A future of sustainability with the Green Cats

The MSU Green Cats program has promoted sustainability on campus since 2020 and is now planning to further that mission in the coming year by participating in the annual sustainability summit on March 26.

The Green Cats program was originally called the Green Office Program.

The purpose of the program was to allow faculty and staff offices to participate in promoting sustainability on campus, according to Program Manager Paul Edlund. The program changed in name and mission when former MSU student Nicholas Fitzmaurice took over as coordinator. 

“It was Nick’s enthusiasm for making this a program that was available to many different groups on campus that turned it into the Green Cats program,” Edlund said. 

Fitzmaurice is no longer acting Green Cats coordinator as he has since graduated from MSU.

MSU has many programs for reducing environmental impact, but the Office of Sustainability often encounters people asking how individuals can have an impact, according to Edlund.

To spread the word about how students can get involved, the Green Cats program works with the Associated Students of Montana State University (ASMSU), the student body government. “It’s important to our office to understand that the services we provide are useful and used by students, so we try to solicit as much feedback as we can from ASMSU and the Office of Student Engagement to make sure that we’re designing a product that’s actually accessible for students,” Edlund said. 

The Green Cats program also hosts events on campus to promote involvement and awareness.

“The event we’re most looking forward to is the sustainability summit,” Edlund said. The 3rd annual sustainability summit will be held on March 26. It will consist of speakers, tours and presentations regarding sustainability on campus according to Edlund.

“The first part of the morning we’ll invite members of our group called [The Campus Sustainability Advisory Committee] to present on how they are advancing sustainability towards a long-term sustainability framework in their unique areas on campus,” he said.

Afterward, the summit leaders will hold tours of the heating plant, campus landscape design and the plant growth center on campus. 

“The first tour will be of the heating plant, as it’s associated with the geothermal wells here on campus that help mitigate our carbon emissions. The second tour will be on landscape design, and how this campus has been designed to be water and resource-efficient. There will also be another tour through the plant growth center,” Edlund said.

The sustainability summit will also host keynote speaker Connor Ryan. Associated with the Protect Our Winters program, Ryan will be speaking on his experience as a Native American skier and how he uses skiing to connect with his community, Edlund said.

At the event’s closing later in the afternoon, they will hold three different workshops and a group of student presentations covering their sustainability research.

The Green Cats program intends to continue hosting events like this in the future. They hope to get the word out to students and faculty that want to have a positive environmental impact, Edlund said.

To learn more about the Green Cats program, visit https://www.montana.edu/sustainability/programs_and_projects/greencats/.