Get Your Green Passport!
The Green Passport program, originated by Rodney Vargas, is an exciting intercollegiate initiative that promotes socially and environmentally conscious study abroad experiences. Abroad View, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Living Routes, Ithaca College, and Middlebury College helped develop this program, which is now open to all colleges and universities.
How to participate:
1. Please read and sign the Green Passport Pledge.
2. If you are a Facebook member, please join the Green Passport for Study Abroad group.
3. In preparation for "greening" your experience abroad, check out the article "Sustainable Travel and Study Abroad" for suggestions on things you can do to make a positive difference when you go abroad; also keep in mind the suggested Green Passport guidelines below.
4. Once you have committed to keeping track of actions you will take abroad that are within the suggested guidelines of a responsible traveler (see below) and/or which seek to make connections regarding sustainability concepts, please document your actions. You can keep brief descriptions about what you do to minimize your footprint on the local environment and culture; or, you can report on area- or project-specific environmental practices that you learn about abroad. If you are involved in a community-based project or organization focused on some aspect of sustainability, please tell us about it. The main idea is for you to keep track of the things you do abroad that are environmentally and socially responsible, so that you can share them through our website and magazine while you are abroad or after your return to the States.
GP Suggested Guidelines:
Actions You Can Take In-Country:
• Get involved with a community project abroad to help clean up the environment.
• Use public transportation whenever possible.
• Reduce, reuse and recycle.
• Turn off all electricity before leaving the room/apt./bathroom, etc.
• Get involved with a local educational institution to teach about sustainability.
• Write an article for a local journal on a subject related to sustainability.
• Measure your carbon emissions: minimize them and then offset the remainder (contact us if you would like more information about offsetting your carbon emissions).
• Use accommodations and restaurants owned by local families instead of multinational chains.
• Consume food (preferably organic) products from local communities.
• Get involved with a community project abroad that serves “underprivileged communities.”
Sustainability Research and Reporting:
If you wish to go a step further to research and report on a specific aspect of sustainability in your host country(ies).
Sustainability covers a wide array of fields. Sustainability topics would include anything that looks at ways of reducing the human impact on the global environment and on energy consumption. We are interested in your research on what is being done overseas in terms of sustainability initiatives that could be useful information for students at their home campus and elsewhere. You are encouraged to work with themes with which you are already familiar in order to have a basis for comparison and a knowledge base from which to work. Just about every major can find topics related to your field of study and/or ways that your major can be helpful in communicating with others about sustainability themes. Examples of research and reporting topics include:
1. What is the average home size in the country/community where you are? How are homes constructed? How does it compare to U.S. home sizes and what are the implications for sustainability?
- 2. Are there particular communities or organizations that are working on sustainability initiatives? What do those initiatives look like and what can we learn from them?
3. Is there a consciousness of the need for energy conservation? How is this manifested and what could be done to change it?
4. What do the people in the country where you are studying eat and where does their food come? How does that compare to the U.S. and what can be learned in terms of sustainability?
5. What does the health care system look like? Is there a traditional medicinal practice still in use? How does that practice depend on the natural environment and its conservation?
6. How are people in the country where you are studying generating power? How does that compare to the U.S. and what can be learned in terms of sustainability?
7. How are media such as film, newspaper, theater, and/or music being used to educate about sustainability or the need for resource protection and conservation? How does that compare to the U.S?
8. What kinds of transportation do people use and how do they use it? How does that compare to the U.S. and what can be learned in terms of sustainability?
9. What is the family structure like? How do families work together to consolidate resource use? How does that compare to the U.S. and what can be learned in terms of sustainability?
10. What are innovative technologies that are being used in order to reduce energy consumption? How does that compare to the U.S. and what can be learned in terms of sustainability?
11. Are children being educated about the need to be conscious of the earth’s carrying capacity and their role in caring for the earth? How does that compare to the U.S. and what can be learned in terms of sustainability?
12.- How are local businesses taking leadership in their community to educate about the need for sustainably produced products? How does that compare to the U.S.?
13. What is the role of poverty, equality and justice in our ability to reach a sustainable global lifestyle? What do you see around you that can inform you of this?