Our Mission
Our mission is to empower students, build leaders, and pursue institutionalized sustainability at the University of Arizona and within the surrounding community. We aim to provide our student members with valuable real-world leadership and service experience through a wide variety of projects making tangible impacts on both the university campus and the Tucson community.
Our History
Students for Sustainability (SFS) was founded in 2008 by a dedicated group of just seven students! By 2010, the organization had secured a staff advisor, which catalyzed its growth and led to the creation of Compost Cats, a program aimed at reducing food waste in the community. In 2010, SFS collaborated with other campus advocates to establish the Office of Sustainability and the Sage Fund, which later evolved into the Green Fund and is now known as the Campus Sustainability Fund. In 2012, SFS established the University of Arizona Community Garden and began forming committees to manage an increasing number of sustainability projects.
Since 2012, SFS has helped to catalyze the installation of over 3,000 recycling bins across campus, sent members to the 2015 Paris Climate Conference where The Paris Agreement was ratified, installed the largest above-ground rainwater harvesting cistern on campus, supported the installation of the ENR2 Rooftop Photovoltaic (PV)+ Project, secured funding for the Harvill Lighting Project and the Koffler Bathroom Retrofit Project, and so much more.
What We Do
Students for Sustainability (SFS) is a joint program of the Office of Sustainability and the Associated Students of the University of Arizona (ASUA). Students for Sustainability became a recognized ASUA program in 2008 and has grown considerably since its inception. SFS works to engage the student body to cultivate environmental literacy from many perspectives by empowering student leaders, advancing social justice and equality, and in pursuing institutionalized sustainability at the University of Arizona and within the Tucson community. SFS works closely with Compost Cats as well as many organizations on and off campus including Housing & Residential Life, the Student Unions, the Campus Sustainability Fund, Camp Cooper, Saguaro National Park, the 3000 Club, and several Tucson area schools to advance our mission statement.
Sustainability creates and maintains the conditions under which humans and nature can exist in productive harmony. Sustainability means that humans are a part of natural systems and must meet their social, economic and other needs while also allowing for the needs of non-human creatures and functioning ecosystems now and for subsequent generations. Sustainability is intersectional and can only be achieved through interdisciplinary thought and action, incorporating all parts of human society and the natural world. Sustainability must also be progressing social justice, not continuing to marginalize the already marginalized in terms of race, class, gender, ability, and sexuality.
