Green Initiatives & Eco-Friendly Practices
Sustainability is a long-term responsibility to meet the needs of the present without compromising the needs of future generations. The environment has a limit, and it must be respected and embraced. At St. John's, our Sustainability Coordinators work together to promote a more sustainable campus.
Featured Initiatives
St. John's Saves
Volunteers from across the division and the campus community helped us to collect, sort, and ultimately transfer more than 2.5 metric tons of food, clothing, and household goods to our community partners in the Dax Program, the St. Vincent DePaul Society of Long Island, and the St. John’s Bread and Life Program.
We’d like to especially recognize: Dr. Jackie Lochrie, Teresa McNamara, Sean George, Elena Ajayi, Fr. Hugo Medellin, Nick Koowar, Ivan Fernandez, Carley Germain, Brianna McKenzie, Zack Tesser, Isabelle Niehoff, Pat Snider, Joe Dratch, Lucas Shears, Alina Miclea, Kelvin Gil, Geoff O’Brien, McKenzie Crissman, John Quijije, Arlo Kane, Wilmer Carvajal, Victoria O’Keefe, Pat Zanchelli, Lucy Pesce, Belinda Rosario, Ronald Waldron, Kara James, Rosemary Costabile, Lana Demchenko, D’Jon Joseph, Emmanuel Faustin, Elvira Garcia, Julie Gindi, Jennifer Guzowski, Tamein Haynes, Hieu Le, Elizabeth Czerska-Rojas, Sarah Kelly, Omar Lopez, Regina Mistretta, Ethel Liang, My Nguyen, Christopher Walsh, Mei Somera, Sandy Strk, and Amanda Valle.
Our work would also not have been possible without the support of our program partners: Joseph Geraci and the SVDP of Long Island Team, Sr. Marie Sorenson and the St. John’s Bread and Life Team, and Mel Reyes from the Dax Program.
We hope you will join us next year as we work to expand our efforts to harvest two weeks of student donations to support our local community during the period from May 1-15, 2025.
Mark your calendars, get your sneakers ready, and rev up your laundry carts, because it will be move-out time again soon!
Student Community Garden
The student community garden is an organic vegetable garden built and maintained by student workers and the Student Earth Club. The garden consists of more than 50 semi-raised planting beds with organic soils, automatic irrigation, and a central drainage system. Students harvest and deliver the vegetables to help support St. John’s Bread & Life soup kitchen in Brooklyn, NY. Over 1,000 pounds of vegetables are harvested annually.
On-Site Food Waste Compost System
St. John's began composting food waste in 2009. In 2011, through the Office of Sustainability, student workers built a large-scale aerated static pile (ASP) three-bin composting facility. Each day during academic semesters, student workers pick up about 130 pounds of pre-consumer food waste from one campus kitchen and process it through a pulper machine. The pulped food waste is mixed with wood chips each week and loaded into one of three ASP (6-cubic yard) bins. After three weeks in the ASP followed by 10 weeks in winnow, the compost is then screened/finished and applied to the campus grounds. Annually, St. John's recovers about 42 tons of food waste and paper napkins for composting and mixes it with 12 tons of wood chips.
Climate Action Plan
St. John’s is on the path with a roadmap to achieve a 50 percent reduction in carbon emissions from energy consumed by buildings by 2030. Within the new NYC Climate Mobilization Act of 2019, there are tiered emissions compliance targets for 2024 and 2030. Being below the emissions limits for 2024, St. John’s is developing plans to meet its 2030 emissions limit and includes renewable energy sources such as geothermal and solar power.
St. John’s Energy Master Plan 2017 can be viewed here.
Sustainability Tracking, Assessment, & Rating System™ (STARS)
STARS, developed by the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education, is a transparent, self-reporting framework for colleges and universities to measure their sustainability performance. STARS ratings last three years. As a Charter Participant in STARS, St. John's achieved a Silver rating in 2011 and upgraded to Gold in 2012 and 2016.
Tree Campus USA Program
St. John's received Tree Campus USA participation awards for the past seven years by meeting the program criteria of the tree care committee, tree care plan, finding the tree care program, incorporation of Academic Service-Learning (ASL), and Annual Arbor Day observance/event. The Queens campus has over 3,000 trees, 500 of which came from the NYC Million Trees project (2008–11). With faculty over the site, in 2013, students planted a northeast native species campus arboretum around the softball field. Each year, the University's Campus Tree Mapping Project grows with the help of students guided by dedicated faculty member Paula Lazrus. Currently, more than 1,000 trees are mapped. You can view the progress of the University's Tree Mapping Project at https://sju.maps.arcgis.com/apps/MapJournal/index.html?appid=e93c6f15a2b24969bf5ab32fa20d2955.
Outreach & Marketing
The University engages and strives to partner with numerous organizations. Some of these are; NYC Carbon Challenge; NYS Association of Reduce, Reuse and Recycle; EPA; The Arbor Day Foundation; Association For the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE); Con Edison and; NYSDEC. On-campus, The Sustainability Office most often communicates with Residence Life, Student Earth Club, Learning Communities, Academic Service Learning, Student Wellness, Campus Ministry, and Human Resources.
Comments are welcome; e-mail sustainability@stjohns.edu.
For more information on sustainability initiatives on campus, send us an email or call the Sustainability Department at 718-990-5054.
Initiatives
Student Sustainability Coordinators
Since 2008, St. John's has maintained a team of student workers as Sustainability Coordinators. These students perform a variety of tasks, from policing campus-wide recycling of municipal solid waste to running campaigns for student involvement in energy conservation. These workers perform a daily collection of food waste to generate on-site composting, as well as maintain the organic garden and run numerous special events.
EPA’s Food Recovery Challenge (FRC) Program
St. John's is a charter participant in the US Environmental Protection Agency’s FRC program, which has three primary actions: food waste prevention, food recovery for donation, and food waste composting.
Compost Tea Brewing and Application
Compost made on-site is also used in compost tea brewing. After brewing the tea, organic solutions and minerals are added, and the tea is applied /sprayed to the soils in the campus tree and shrub beds. The University conducts compost tea brewing workshops in the spring and fall. These workshops present a cocurricular opportunity for students and faculty to learn about composting, soil biology, and the soil food web.