Innovation towards Sustainability

By Punto Verde Consultores

What does it take to have a green campus? What principles and practices are necessary to bring sustainability to an educational institution, its people, buildings and processes? Punto Verde has put together a toolkit that can help answer these very questions: Sustainable Educative Spaces (SES), a program developed by the consulting firm from Monterrey, Mexico, is intended to help educational institutions to achieve their goal of becoming sustainable and lessen the impact of their campus on the environment.

The program is designed to fit each school specific situation, through a preliminary analysis of the impact of everyday activities of teachers, students, and support staff.  This review results in the creation of a training program adapted to the school’s needs, where staff learns how to reduce the direct environmental impact of their institution.

This process is complemented by the creation of an environmental management system for the school leaders that considers all elements of school management, including administrative operations, building and space management, along with the concurrent implementation of sustainable development as a topic in the academic curriculum.

This revolutionary process allows for measuring the change in an institution’s environmental impact by identifying key indicators for change and monitoring those indicators as an essential part of the process.  All schools that adopt the SES’ method become agents of change in their community, as teachers, staff and students develop new environmental attitudes and associated life skills that can be applied outside the school.

For more information please write to anagabriela@puntoverde.com.mx