Campus Story

Environmental Sustainability

Addressing one of the world's most pressing problems, climate change, requires developing scientific research and taking personal responsibility for our actions. These requirements live at the heart of sustainability at Warren Wilson, North Carolina where they are researching bird migration patterns affected by foliage growth timing in environmental sciences, where they have committed to reaching 40% local food in our cafeteria by 2020, reducing food transportation pollution, and where each individual is contributing to our zero waste challenge by dumping all food waste into our composting system on campus.

Students lead the way in Warren Wilson - The student Environmental and Social Justice Crew develops projects that allow students to advocate for environmental and social justice issues. This crew hosts the Green Walkabout Project, which is a tour of the sustainability features on campus, including green buildings, waste management, landscaping, stormwater, land use, and agriculture.

In 2015, Warren Wilson College became one of the roughly 25 U.S. colleges and universities to pledge to divest totally from fossil fuels within 5 years. The College divested 84% of its portfolio within 2 years, and we continue to divest.

In 2017, Warren Wilson wrote a Zero Waste Initiative for the College to divert 90% of all waste from the landfill by 2032 with additional efforts to reach 100% as technology becomes available.

Read more about sustainability in Warren Wilson College

EcoDorm of WWC received a 5-year Platinum recerti cation under the Lead- ership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED) Building Operations and Maintenance system by the U.S. Green Building Council