consists of around eight active members, will continue to grow and expand its influence beyond his time as its leader. He added that while sustainability is not always convenient, it is of paramount importance for the future.

“I just think we are consuming at levels that we can’t continue to consume forever, and the change that I advocate and I think a lot of other people advocate is ‘consume less,’” Warren said. “That is not something that a world that measures success in GDP wants to hear.”

Warren plans to work toward offering more convenient ways for students to go green, including the expansion of recycling and composting programs on campus. Snyder’s department is currently part of the Sustainability Circle, a group of environmentally minded local businesses that discuss ways to go green. Snyder hopes that this class will be a catalyst to develop an organized environmental stewardship action plan.

Slimbach suggests that APU students contribute to the sustainability movement by eating a local, plant-based diet, using public transportation, finding alternatives to consuming new goods and living in areas that use renewable energy systems.

Although he does not expect a sudden sustainability revolution to grip the university, Slimbach is optimistic that some APU students will take Earth Day’s mission to heart, expressing over email that “perhaps some will see Earth Day as an opportunity to rethink the relation between humanity and habitat, and to take small steps toward making a life that is inwardly rich, outwardly simple, and globally sustainable.”

Additional resources and information about going green are available on the facilities management page of the APU website.