Northern Michigan University
PRE-2: Points of Distinction

After NMU submitted its first-ever STARS report in March 2017, members of the Sustainability Advisory Council held public forums on campus to present key findings from STARS to the campus community. The Council held four listening sessions and one sustainability summit with more than 100 participants. We conducted surveys (n=983; 675 students; 111 faculty; 181 staff) and sifted through hundreds of recommendations and to identify 50 of the most feasible action items to improve NMU’s sustainability performance. At the first annual Campus Sustainability Summit in March 2017, more than 50 campus stakeholders helped to prioritize the list.

Members of the Sustainability Advisory Council used all these data to create NMU’s first-ever Sustainability Plan ("Northern 2020: Planning a Sustainable Future"). The plan has provided guiding principles to build a foundation for improving Northern’s performance as a leader in campus sustainability in the region. The goal of this plan is to help Northern manifest its core values, mission and vision through strategic, sustainability-informed decisions.


NMU’s Sustainability Plan identifies five strategic actions that members of the Sustainability Advisory Council have been working to promote since 2017. We have made progress on all measures, but the number one recommended action—institutionalize sustainability with a Center for Sustainability that would have paid employees--has yet to be actualized. Members of the Sustainability Advisory Council, a volunteer group comprised of students, faculty, and staff, see this as the biggest barrier facing NMU’s long-term sustainability initiatives.

The Sustainability Advisory Council serves in an advisory capacity to the president, the university's sustainability coordinator and the senior leadership team regarding issues and opportunities related to sustainability. The Sustainability Council members are also dealt the task to regularly share information about current sustainability efforts, sustainability initiatives under consideration and rationale associated with decisions made by the university regarding sustainability issues.

EcoReps is a student sustainability peer-to-peer education program. It is designed to give students the resources and knowledge to solve environmental, economic and social sustainability issues. Reps function as the student branch of the Sustainability Advisory Council, and work together to organize campus-wide programming, carry out collaborative projects, and represent the program at various on and off-campus events. Reps will be introduced to new topics, help plan activities and implement actions that will improve sustainability on campus and in the community.