Members of Student Council's Environmental Sustainability Committee outlined the provisions of a referendum to establish the Green Initiative Funding Tomorrow fund, which aims to bolster the University's commitment to sustainability, before Council's representative body Feb. 9.
"They're voting for the establishment of the fund ... that would go toward financing student, faculty or staff projects that would promote sustainable behavior on Grounds," Committee member Thushara Gunda said.
Originally, the Committee proposed a $5 "green fee" to be instituted in addition to current student fees, similar to the Student Activities Fee, but the plan since has evolved from a sustainable fee to a specialized fund.
"The money is awarded to students, faculty, staff and [contracted independent organizations]," Committee member Ian McClenny said. "Projects will be selected by a primarily student-run grant committee with oversight from various offices ... But projects that are student-initiated 'green' projects would take precedent in the committee's decisions."
Currently, the Committee is considering two modes of funding GIFT if it is approved by the student body during the University-wide elections later this month. The first involves reallocating existing SAF funds or instituting a separate voluntary fee, McClenny said.
"The primary mechanism of allocating money into the sustainability fund will be assessing our current activities fee as it exists," Gunda said. "We pay over $1,000 in activities fees every semester, so we're currently in communication with the administration to assess the economic sustainability of how that money is being managed because it was brought to our attention that not all of that money is used every year. We waned to use that excess money that's rolled over at the end of year."
Some Council members, however, expressed concern about using student fees.
"Personally, I think sustainability is an excellent cause," Student Arts Co-Chair Jenny Smith said, "but I have reservations about money going from the student activities fund to this environmental sustainability fund."
Gunda added that instituting a separate fee is still an option.
"Of course this would be voluntary and it would be an opt-in mechanism, so it's not going to automatically show up on your student bill," Gunda said. "Rather, it's something you'll have to call in and say you want to actively donate money to."
Gunda noted, however, that the Committee also is looking into additional modes of accruing funds.
"Another benefit of establishing GIFT is that we'd be able to solicit alumni donations as well as fan contributions, as well as set up a class giving campaign so that at the end of each year, fourth-years have the option of giving money to sustainability projects," Gunda said.
The Committee will host an open dialogue forum during Earth Week, which will be held during April, to discuss long-term funding for the gift, Gunda added.
"So whether it'd be reallocating existing activities fee ... or instituting a separate voluntary fee," Gunda said, "all that stuff will be discussed in an open-forum dialogue."
In the meantime, the Committee is already working to structure the funds.
"Ninety percent of this money will be toward funding projects directly," Gunda said. "The other 10 percent will go toward managing the budget. We need someone to actually manage the funds themselves, oversight, publicity or any other cost."
If passed, the fee will fund student, faculty and staff-proposed projects, such as a joint project by the Architecture and Engineering Schools to promote affordable housing, as well as a student-auditing program headed by Committee member Sheffield Hale.
"Sheffield is working on training University students to become energy auditors who will then go back and contribute and help Facilities Management conduct energy audits around the buildings," Gunda said.
First-year College student Heather Ferguson is fine with the fee as long as it does not negatively affect any of the current services available to University students.
"My fees pay for things like free visits at Student Health and free admission to football games, so it's fine as long as it doesn't affect what I already have," Ferguson said. McClenny noted, though, that the idea is to create the smallest financial burden on students as possible.
"We feel that GIFT is very important to fulfilling the University's commitment to sustainability," he said, adding that Harvard University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Cornell University all have similar green fees.
Gunda, moreover, explained that the fee will allow students to have the freedom to creatively implement sustainability in innovative ways.
"U.Va is a higher education institution that has a vision to educate its students on leading concerns," Gunda said. "By instituting GIFT, you're providing students with the mechanism for funding to promote their own projects and therefore allowing them to become leaders for today"
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