In its desire to go green, Columbia has a new sustainability plan that will help the institution create change in a new, comprehensive way, according to the college’s website.

There are many parts to the plan, including emphasis on waste reduction, recycling and transportation. The plan features teams made up of faculty members who are experts in each particular field.

Columbia’s cleaning staff was also made “green,” but not in response to the sustainability plan, according to Melissa DaRocha, operations manager for Facilities and Operations.

“Sustainability has been an issue that we’ve been focused on for years now,” said Alicia Berg, vice president of Campus Environment. “There have been a lot of uncoordinated efforts . . . going on across the campus. So instead of continuing in this [direction], we decided to put a framework around these efforts.”

The whole point of sustainability is continuing to change ongoing campus processes, Berg said. Recycling and transportation have always been concerns—they are just being enhanced, she said.

“The green team categories are based on a best practices standard, so that this sustainability plan would resemble sustainability plans from various colleges,”

Berg said.

Recycling is the most visible part of the effort, according to John Wawarszek, recycling manager for Facilities and Operations. The recycling bins located across campus generate more participation and awareness, he said.

“A lot of the efforts that we do, you can’t really see,” Wawarszek said. “But you can see bins, and you can see people participating.”

Recycling is important because it lets people think about their behavior and potentially change it, according to Wawarszek.

The whole idea of sustainability is for people to become more aware of the choices they make in keeping the world a clean place, he said.

The plan also envisions an office of sustainability with a full-time director “to provide administrative coordination and leadership,” according to the college’s website.

“This new office of sustainability isn’t really going to be funding operations for [green efforts],” Wawarszek said. “They are going to be funneling information to the campus, promoting and generating programs to show people what we are doing.”

All in all, Wawarszek hopes this new sustainability plan will show students and faculty the importance of participating in the environmentally-conscious effort.

He also hopes it will make the school’s program more transparent so that people can see what is being done in the ecological movement.

Transportation is a part of the sustainability plan that Columbia excels at because of its location, Berg said.

According to the sustainability website, more than 80 percent of students and faculty ride bikes and use public transportation.

“But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do things like encourage bike riding and using the bike parking lot,” Berg said.

However, when the college buys security and facility vehicles, it looks into hybrid cars and vans that use E-85—85 percent ethanol, according to the sustainability website.

The cleaning department conducted a campaign to be more eco-friendly earlier this year, according to DaRocha. The department hired new management to oversee the cleaning staff. Harvard Maintenance, the new cleaning company, brought new microfiber supplies and more environmental equipment.

“It’s been quite a while since we [changed the management team],” DaRocha said. “We did [seek] a bid earlier this year, and we moved on with a new company. All the cleaners have stayed the same though. We’ve kept them all on.”

What was most appealing to DaRocha about Harvard Maintenance was its response to the college’s need for a greener methodology which was, “We don’t do it any other way.”

The goal of hiring Harvard Maintenance was to set up an environmentally-conscious team, which has succeeded under the new sustainability plan, according to DaRocha.

According to Berg, a lot of students and faculty show great interest ecological activities in all different aspects of the campus.

“There’s already a lot of energy around [sustainability]. This is a way to harness and direct that energy,” Berg said.