sustainNU Hosts First Sustainable Living Fair

On October 16, sustainNU hosted its first “Living Sustainably: Off-Campus Resource Fair” to connect students to local organizations that can provide knowledge, advocacy, and services towards living more sustainably. sustainNU invited partner organizations from Evanston and Chicago whose programs focused on food, water, transportation, energy, or community. sustainNU aimed to target students, graduate students, staff and faculty who live off campus, and empower them to make choices in their home and community that mitigate their impact on the environment.

Collective Resource, Imperfect Foods, City of Evanston, Wheel & Sprocket, Evanston Public Library,Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago, Citizen’s Utility Board, Citizen’s Greener Evanston, and ISEN all connected with attendees at the event. Over 120 members of the Northwestern community attended the event, and 94% of attendees noted they plan to connect to one of the resources they met at the fair.

The fair also featured a “living sustainably idea tree” where students wrote out ideas for behavior changes based on what they learned at the fair. Ideas included, “use reusables,” “live car free,” and “air dry clothes.” sustainNU volunteers conducted a game with ENERGY STAR® certified appliance cards, showing the impact of savings through an energy-efficient purchase.

sustainNU raffled off two “zero-waste living” kits, comprised of reusable silicone snack bags, beeswax sandwich wrap, produce bags, a zero-waste home book, and sustainNU branded utensils, water bottle and shopping bag. The first 100 attendees also took home a succulent, which can help reduce stress and promote a relaxing indoor environment.