At Aquinas College, Zero Waste Success Affirms Sustainability Commitment, Inspires More Initiatives

As a Catholic liberal arts college within the Dominican tradition, a call to “care for the earth,” is an integral value for Aquinas College and a central part of the campus culture. Indeed, Aquinas College, situated on 117 acres of forest just east of downtown Grand Rapids, has been committed to environmental stewardship since it was founded in 1886 in Traverse City, Michigan, and that commitment has continued in Grand Rapids, where it relocated in 1911.

Evidence of the Aquinas commitment to sustainability can be seen in its numerous on-campus and community initiatives, many led by the college’s bustling Center for Sustainability.

One example is the ambitious goal to achieve campus-wide zero municipal solid waste. According to the Zero Waste International Alliance (ZWIA), zero waste is “the conservation of all resources by means of responsible production, consumption, reuse, and recovery of products, packaging, and materials without burning and with no discharges to land, water, or air that threaten the environment or human health.”

For Jessica Bowen, Aquinas director of sustainability, that ZWIA definition is a vital guiding principle for Aquinas’ efforts.

“This becomes important in a circular economy model,” she says, “because we aren’t considering toxic substances diverted even if they are recycled.” 

Since recycling these substances alone is not up to the standards of the center, Aquinas, as befits a top-rated liberal arts college, has made education a strong part of its sustainability efforts, including persistent waste-sorting education. Through such efforts they have increased their diversion rate from 45% to 70% since 2012, and total trash generated down from 230 tons per year to 70 tons per year. Aquinas has worked hard to build the virtue of sorting waste into the landscape and culture of the campus. It is also making significant progress in the classroom where awareness and understanding of how individual decisions impact the environment is a learning outcome for AQ’s general education requirements, ensuring that every student graduates with at least minimal education in sustainability.   

Outside agencies are recognizing the Aquinas efforts. The college was ranked twelfth in the nation and second in the state of Michigan in the 2020 RecycleMania national competition, a friendly competition and benchmarking tool for college and university recycling programs to promote waste reduction activities to their campus communities. In 2016 Aquinas was named the Sustainable Business of the Year by the West Michigan Sustainable Business Forum. 

Aquinas College received a top ranking in the Recyclemania Campus Zero Waste competition 2019.

Another noteworthy honor is that Aquinas has received a Silver rating from the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education STARS program twice in the past four years. STARS (Sustainability Tracking Assessment and Rating System) is a self-reporting framework for colleges and universities to measure their sustainability performance against other institutions, and Aquinas received high marks for exceptional performance in both the academic section (44.73 out of 58 possible points) and the campus engagement section (17.80 out of 21.0 possible points).

And the future is bright for Aquinas and sustainability. The college recently completed a $32 million expansion and renovation of the Albertus Magnus Hall of Science.  The new building is a LEED Silver Certified building adjoining the previous facility, and boasts a green roof.  Other upgrades included new modern, flexible laboratories, faculty and student research labs, collaborative student spaces and a three-story glass atrium. The capital campaign that funded these improvements also included funding for the Wege Institute for Sustainability and Economicology (WISE) and a newly created position of Dean of Sciences and Sustainability, filled by Sister Damien Marie Savino. 

Magnus Hall of Science has been renovated and expanded to be LEED Silver Certified.

Bowen says the new building and new academic position are exciting developments that will buttress the college’s quest to integrate circular economy and sustainability concepts into other existing academic programs at the institution. Going forward, Aquinas also wants to create a better forest management plan, which includes a possible pilot program with the city of Grand Rapid that would allow the college to bring goats on campus to help manage overgrown brush and invasive species through managed grazing.

All of these efforts tie back, says Bowen, to Aquinas’ mission as a college to graduate agents of change who will live out the value of sustainability in all that they do during their time as Aquinas students and as Aquinas graduates.

Aquinas College, an inclusive educational community rooted in the Catholic Dominican tradition, provides a liberal arts education with a global perspective, emphasizes career preparation focused on leadership and service to others, and fosters a commitment to lifelong learning dedicated to the pursuit of truth and the common good.

The Center for Sustainability heads the AQ Sustainability Initiative which provides an on-going process to assure that Aquinas College is the kind of place where people love to work and learn. The initiative involves protecting the natural beauty of the Aquinas College campus while restoring the natural environment, improving financial stability and strengthening social relationships.