Green Week promotes sustainability across campus

On Oct. 23, College Green was filled with tables full of art, food and prizes, all of which were centered on one theme: sustainability.

The event, GreenFest, was just one of many events held last week focused on sustainability as part of Green Week, hosted by the Student Sustainability Association at Penn and Penn Environmental Group.

GreenFest, the biggest event of the week, lasted for two hours, during which students could stop by and visit any of the tables to learn from a wide range of different groups — from the Penn Vegan Society to the Penn Haven Housing Co-op — about their missions and how they relate to sustainability.

“This year our focus was on making it a lot more visible and a lot more accessible to students and then have a good representation of both community groups and student groups,” event organizer and College sophomore Johanna Matt-Navarrosaid.

Wharton freshman Tiffany Adjmul hosted a table at GreenFest with her management team promoting the 4Liters Challenge, a challenge to conserve water and raise awareness of water poverty by using only four liters a day when showering, drinking or doing other activities.

“I think it’s great. It’s definitely been successful and we’ve had a lot of people sign up so far,” Adjmul said.

SSAP has over 15 constituent groups on campus, and throughout the week different groups collaborated to host events each day. Food Week was also held on campus last week, so many events were part of both initiatives.

The purpose of Green Week is to allow students to see sustainability in action in different ways through the many different groups organizing events.

“[We’re] trying to increase sustainability awareness on campus and encourage students that wouldn’t actively go to a club to see sustainable events,” Matt-Navarro said.

The week began with the Penn Vegan Society Kickoff Party, co-hosted by the Penn Vegan Society, the Latin@ Coalition and Penn for Fair Food. The groups provided a Latin vegan dinner followed by discussions.

“We broke into discussion groups at tables and talked about the ethical practices behind veganism, our motivations for going vegan, how we can deal with the stigma of going vegan and how we can get more people interested in the cause,” College freshman Susan Radov said.

On Oct. 27 the Agatson Urban Nutrition Initiative hosted an event on healthy and cheap eating habits, which included a discussion about food justice. On Thursday, Ori Shavit, an Israeli journalist and vegan, discussed Israel’s vegan movement at Penn Hillel.

Green Week ends on Oct. 26 with a speakeasy hosted by the Penn Environmental Group, Penn Haven and the Penn Program in the Environmental Humanities on a reclaimed barge on the Schuylkill River.

“It’s been a good week,” Matt-Navarro said, “and really collaborative and a lot more groups are joining on to SSAP.”

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