Sustainable Living

Instead of bare walls and beds in an empty room, summer campus tours saw sky-blue organic bed sheets, a lamp made from recycled bottles and a vanity mirror made from recycled magazines.

Welcome to Duke's first "green" residence hall room.

The room, the first of its kind by Duke to highlight sustainability, was a project by Sustainable Duke and three students from the Students for Sustainable Living program who wanted to show prospective students on campus tours in June and July how they can live sustainably at Duke.

According to results from Duke's Green Devil Challenge - a monthly effort to promote sustainable behavior at Duke - students at the university average about one metric ton of carbon dioxide emissions annually from dorm room energy and water. That amount would need 36 maple trees to remove from the air.

"When students are looking at universities, there are so many different things they're looking at to make their decision and this gives us an opportunity to showcase how Duke is taking an active role to help the environment," said Julie Colvin, a graduate student in the Nicholas School of the Environment who helped organize the project. "Hopefully the project will encourage potential students to make sustainable decisions while living on campus and carry these lifestyle choices with them once they move off campus."

Funded by a $500 grant from the Duke STARS program, a group that allocates funding to sustainability-related projects at Duke University, the room in Few Quad was furbished with about 20 sustainable items purchased from Whole Foods Market, Target and Etsy.com, a website that sells sustainable goods made by artisans around the world.

Biodegradable toiletries and cleaning products, and a power strip that automatically turns off electronics were some items featured in the room. A sign accompanied each product and explained what the item was and how it made the room more sustainable. Some items will also be shown in a Few Quad common room when students arrive on campus in August.

In true sustainable fashion, all items will be reused each summer as a highlight of Duke campus tours.

"It's important for any sustainability program to include the residential community because that's such a large part of the undergraduate experience here at Duke," said Joe Gonzalez, associate dean for Residence Life. "It's critical to encourage students in residence halls to enhance their dorm lifestyle with sustainability in mind and hopefully initiatives like the green dorm room can develop those habits."

Casey Roe, outreach coordinator for Sustainable Duke, said that presenting the green room showed students they can play an important role in helping Duke become carbon neutral by 2024 as part of the university's Climate Action Plan. Lifestyle changes like using less energy with fluorescent light bulbs and drinking from reusable water bottles instead of throwaway plastic bottles will be small, but important changes, Roe said. Both examples are showcased in the green dorm room.

"Students may feel like they don't have a lot of control over sustainable choices while living in a dorm room, but we want to show them that there's lots of things they can do to reduce energy and water consumption and they're easy," Roe said. "Students need to buy a lot of these items when they come to college anyway, so we're showing them they can do it in an environmentally-friendly way that helps Duke, too."

What's in the room?

Organic sheets & pillows

"Smart" power strip that turns off electronics

Lamp made with recycled bottles

Area rug made of recycled plastic

Clothes drying rack

Aluminum water bottle

Biodegradable laundry detergent

Reusable shopping bag

Compact florescentlight bulbs

Bike helmet

Chemical-free cosmetics

Biodegradable cleaning supplies

Wall art made from recycled goods from Durham's Scrap Exchange