Wednesday, March 12, 2003

12 noon to 1:30 p.m.

Wilcox, Private Dining Room

Committee Attendees: Michael McKay, Chair; Janet Gruschow, Robin Izzo, Kelsey Jack, Bill Jordan, Emmanual Kreike, Leila Shahbender, Don Weston

Committee Members Absent: Jenn Brudno, Andy Dobson, Cathy Kunkel, Tom Nyquist

Other Attendees: Mary Banfield, Alex Barron, Lauren Bush, Kai M. A. Chan, Dale Cotton, Rick Curtis, Jayatri Das, Ilya Fischhoff, Dana Graef, Jeff Greenblatt, Nathan Gregory, Chad Klaus, S. Helen Labun, Stu Orefice, Ethan Schoolman

Campus Environmental Intern, Summer '03

Janet Gruschow reported she and Stu Orefice drafted a job description for the PEI Summer Intern position in Dining Services. The document was sent electronically to the Committee for their review. It has also been posted on the PEI website and advertised to ENV classes and email distribution lists. The deadline to apply for the position is April 1, 2003. The intern will be responsible for identifying sources for organic and eco-friendly products, researching the latest trends in environmentally-friendly products, data collection, and cost analysis for environmentally-friendly products versus traditional products.

Follow up to the Environmental Audit

The group discussed how the information in the 2000 Audit has influenced change throughout the campus. Kelsey Jack mentioned the Princeton Environmental Oversight Committee is an important result of the first audit. An environmental audit will be done every two years. Five students are currently working on the next audit. How the 2002 audit will be publicized, distributed, and whether or not an evaluation will be included in the audit, was also discussed.

Marketing PEOC

Campus awareness of PEOC was discussed. Rick Curtis agreed to contact the Princeton Weekly Bulletin about publishing an article about the Committee. Bill Jordan stated there should be one place on the Princeton web site to look for all environmental information with a link on the Princeton Home Page. Leila Shahbender will contact Ben Hammond about the possibility of giving a presentation about PEOC to the AMG (Academic Managers Group) and/or Academic and Administrative Managers Group. Ethan Schoolman agreed to help Leila with the presentation.

Greening Princeton - Assisted Campaigns

Paper Purchasing

Don Weston reported invitations to the Paper Party have been sent to all Office Heads. The party, hosted by Boise Cascade, will be held on Tuesday, March 18th, from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. at the Frist Campus Center. The variety of paper alternatives available for purchase and how recycled paper is manufactured will be discussed. Ben Hammond will have the invitation posted on the blackboard site. An add will be posted in the Daily Princetonian.

Don Weston and Leila Shahbender have agreed to outline (1) the benefits of using recycled paper, and (2) the benefits of having a central receiving center on campus.

Dining Services Campaign

Benefits of organic food (food grown without chemicals) and antibiotic free meat were discussed. Dining Services and the Greening Princeton group met with the Northeast Farm Association to discuss the possibility of collaboration with other universities to get support from organic farms.

Seafood labeling information, explaining how seafood is rated using a color-coding system, is on line.

Free organic cereal from General Mills will be available at Forbes through April 25th.

The recycled plastic mugs have been stuffed with informational flyers about the Dining Services recycling campaign and distributed to the residential colleges. More information about recycling in Dining Services can be found at the Greening Princeton site:
http://www.eeb.princeton.edu/~kaichan/greening_princeton.html

Other Issues

Funding for PEOC projects through the Pri Com process was briefly discussed.
Bill Jordan volunteered to work this summer on preparing a report prioritizing PEOC's recommendations. The report will be sent to the Committee for their review and approval. A final report will then be submitted to Charles Kalmbach.

The meeting adjourned at 1:30 p.m. Since there was not enough time to discuss all of the agenda items, the following items will be discussed at the next PEOC meeting:

• Environmental Coordinator Position
• University-wide policy statement on environmental concerns
• Funding sources for various initiatives
• Plan for PEOC