Voices

KPMG Encourages Students to Live Green

In an effort to increase student involvement in sustainability, KPMG raised a challenge to business students to make their campuses greener through its first annual Living Green Case Competition. And this time around the University of California-Berkeley took home the grand prize.

More than 40 teams comprised of nearly 200 students from colleges and universities nationwide answered KPMG’s call, submitting reports with their recommended changes and improvements to address issues raised on their school’s green “report card.”

Business students were invited to submit proposals describing how they would use $1,000 to improve or change their school’s sustainability activities by addressing areas identified on the College Sustainability Report Card given to their school. The report card, published by the Sustainable Endowments Institute, evaluates colleges on their environmental and sustainability efforts.

The grand prize winning team at U.C. Berkeley, Cal Green Game Days, proposed instituting a composting and recycling program for athletic games held at the basketball arena in an effort to raise waste awareness.

The first runner-up team – also from U.C. Berkeley, called Sustainable Investments at Berkeley, proposed creating a publicity campaign to educate and mobilize students about sustainable investing and to obtain support from the university administration for sustainable endowment investments.

IU Trash Dash, from the University of Indiana, was named second runner-up for their idea to enhance the university’s recycling efforts by holding a public spring sale of gently used goods (i.e clothes, furniture, electronics, etc.) that otherwise would have been discarded when students move out. Proceeds would be donated to community and sustainability groups on campus.

The grand prize winner will receive a cash prize of $3,000. The first and second place runner-up teams will receive cash prizes of $2,000 and $1,000, respectively. Each of these three top teams will also receive $1,000 toward the implementation of their proposals.

Winners were selected by a panel of professionals from KPMG, the firm’s Living Green Committee, and the Sustainability Endowments Institute.

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