Our entire campus community has the opportunity to get involved with sustainability work. You'll find something for everyone's interests!
Lead. Empower. Inspire.
Education and Leadership Fellows (ELFS) in Sustainability are a group of premier campus student leaders who are committed to educating and engaging their peers, working to cultivate a culture of sustainability at UB, and having a positive impact in our region and beyond. In doing so they will prepare themselves and their colleagues to become the next generation of globally-minded, sustainability literate leaders.
Student leaders will elevate the conversation about sustainability by developing and delivering programs and projects that engage, inspire and empower themselves and their peers to take action and live sustainably, both through their studies and long-term thinking.
Looking to leave your mark on UB's campus? From food systems to carbon offsets, the 2021-2022 cohort of Change Agents will choose from one of the following projects to work on throughout the school year.
The University is on a mission to get to carbon neutrality by 2030. There are 10 main strategies outlined in our 10 in 10 Climate Action Plan (CAP) to get us there. One piece involves developing best practices for sustainable travel, sustainable purchasing, and hosting low-carbon events. The Carbon Offset committee of the CAP would like a team of students to research what these best practices are and produce a menu of policies that they can endorse for the rest of the university to use.
Globally, our food system accounts for 25% of all greenhouse gas emissions. That’s just about the same here at our university. UB has set out to reduce that impact in half by 2030.
For the first time ever, the University has found a baseline greenhouse gas impact of its food system. This completes the first milestone in the “Taking Stock of our Food” strategy of the recently updated UB Climate Action Plan. The second step is to reduce these emissions in half by 2030. That’s quite a task for the next 9 years!
There is a lot of work to be done to get to this target. This cohort of Education Leadership Fellows in Sustainability (ELFS) will be charged with creating the system and structure to get us moving towards this goal.
This green space certification pilot program at the University at Buffalo, SUNY is intended to provide staff, faculty, and students with the opportunity to reduce the environmental impacts of their labs, offices, classrooms and residence halls. These spaces are the foci for intervention and remediation. The overarching concepts of conservation, recycling, chemical use and disposal, and purchasing guide the actions of this project.
Educate fellow students on the importance of recycling, composting, waste reduction, energy and water conservation, local food options and reduced impact choices.
This is a highly competitive position open only to UB students. Submission of a cover letter and resume are required. Qualified applicants will then be contacted for an in-person interview.
An immersive course experience which uses campus as a living lab. Students will earn three credits while learning how to develop and implement educational programming to their peers.
Students participating in this course will receive an introduction to a variety of topics associated with creating a sustainable culture on campus. In this course, students will be responsible for developing and implementing educational programs to student peers. This will be a valuable practical experience for those interested in pursuing a professional career focused on delivering sustainable education programming.
Working in conjunction with Campus Living staff, students will work to create positive change and implement sustainable transformations in the residence halls and on-campus apartments. Students will partner with student clubs and recruit fellow residents to partake in campus sustainability events. Students will have the opportunity to identify ways to infuse sustainability into campus living, while developing and implementing solutions everyday.
Interested students are required to commit between 3 and 5 hours per week to participating in, and developing programming.
Rethink consumption and disposal, while helping to transform UB-sponsored events. Students will work alongside UB Sustainability, Facilities, Athletics and Campus Dining and Shops to ensure materials consumed and sold can be reused, composted or recycled.
Interested students may participate as a team member or team leader. Team leader positions are 3 credit internships open to UB students. Internships require 120 hours of strategic, practical and evaluative work. Team leaders work closely with UB Sustainability to manage and implement on-the-ground programming to transform events. Team member positions are less formal and only require a commitment of a few hours. After participating in a brief orientation training session, team members will be ready to volunteer for events under the supervision of team leaders. Participating as a Zero Waste team member is a quick and easy way to fulfill service requirements and volunteer on campus.
Educate fellow students on the importance of recycling, composting, waste reduction, energy and water conservation, local food options and reduced impact choices.
