Green fund would aid campus sustainability

Editor’s note: This is in response to the article “ASUNM proposes ‘green fund,’” published in Monday’s Daily Lobo. The author of this letter was one of the students who proposed that UNM President Robert Frank form a committee of various UNM representatives to develop a proposal to create a student-governed “green fund.”

Editor,

I was pleased to see your front-page coverage of ASUNM’s unanimous passage of a resolution in support of a campuswide green fund. I hope to take this opportunity to provide some additional information on the benefits of a student-run green fund on our campus.

More than 110 universities have created a similar fund on their campuses to support projects that build community, reduce emissions and strengthen education in their states. Now is the time for New Mexico to join this movement and make good on our commitments to a better tomorrow.

It is important to note that no plans have been laid for a UNM green fund. There are as many different models and fee structures as there are school mascots among those schools that have already created a green fund. The ASUNM senate resolution passed last week asks UNM President Robert Frank to study the notion of creating a student-run funding source for sustainability initiatives, period.

The fee cited in Monday’s article, $13, is the average fee students elected to pay in a survey of green funds conducted by the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education. Actual amounts paid varied from $5 to $20 per student.

Most of the green funds studied were initiated by student governments, and many featured matching funding from a school’s administration.

If UNM leadership heeds the ASUNM request, the entire campus can learn about how a green fund may best serve UNM. The decisions of how to fund projects, who will pay for them and who will allocate funding will all need to be included in the objectives of a study on a prospective green fund for UNM. To speculate and fantasize about details at this stage is premature. To recognize the potential of a green fund to launch UNM into a leadership position in campus sustainability is necessary.

Jacob Wellman
Office of Sustainability coordinator