The Sustainable Oregon Schools Initiative (SOSI)
- Imagine…Oregon schools on the leading edge of environmental stewardship
- Students learning to care for our precious, interconnected environment and global community
- A future workforce prepared to meet the demands of businesses in a sustainable world
Graphic by AAP Creative 2008
For a summary page about the Sustainable Oregon Schools Initiative, click here
- What is the Sustainable Oregon Schools Initiative (SOSI)?
- How is this being accomplished?
- Benefits
- History of SOSI
- About the Zero Waste Alliance (ZWA)
The Sustainable Oregon Schools Initiative, SOSI (pronounced “so see”), provides a focal point for sustainability information and resources for all K-12 schools. It provides the means for interested school districts and schools to integrate sustainable practices into their operations, classrooms and guiding principles. Using such practices will allow them to successfully meet current needs while ensuring a thriving future, thereby preparing the future for our children.
Such schools will enable their students to learn these values and skills in the classroom, and through interactions with the school’s operations and the community, thereby preparing our children for the future, and to be tomorrow’s leaders.
"Sustainability" is defined and explained in the Discover section of the website. SOSI offers the means to manage the overall sustainability effort within a school district or school, as well as to incorporate sustainability within individual operational and instructional areas.
SOSI’s mission is to help Oregon’s K-12 schools integrate sustainability principles system-wide and prepare our children to create and succeed in a sustainable future.
Target audience includes all participants in Oregon’s school system, public and private, including involved businesses, governments, parents and community organizations.
SOSI is guided by a Steering Committee with staff support from the Zero Waste Alliance, an organization dedicated to helping society follow Nature's 4-billion year-old sustainable model.
SOSI is a voluntary program that will:
- Engage relevant stakeholders and organizations to share information and create relationships that best support sustainability in our schools.
- Develop and share resources and tools that facilitate integrating sustainability into school districts. schools, and their supporting organizations.
- Accelerate the pace of integrating sustainability into Oregon’s schools and school districts.
- Assist Oregon’s K-12 school system and students on their journey toward a sustainable future, for as long as needed.
How is this being accomplished?
- Resources: A set of resources is being developed via a unique stakeholder topic team process to jump-start school and district efforts.
- Education: Opportunities are identified and created for presenting information to stakeholders about sustainability (events, conference presentations, written materials, etc.)
- Newsletter: “The Apple” is the free SOSI newsletter that provides a wide variety of information to link schools with Oregon’s active sustainability community, opportunities and events, resources and efforts around the nation.
- Outreach and Support: As the topic team process concludes, outreach and support will be provided to schools and districts to generate interest in the initiative and to identify and support those that would like to participate.
- School Sustainability Assessment Tool (future): A school sustainability assessment tool will be created from the indicators and metrics developed by the topic teams. This tool will help educate schools and districts about what sustainability means, assess what they have in place already and determine opportunities for improvements and savings.
- Awards Program (future): A state-level sustainable K-12 schools award program will be created. These will provide recognition of successes while generating interest among schools and districts.
- Conference (future): Eventually a state-wide, annual Sustainable Oregon Schools Conference will be created.
Benefits:
Incorporating sustainability concepts into K-12 school operations and classrooms will:
- Support academic success
- Protect student and staff health
- Save money
- Protect our ecosystems
- Build stronger communities
- Prepare today's students to be wise leaders tomorrow
This will in turn:
- Provide a workforce that understands sustainability
- Increase Oregon markets for sustainable goods and services
- Make Oregon a leader in sustainability, providing a unique model for the nation
- Build the future for our children that we want them to enjoy
For a summary page listing SOSI benefits for schools and businesses, see:
- Benefits to Schools and Business Summary (PDF 262K)
History of SOSI:
This Sustainable Oregon Schools Initiative is the next stage of a sustainable schools project that was initiated by the Governor and convened in 2003 by the Secretary of State as an Oregon Solutions project. In 2005 responsibility was passed to the Zero Waste Alliance to develop this larger, comprehensive initiative.
The SOSI Steering Committee met for the first time in December 2005, the same month that saw the inaugural issue of The Apple newsletter. Efforts since then have been focused on engaging and educating stakeholders, developing and implementing the topic team process, and otherwise developing the SOSI program as well as a solid funding base.
About the Zero Waste Alliance (ZWA):
ZWA’s mission is to support organizations in the creation of a more sustainable future. ZWA has a proven track record of working with broad stakeholder groups to accomplish innovative and far reaching goals. This is exemplified by the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) project, a multi-year EPA-funded, national project to develop and implement an electronics assessment tool, EPEAT benefited from ZWA’s management of the collaborative process, ensuring a successful product outcome that all parties support.
The Sustainable Oregon Schools Initiative is based on this type of broadly-inclusive, multi-stakeholder model. In addition, ZWA associates have many years of experience working on sustainability projects in schools, school districts and businesses. The Zero Waste Alliance is a program of the International Sustainable Development Foundation. (www.zerowaste.org)