Bentley University
EN-3: Student Life

Students for Sustainable Business represent the three approaches to Sustainability (People, Planet and Profit). There is a chair for each aspect of the triple bottom line who plans events and educational experiences for both their members and the Bentley student community. Students for Sustainable Business (SSB) host different educational activities throughout the year on campus as well as provide opportunities for members to gain immersive experience outside of Bentley's campus. These have included doing beach clean ups and touring local sustainable facilities.

Bentley Sustainable Investing Group will be following sustainable, responsible, and impact investing (SRI) strategies. SRI is an investment discipline that considers environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) criteria to generate long-term competitive financial returns and positive societal impact. Bentley Sustainable Investment Group offers students real-time experiential learning opportunities in security analysis and portfolio management. Our organization provides students with the experience of making group decisions on investments that make a material environmental and social impact as well as maintain financial returns.

Bentley University has 2 pollinator gardens with signage on the purpose and importance of supporting ecosystem services to foster a sustainable food system.

Signage is also place along many pathways about sustainable grounds maintenance such as organic fertilizers and native plant life in landscaping.

A Bentley student from the class of 2020 has taken her passion for sustainability and fashion and started her own online magazine called HOKU. HOKU is the night of the fullest moon in the native Hawaiian Culture. HOKU MAGAZINE is an online sustainable fashion magazine with the mission of highlighting the beauty and integrity of the fashion industry. This student is curating her own content, both articles and photographs, as well as working to make the magazine profitable. Bentley has supported her magazine by paying for printed canvases for a gallery opening on campus.
You can check out the magazine here: https://www.hokumagazine.com/

The Bentley Green Revolving Fund (GRF), established in 2018 through alumni donations, supports energy efficiency projects on campus with annual savings from energy efficiencies and rebates going back to the fund to support larger projects. The fund's current balance is approximately $250,000. The GRF charter requires that two students have to be part of the committee as active members and decision-makers.

The Office of Sustainability hosted "Climate Week" in September 2019, which was a week dedicated to providing awareness and education to the campus about climate change. The Student Sustainability leaders, employed by the Office of Sustainability planned and executed the entire week. Throughout the week, different activities were held to engage the campus to learn about climate change in an interactive manner. An example of an activity held was an escape room, where groups had to solve multiple different obstacles in order to combat climate change. Every five minutes, the global temperature would rise, and if the obstacles were not finished, it would reach an irreversible level. Each obstacle the students had to solve engaged them in one of the many issues faced by climate change.

During "Climate Week" guest speaker Ayr Muir, who runs Clover Food Labs, came to campus to educate students on sustainable food systems. Using his own enterprise as a case study, he talked about sustainable sourcing, creating minimal waste, and his choice to keep his food fully vegan. His main takeaway to the students was the impact that can be created through eating one less meat meal a week.

During this week, the Office of Sustainability also hosted a climate change panel where five professors, all from different disciplines, talked about the intersectionality of climate change, their discipline, and business. Each professor was able to provide their own take on climate change and how it intersects with their specific discipline. The major theme of this panel was not only to educate about climate change, but how to take knowledge and turn it into action. The main takeaway was that action cannot be done alone, and there needs to be a symbiotic relationship between all disciplines in order to enact real change.

Students for Sustainable Business hosts EarthFest every year, around Earth Day. This event brings together multiple different student groups on campus, who volunteer to host a table. At each table, the students are given an activity to engage students and teach about sustainability. Through collaborating with other organizations and having them accountable for teaching others about sustainability, they are in turn being empowered with knowledge and to spread the knowledge. Once students have interacted with at least three tables, they become eligible to get Ben and Jerry's, who present a business case for sustainability.

The Student Sustainability Leaders periodically puts up "The Cube", a 12 foot cube made out of PVC pipes, representing the volume of 1/8 of a metric ton of carbon emissions. This is an effort to make Bentley's carbon emissions more tangible to the average student and employee. This installation is set up roughly 2-3 times a semester at week-long exhibits.

In Spring 2020 the Office of Sustainability co-sponsored a gallery installation which highlighted a graduating senior's online sustainable fashion magazine HOKU. We showed 12 of the students original photographs featuring students and sustainable clothing in beautiful settings. For more information: https://www.hokumagazine.com/

Bentley has an outdoor club called BEAR. The purpose of the BEAR Outdoors Club is to provide Bentley students the opportunity to integrate outdoor activities with their academic agenda. This club provides an outlet for the students and enables them to meet other recreationally involved students on campus. Trips include rock climbing; hiking, camping, kayaking, water holes, capture the flag, sledding, mountain biking and fishing.

Explicit Leave No Trace principles are not written into club policy but many members, through interactions and membership with sustainability groups and the Office of Sustainability, actively follow Leave No Trace principles.

In Fall 2019, the Office of Sustainability's theme was Climate Change, the Business Case for Sustainability, and Energy. A Climate Week was held with education on climate change, information for careers in sustainability, and a celebration of Bentley's progress towards 2020 climate goals.

Bentley Brave, a series of programs on diversity and inclusion, hold common-reads and book discussions. In 2018, the book was Citizen by Claudia Rankine, and discussions were focused on the construction of race and identity in America.

Wellness housing communities are available for both first-year and upper-class students and foster an environment for a healthy and balanced mind, body and spirit, to achieve personal and academic success.

As a wellness housing resident, students are able to share with your floor mates common interests such as: nutrition, fitness, meditation, relaxation, yoga, sports, and ongoing health and wellness education programs

The Office of Sustainability offers five paid internships to interested students during the academic year. This program is called the Sustainability Student Leadership program. The students are responsible for running various parts of the Office of sustainability including PR and social media, event coordination, education & outreach, and assistant positions.