SUNY-ESF’s Campus Climate Change Committee is working to ensure the school meets a 2015 deadline of becoming carbon neutral. To get students more involved in reaching this goal, a comprehensive campaign tailored to environmentally conscious college students should be enacted.

A report is released annually with updates on the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry’s carbon footprint. Student involvement is lacking from the report. Those compiling the report claim creating incentives to entice students to take surveys about their environmental behavioral patterns may increase involvement.

But surveys are not completely reliable, and may produce a skewed report. There is no way to accurately gauge if those taking the survey are being truthful about their carbon footprint. The considered incentives to entice students to take the surveys, such as pizza events, are not the most effective way to attract college students to the cause.

Therefore, the efforts to compile surveys should be refocused to create and invent a sustainability campaign aimed at ESF students. The campaign should be catered to this specific demographic, and should inspire students to become more ecofriendly in their daily lives.

This campaign should include in-person contact with ESF students to generate more dialogue about their school’s goal to be carbon neutral by 2015. Open forums could also be hosted to educate further. In addition to this, producing awareness through social media could be included in the overall efforts to reach students.

ESF is an ideal place to set an example of a large-scale green initiative for other institutions because of its dedication to environmentally focused education.

All ESF students should be committed to reducing the school’s carbon footprint, as their careers will be affected by the earth’s future state of sustainability.