The Boston Intercollegiate Government’s Sustainability Subcommittee is housed under the Governmental Affairs Committee. The committee works to create inroads with the City of Boston in their environmental sustainability initiatives, communicate goals and progress between schools in the coalition, and advocate for issues of sustainability throughout BIG. The committee is currently working on several projects to achieve these goals.
Firstly, the committee partnered with the City of Boston to perform an Urban Wilds Clean-Up in Mattapan as an interactive Earth Day event. This partnership is very exciting for our coalition and we hope to expand upon this to allow greater engagement between our schools and the city. BIG hopes to host another Urban Wilds Clean-Up in Fall 2021 and engage in other initiatives with the city including a safe bike-riding workshop and a Greenovate Ambassadors training where students can learn about issues of environmental sustainability in Boston and teach others.
Secondly, the committee has been working on creating a BIG Green New Deal to pinpoint policies in Boston and Massachuesettes that BIG can provide their stance on. Furthermore, the committee also wants to use this platform to commit member universities to environmental goals. This project draws inspiration from the infamous Green New Deal resolution presented to congress in January 2019 and we hope to create our own to advocate for progressive climate policy on behalf of students in the Greater Boston Area.
Finally, the Sustainability Subcommittee hopes to complete a divestment guide compiling the different ways in which member universities have gone about divestment to serve as a resource for future schools to commit to divestment from fossil fuels. This is bringing our schools together in a very unique way to tackle something larger than ourselves and allow BIG to contribute to a global cause.