At the beginning of this school year (2008-09), I became involved with the Associated Students of Stanford University (ASSU) and served as an Executive Fellow for the Chair of Sustainability.  As a member of the ASSU’s Sustainability team, I learned so much about sustainability – more than I ever thought I would know; consequently, this knowledge has inspired me to take personal action and to pursue a role in this green movement.  With this ASSU team, I helped create the Green Store, an online store that sells and delivers recyclable cups to Stanford students.  We also worked on many other initiatives and projects throughout the year, and this website is now my personal project.  My experience with the ASSU, the Green Store, and other contacts I have encountered throughout the year, along with extensive research, will serve as my resources for this website.

My website is titled “It's Easy Being Green.”  This project will focus on educating others about sustainability and on making resources more accessible to those who are interested in promoting sustainability in their communities.  My Home page gives the reader a general idea about my website and offers quick links to other parts of the site.  If the reader is willing to explore sustainability and to see how he can get involved, my website exists as a resource.  My other pages break down the large topic of sustainability into the following sections: food, water, energy and waste; the pages explain how each of these sections plays a role in sustainability.  Hopefully these pages will teach my readers more about sustainability and will show them that it involves much more than recycling, as this is often the only connection that people make.  I will present knowledge about these topics that I too did not know before coming to Stanford (i.e. under the Food page, why organic food and purchasing local / fair trade food items are better).  Education is key to the success of the sustainability movement.  For example, if people do not understand the need to recycle or to compost, they will not take the necessary actions.  If people do not know how to recycle or to compost, they cannot take the necessary actions.  Through these pages, I hope to clarify why it is necessary to be sustainable and the consequences that will arise if we are not.

Although sustainability is becoming a hot topic, especially at Stanford, it still has a long way to go.  Many places still do not offer recycling bins, and many people still do not know how to recycle correctly.  Recycling is one of the first steps to being sustainable, and in order for it to become as instinctive as throwing away trash, sustainability needs to become a lifestyle.  In addition, the resources – the recycling bins and the recycling facilities – must be ubiquitous.  In ten years, I expect that recycling will be intuitive and that recycling bins will be just as prevalent as trashcans.  There will be educational workshops about sustainability for people.  Universities currently offer courses on sustainability, and in ten years, perhaps these classes will be required.  Sustainability will be as important as issues like economy or national security in the realm of politics.  Today, people only think of sustainability in terms of reducing waste and pollution, but in ten years, sustainability will dominate all areas of their lives.  People will use eco-friendly laundry detergent, and Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s will be the only supermarkets.  All cars will run on solar panels.  No one will use plastic, and everyone will carry around a kit with eating utensils everywhere they go.  Everything will be compostable.  All lights will be motion-sensored.  Perhaps this is what the world will be like in ten years, and the information my website presents will be common knowledge.  However, if I decide to keep my website up and running throughout the next ten years, more people will read my website because they will be more interested.  I will update my website, and it will expand because there will be more resources available; I will have more references because more information and materials will be available on the topic of sustainability.  There will also be more organizations that offer sustainability services.  For example, I currently have a link to Worldcentric, a company that sells biocompostables, on my website as a resource; in ten years, there will be many more businesses like Worldcentric.  

In the future, the role that the internet plays in promoting sustainability will also change.  While it is primarily an information and networking tool, beyond just educating people about sustainability and acting as a resource, the internet will be able to actively play a part in the sustainability movement.  Perhaps the internet will be used to monitor and measure the amount of energy used and the amount of waste created by an individual; then it will give individuals alerts when they have reached their "daily limit."  The internet may be connected to printers to restrict the number of pages printed in a day.  Restaurants may have a traffic-light-like system connected to the internet, which will indicate to customers where to dispose of their trash.  The internet can be used for online grocery shopping, to eliminate all unsustainable products from the products shown on the site.  There will be dating sites for people interested in and active in sustainability and perhaps support groups for people addicted to Styrofoam and plastic.  However, the internet may also negatively impact sustainability because information on the internet is kept in data centers, which are becoming more prevalent as the online network expands.  Data centers are becoming as crucial to our society as power stations and water towers are, and they require large amounts of energy in order to operate.  While the internet may promote sustainability, it can also create problems like these that must be addressed in the future. 

While I do not know how accurate my vision of the world in relation to sustainability is, it is clear that the internet will play a significant part in the sustainability movement.  I hope that this website will spark interest and passion within a few souls and encourage them to be sustainable.  By educating others about sustainability and by offering my website as a guide and resource, I can play a role in advancing society towards a greener world.