Indiana University South Bend has been on the journey to becoming a green campus for more than three decades. In the early 1970s, aluminum cans and newspapers were collected and taken to local collection centers. In the 1990s, a campus-wide recycling program was developed.The IU South Bend Center for a Sustainable Future was established in 2008.
The River Crossing Campus Apartments Community Building, which opend in the fall of 2008, will soon be the first LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified building built on an IU campus. In addition, it has been recognized as one of the best new green projects in the Midwest region by the editorial advisory board of the Real Estate & Construction Review. Center faculty and board members were invovled in the decision to "go green" and in the design process.
The Center for a Sustainable Future is taking the lead role in further turning IU South Bend into the ideal green campus: one that has turned itself into a learning organization in which every person on campus understands the basic principles of sustainability and are putting them into practice one step at a time in their own area. The Center strives to engage the campus and greater Michiana communities in creating a future focused on the "triple bottom line." Choices that are good for people and the planet, as well as profits, that take into account ecological and social performance are promoted and encouraged by the Center.
Currently, the Center is developing a new sustainability curriculum, facilitating research in sustainability, and fostering civic engagement to help develop sustainability action plans. It is taking the lead role in further turning IU South Bend into the ideal green campus, one whose boundaries do not stop at the edge of campus, but whose teaching, research and service contribute to the development of a sustainable future not only for itself, but also for the community, the country, and the world.
