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User:Honey Berk/Green Schools Alliance

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The Green Schools Alliance (GSA) is a non-profit organization created by schools for schools, working with and through pre-K to grade 12 schools worldwide to meet their energy and sustainability goals, raise environmental awareness, and empower students, as well as faculty and staff. Founded in 2007, GSA membership includes nearly 2,000 public and private schools in 37 states and 10 countries, including the entire New York City Department of Education public school system - which joined GSA in April 2009.[1][2][3]

The GSA is a program of GEO: Global Environmental Options, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that was founded in 1994 as an outgrowth of the “Greening of the White House” initiative[4], the first major gathering of the green building community around one project.

About

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The GSA's growing network of "schools guiding schools" galvanizes schools' individual concerns about climate change and the environment into collective action to protect our shared future. An alliance of K-12 public, private, and independent schools uniting to take action on climate change and the environment, the Green Schools Alliance helps to set goals, measure progress and celebrate success. The GSA seeks to remove obstacles for all schools to participate. Membership in the Green Schools Alliance is free, based only on a commitment of environmental leadership[5]:

  • A school joining the GSA at the Climate Steward level pledges to calculate their school’s carbon footprint by establishing an energy and carbon emissions baseline, and achieve carbon reductions over time.
  • Some schools choose to join at the Climate Champion level, pledging to reduce their school’s carbon footprint by at least 30% within 5 years, and achieve Carbon Neutrality by 2020.

Comprised of students, administrators, faculty, facility managers, business officers, and parents, the Green Schools Alliance leverages schools experience, expertise and passion to build a green community across boundaries. This network helps schools maximize the environmental benefits to the greatest number.

Programs

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The Green Schools Alliance provides a menu of opportunities that engage all members of the school community to work together to ensure a safe and healthy environment for future generations through the implementation of sustainable, energy-smart solutions today. GSA programs, created by schools, integrate education and action.

Programs include:

Leadership

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President and Founder
Margaret Howard Watson

National Advisory Board
Ray Anderson, Chairman and CEO, Interface, Inc.
Dr. Dan Ashe, Science Advisor to the Director, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Francis Beinecke, President, Natural Resources Defense Council
Douglas Brinkley, Historian and Author
Dr. Virginia Burkett, Chief Scientist of Global Change Research, U.S. Geological Survey, Co-Recipient with the IPCC of the 2007 Nobel Prize
Douglas Durst, President, The Durst Organization
S. Richard Fedrizzi, Founding Chairman, President & CEO, U.S. Green Building Council
Paul Hawken, Environmentalist, Entrepreneur, and Author
Denis Hayes, Co-Founder, Earth Day; President, The Bullitt Foundation
Dr. Mitchell Joachim, Co-Founder, Terrefuge and Terreform One
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., President, Waterkeeper Alliance
Jonathan Lash, President, World Resources Institute
Amory Lovins, Co-Founder and CEO, Rocky Mountain Institute
Bill McKibben, Environmentalist, Author, and Founder, 350.org
Dr. Story Musgrave, Scholar and Astronaut
Robert W. Pittman, Founding Member, The Pilot Group; Co-Founder, MTV; Former CEO, MTV Networks; Former COO AOL, AOL Time Warner
Theodore Roosevelt IV, Chairman, Pew Center for Global Climate Change
Jane Steiner Hoffman, Author and Chairman, Presidential Forum on Renewable Energy
Paul Von Paumgartten, Sustainability Director, Johnson Controls Inc.
Rob Watson, CEO, EcoTech International; Founder of LEED™

Education Advisory Council
Jefferson Burnett, Vice President, National Association of Independent Schools
Sarah Daignault, GSA Secretary; Executive Director, National Business Officers Association
Charles Hopkins, UNESCO and United Nations University (UNU) Chairs in ESD
Merle Kirkley, International President, Council of Educational Facility Planners International
C. H. "Sonny" Savoie, President-Elect, National School Boards Association
Michael Saxenian, CFO, Sidwell Friends School
Chuck Saylors, National President-Elect, National Parent Teacher Association
John F. Shea, CEO, NYC Department of Education, Division of Facilities
Mary Spruill, Executive Director, National Energy Education Development Project
Peter Upham, Executive Director, The Association of Boarding Schools

References

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  1. ^ Energy Efficiency Benchmarked at All Public School Buildings, NYC Department of Education
  2. ^ City Schools to Join Green School Alliance, NY1
  3. ^ Public Schools Getting Green Tested, The Epoch Times
  4. ^ The White House Is Becoming 'Green', The New York Times
  5. ^ What Schools Are Doing to Become More Green, The Epoch Times
  6. ^ Better Schools Inside and Out, New York House
  7. ^ Go Green: Grand Central and Green Schools Alliance, Scott Stringer, Manhattan Borough President
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