This is a highly competitive position open only to UB students. Submission of a cover letter and resume are required. Qualified applicants will then be contacted for an in-person interview.
Looking to make friends with other sustainable-minded people? Clubs and extracurriculars are an amazing way to do that!
Alpha Kappa Chi is a co-educational professional environmental fraternity whose mission is to promote the self-confidence, professionalism, and Brotherhood among member individuals in preparation for and commitment to practicing environmental sustainability.
ESW is a club that works to directly improve the quality of life on Earth through active example and by proactively working to lessen the harmful impact of humanity on the environment.
UB Environmental Network is the preeminent association of environmentally-minded students on campus. We are a passionate and inclusive group of students interested in advocating for, and creating positive change for the environment.
We participate in a host of events and activities including working on campus sustainability initiatives, advocating for environmental change through petitioning and protesting, coordinate and participate in UB's Earth Week Activities, host guest speakers, and many more!
We are proud to stand with students across the country who have initiated a call for fossil fuel divestment. We, students of “Fossil Free UB” are calling upon the University at Buffalo Foundation to:
Would people describe you as outdoorsy? Well, this is a club for you. Join other students camping, hiking and kayaking all over our beautiful area in Outdoor Pursuits.
Blackstone LaunchPad is an experiential campus program designed to introduce entrepreneurship as a viable career path and develop entrepreneurial skills and mindsets through individualized coaching, ideation and venture creation support.
An engineering intramural is any problem-based extracurricular engineering activity that provides an authentic (i.e., “real-world”) learning experience for students.
The source of the problem can be industry, the community or can be defined internally by students and/or faculty. These experiences are considered "resume builders" and are a direct response to industry feedback reflecting a desire to see relevant engineering experiences, outside the classroom, on student resumes. Participation in engineering intramurals may also lead to internship offers in some cases.
In 2017, the Experiential Learning Network (ELN) emerged as a dynamic space for high-impact experiential learning at the University at Buffalo. Situated centrally, within Academic Affairs and Undergraduate Education, the ELN works with students and faculty from across the University to incubate new offerings while supporting student access and engagement. In an effort to deepen our commitment to high-impact experiential learning that is both accessible for our students and equitable for our partners, we are pleased to introduce our new Project Portal and digital badge series. By inviting students from all backgrounds and areas of study to engage in mentored projects with tangible outcomes, we look forward to extending our reach while supporting students’ academic and professional goals.
The Women in Science and Engineering (WiSE) program at UB provides support and extracurricular opportunities for female students in STEM fields with the goal of increasing the recruitment, retention and success of women in the sciences, math and engineering.
UB maintains institutional memberships to a number of sustainability organizations including the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) and the Post Landfill Action Network (PLAN). Both of these organizations offer free sustainability-related professional development and training opportunities to their members. Members of the UB community must first create personal accounts using your buffalo.edu email to gain access.
Both the Faculty and Professional Staff Senates have sustaianbility focused committees for the UB community's participation. Each year, the PSS Sustainable Living Committee hosts a Sustainable Living Fair that brings in vendors from around the area to share their knowledge to our campus.
Are you interesting in volunteering, whether it be to earn community service hours, build your resume, or otherwise? UB Sustainability has a number of opportunities for you to get involved in our campus’s sustainability initiatives.
If you would like to volunteer or learn more about our opportunities, contact the UB Sustainability team by calling us at 716-829-3535 or sending us a message here.
If you want to contribute to UB’s sustainability initiatives in another way… let us know!
Looking for more? The Student Engagement office at UB hosts many volunteer opportunities on and off campus. Check out their website below for all of their offerings!
All members of the UB community have access to participate in free sustainability training opportunities through The Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) and the Post Landfill Action Network (PLAN), as a result of our institutional membership to these organizations. To access AASHE’s Campus Sustainability Hub, including toolkits, click here. To access PLAN’s resources and trainings, click here.