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In 2010, the University of South Florida pledged sustainability under their Climate Action Plan. This plan set up an Office of Sustainability at the university which would oversee the enactment of all the environmental and sustainable promises made by the Climate Action Plan. As of 2024, none of the USF campuses have an Office of Sustainability. USF St.Petersburg and USF Tampa have had their programs dismantled, USF Sarasota never had an Office.
Currently, we depend solely on the Student Green Energy Fund (SGEF) to create positive environmental change; the Tampa campus SGEF is run by a team of students and faculty/staff that work together to vote on and implement the proposals that are presented to them by student teams, while the St.Petersburg campus SGEF is completely run by students. Although this is a great opportunity for students interested in sustainability and allows them to make university-scale decisions due to its limited power, it fails to solve many of the pressing problems affecting the Tampa campus. The SGEF only has the authority to approve projects that require a single fee, this means that they cannot approve projects that are recurring and would require yearly funding and upkeep. This severely infringes on their ability to pass anything that has a lasting effect. The SGEF is also funded by the students enrolled in the University, for every credit hour a student takes they are billed $1. These charges are billed every semester. Currently, the University of South Florida reports having around 50,000 students at the USF Tampa campus, with the average student taking 12 credit hours. This means that they rake in around $600,000 per semester; this money is then kept in a dormant account awaiting distribution.
Without an office of sustainability it’s difficult to regulate and delegate these funds in a transparent and recurring method. The money should not be sitting useless in an account when it can be put to necessary programs. As a previous voting member on the SGEF, I can wholeheartedly say that the existence of the SGEF is not the problem, allowing students to be involved with these decisions is important to their progression and development in the field of sustainability. They have added several positives such as an electric bus and the use of solar panels. The problem lies in the lack of a university-run office that can not only aid the work that the SGEF does, but also has the power to enact recurring projects that create permanent change.
USF Recycling Program
In July 2020, USF shut down its recycling drop-off station. This station was utilized by USF students as well as the Hillsborough Community. Since the destruction of this plant, the nearest recycling center went from right on campus to 4.2 miles away at The Tampa Waste Management Recycling Center located at 6210 N 53rd St , Tampa, FL 33610. Most students do not own cars, and there is a lack of reliable public transportation from campus; recycling is simply not accessible.
USF provides recycling bins outside their residence halls, but without proper recycling designation markings on the bins and their removal of their recycling center, they’re status as recycling bins is questionable. I have personally called the waste and recycling services at USF several times, and have never been able to get a straight answer––if they even pick up the phone.
Due to the stipulation in the SGEF charter that they cannot fund recurring projects, a recycling program is not eligible for the allocation of funding. This alone demands that the Office of Sustainability be reinstated at USF, across all three campuses.
Next Steps
Through the collaboration of several environmental organizations on campus (Student Environmental Association, Botany Club, Students for Socialism, SPEAK, GLOBE, GenCleo, Marine Biology Club, JGHC Community Garden, Agrarian Club, Entomology Society, USF PIRG, Botanical Gardens Club) on the Tampa campus, a petition to reinstate the office of sustainability has been created. This petition offers some background on the issue and asks that you sign to show your support for this environmental endeavor.
I am currently the treasurer for USF’s Botanical Gardens Club, and as a member of the executive board I have the privilege to share this petition with you. We hope to gain 2,500 signatures by the end of Climate Week (April 1-7). From there, we will share this petition with USF leadership. You can sign the petition by clicking here! Please keep in mind that for your signature to be counted, you must be a USF student (from any campus).
Climate Week is an event hosted by the USF Judy Genshaft Honors College in which various environmental student organizations, local organizations, and environmental professors aim to inform the public about climate change and how we have the power to change our future. More information on this event will be released soon, but I urge you to attend at least one event and see how you can be the change you want to see in the world!