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Sustainability radio spot - April 21, 2025
Transcript
Shauna Johnson: At West Virginia University, mountaineers go first. To create a more environmentally friendly future, WVU is committing to a comprehensive set of more than 20 sustainability goals outlining a roadmap for significant campus environmental improvements. Traci Knabenshue is the university's Sustainability Director.
Traci Knabenshue: The goals are looking at a 10-year timeline, so from now through fiscal year 2035, and it says, we're heading to a place where we are conserving more energy and looking closely at how energy that we are buying and consuming is being produced, making sure that we keep sustainability top of mind as we are doing the things that we need to do as a university.
Shauna Johnson: The goals designed to be aspirational and achievable follow a full analysis of best practices at peer institutions and reflect extensive campus collaboration and feedback.
Traci Knabenshue: We have; reducing waste, protecting land and water, and lowering emissions. We have about 23 goals in those three categories. Every year with these goals, we'll be tracking a key measurement for each one of them. So anytime you want to see how we're doing meeting a certain goal, you can go and find that information.
Shauna Johnson: Knabenshue sees these sustainability goals as an opportunity.
Traci Knabenshue: It's an opportunity for our faculty, staff, students, alumni, community members, to know where we're heading with sustainability, to rally around specific priorities. It's also a way that we can give tangibility to some of the sustainability areas that are a little harder to see.
Shauna Johnson: The established goals for the Morgantown campus are being used to aid development of campus specific goals at WVU Potomac State College and WVU Institute of Technology.
Traci Knabenshue: We're doing pretty well in a lot of areas, but we know we have a lot more that we can do. So that's what these goals are about, is incorporating those three pillars of environmental performance, what's good for faculty, staff, and students when they're here on campus, and then our financial bottom line to move the needle more.
Shauna Johnson: Find more information about the university's sustainability goals at sustainability.wvu.edu.
Traci Knabenshue: We're the flagship institution in West Virginia, so it's important for us to live what we are teaching and imparting to our students.
Shauna Johnson: So let's go. Follow our stories at wvutoday.wvu.edu.
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