In people’s day-to-day lives, the environment can often be looked over, and people don’t always remember to take care of it. Being environmentally friendly isn’t always our top priority, despite its need to be.

While the University may be known for other initiatives, such as our engineering program and having an increased amount of international students, our campus is also largely focused on sustainability and being environmentally friendly.

While many groups on campus have an eco-friendly focus or purpose, more are joining in — including the campus Greek system. Illinois’ Enactus is working with 15 sororities and fraternities to participate in the Greeks Go Green competition. The month-long event focuses on recycling and spreading awareness through social media on how to be more environmentally friendly.

This is a fantastic initiative and adds to the many other ways that being eco-friendly is a main priority of this campus. Each semester, through the Sustainable Campus Environment Fee and a Cleaner Energy Technology Fee, students contribute to campus-wide sustainability projects. The Electrical and Computer Engineering building’s net-zero energy use is pushing us to make as much energy as we consume and is the largest building in the world of this type. The University also has a climate action plan to make the University a carbon neutral campus by 2050.

Campus administrators, building and zoning workers and members of the Student Sustainability Committee work on these initiatives every day, but having various RSOs, and now the Greek community, dedicated to this effort is further establishing this campus’ presence as a sustainable university.

Through Greeks Go Green, various chapters are competing to see which can recycle the most and save the most energy by Earth Day. There is also curriculum throughout the program to teach students eco-friendly habits.

Similarly, several dorms recently wrapped up Eco-Olympics March 22. Dorms competed by looking at the total energy-use of the building and encouraging students to make commitments to environmentally conscious changes they could make, such as taking the stairs over the elevator to eliminate electricity.

Seeing as Greek houses and dorms are major hubs of student involvement and student living, these initiatives, paired with everything else the campus is doing, are hopefully inspiring lifestyle choices for all students on campus.

While all the initiatives the University has created advance our status as a green-University, seeing students actively participate shows even more campus commitment and helps improve the health of our planet.