Our Vision, Mission, and Goals
Vision
Proactively advance sustainability and function as a sustainable campus.
Mission
Support and advance environmental performance, economic prosperity, and social responsibility through a variety of initiatives. Thinking strategically over the long term, sustainability continues to grow with remarkable advantages and gains to those that embrace this concept (early adopters). Building on the sustainable position statement, WVU continues to promote the sustainability paradigm in its pursuit of leadership in research and teaching, institutional operations and services, and its relationship with the local community. Although WVU is remarkably diverse in disciplines, working across sectors, the shared benchmarks and themes that emerge include the following:
• Education and awareness
• Environmental stewardship
• Smart planning
• Financial savings
• Engagement beyond campus boundaries.
Through the broad participation of the administration, faculty, students, staff, and local community, WVU will continually improve all aspects of sustainability over time. Efforts will be directed toward quantitative measurements of sustainability performance as well as approaches and processes that can help overall performance.
Goals
Sustainability is not a state that is ever fully achieved or attained, but is always an overarching goal moving forward.
Listed below are 10 primary goals to assist WVU’s sustainability efforts:
1. Educate and engage the campus and local community in gaining an understanding of sustainable actions and consequences.
2. Foster collaboration between various units of the university, alumni, donors, and others toward sustainable actions.
3. Evaluate and adopt current best practices to reduce the use of energy, water, and other resources on a ongoing basis.
4. Adopt recycling as an everyday practice by the entire university community.
5.Increase the use of recycled and environmentally-friendly products by purchasing and servicing units campus-wide.
6. Improve the indoor and outdoor environment for students, faculty, and staff.
7.Offer a choice of affordable and efficient transportation modes, and reduce congestion.
8. Optimize and enhance internal efficiencies, reduce operating costs, and take innovative actions to manage assets.
9. Develop indicators and metrics to measure and report on sustainability initiatives.
10. Be a leader in promoting and supporting sustainable efforts at the community, state, and regional levels.
