Green Campus
Western is a university of the environment. Sustainability is at the heart of what we do here. Our Huxley College of the Environment was innovative at its birth in 1969, and today those ideals have spread to every corner of campus.
A few examples: We’re a signatory of the Presidents’ Climate Commitment, and we’ve been purchasing 100 percent renewable energy since students voted in 2004 to pay a yearly fee for the program. We’re starting to develop a new Clean Energy Program, and we’ve committed to reducing our utilities costs and consumption 10 percent by 2012.
News and Articles
Miller Hall Green Roof
Workers are installing a “green roof” as one of many innovative sustainable features for the major renovation of Miller Hall at Western Washington University.
$970K Solar Research Grant
Faculty at Western Washington University’s Advanced Materials Science and Engineering Center (AMSEC) have been awarded a three-year $970,000 National Science Foundation grant to continue their research into producing the next generation of solar panels.
Solar Demonstration Project
"Once again, WWU's students have taken a thoughtful, professional look at how the University can best make use of sustainable alternative energy sources. It was the students who pushed through the concept of the University using 100 percent ‘green' energy, which the University adopted in 2005, and this project is their idea as well." -- Arlan Norman, dean of the College of Sciences and Technology.
Cutting the Cord: Living off the Grid
Living off the grid can be as simple as generating part of a home’s power through wind and solar energy, or as radical as moving into a mud hut with no electricity, water, natural gas or sewage at all.
Western Ranked 14th on Sierra Club's Annual List of 'Coolest Schools'.