User:Honey Berk/Green Schools Alliance

The Green Schools Alliance (GSA) is a non-profit organization created by schools for schools, working with and through pre-K to grade 12 schools worldwide to meet their energy and sustainability goals, raise environmental awareness, and empower students, as well as faculty and staff. Founded in 2007, GSA membership includes nearly 2,000 public and private schools in 37 states and 10 countries, including the entire New York City Department of Education public school system - which joined GSA in April 2009.

The GSA is a program of GEO: Global Environmental Options, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that was founded in 1994 as an outgrowth of the “Greening of the White House” initiative, the first major gathering of the green building community around one project.

About
The GSA's growing network of "schools guiding schools" galvanizes schools' individual concerns about climate change and the environment into collective action to protect our shared future. An alliance of K-12 public, private, and independent schools uniting to take action on climate change and the environment, the Green Schools Alliance helps to set goals, measure progress and celebrate success. The GSA seeks to remove obstacles for all schools to participate. Membership in the Green Schools Alliance is free, based only on a commitment of environmental leadership :


 * A school joining the GSA at the Climate Steward level pledges to calculate their school’s carbon footprint by establishing an energy and carbon emissions baseline, and achieve carbon reductions over time.


 * Some schools choose to join at the Climate Champion level, pledging to reduce their school’s carbon footprint by at least 30% within 5 years, and achieve Carbon Neutrality by 2020.

Comprised of students, administrators, faculty, facility managers, business officers, and parents, the Green Schools Alliance leverages schools experience, expertise and passion to build a green community across boundaries. This network helps schools maximize the environmental benefits to the greatest number.

Programs
The Green Schools Alliance provides a menu of opportunities that engage all members of the school community to work together to ensure a safe and healthy environment for future generations through the implementation of sustainable, energy-smart solutions today. GSA programs, created by schools, integrate education and action.

Programs include:
 * Green Schools Climate Commitment
 * Green Cup Challenge
 * Student Climate and Conservation Corps (Sc3)
 * Green Schools Resource Fairs
 * 60-Second Solution
 * Curriculum

Leadership
President and Founder

Margaret Howard Watson

National Advisory Board

Ray Anderson, Chairman and CEO, Interface, Inc.

Dr. Dan Ashe, Science Advisor to the Director, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Francis Beinecke, President, Natural Resources Defense Council

Douglas Brinkley, Historian and Author

Dr. Virginia Burkett, Chief Scientist of Global Change Research, U.S. Geological Survey, Co-Recipient with the IPCC of the 2007 Nobel Prize

Douglas Durst, President, The Durst Organization

S. Richard Fedrizzi, Founding Chairman, President & CEO, U.S. Green Building Council

Paul Hawken, Environmentalist, Entrepreneur, and Author

Denis Hayes, Co-Founder, Earth Day; President, The Bullitt Foundation

Dr. Mitchell Joachim, Co-Founder, Terrefuge and Terreform One

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., President, Waterkeeper Alliance

Jonathan Lash, President, World Resources Institute

Amory Lovins, Co-Founder and CEO, Rocky Mountain Institute

Bill McKibben, Environmentalist, Author, and Founder, 350.org

Dr. Story Musgrave, Scholar and Astronaut

Robert W. Pittman, Founding Member, The Pilot Group; Co-Founder, MTV; Former CEO, MTV Networks; Former COO AOL, AOL Time Warner

Theodore Roosevelt IV, Chairman, Pew Center for Global Climate Change

Jane Steiner Hoffman, Author and Chairman, Presidential Forum on Renewable Energy

Paul Von Paumgartten, Sustainability Director, Johnson Controls Inc.

Rob Watson, CEO, EcoTech International; Founder of LEED™

Education Advisory Council

Jefferson Burnett, Vice President, National Association of Independent Schools

Sarah Daignault, GSA Secretary; Executive Director, National Business Officers Association

Charles Hopkins, UNESCO and United Nations University (UNU) Chairs in ESD

Merle Kirkley, International President, Council of Educational Facility Planners International

C. H. "Sonny" Savoie, President-Elect, National School Boards Association

Michael Saxenian, CFO, Sidwell Friends School

Chuck Saylors, National President-Elect, National Parent Teacher Association

John F. Shea, CEO, NYC Department of Education, Division of Facilities

Mary Spruill, Executive Director, National Energy Education Development Project

Peter Upham, Executive Director, The Association of Boarding Schools