On Oct. 11, Students for Environmental Action (SEA) authored a petition to reopen Brandeis’ sustainability office. The petition noted, “As the climate crisis worsens, we are personally experiencing the consequences of anthropogenic climate change as seasons get warmer, storms get stronger, droughts last longer and flooding gets more severe. In the summer of 2024, during this critical time for humanity when we should have been doing as much as we could to lower our environmental impact, Brandeis University closed its sustainability office.” It added that “The Brandeis University Office of Sustainability was central to the environmental and sustainability efforts of our community. Without it, we are directionless, lacking sustainability policies, and lagging behind other universities in an issue where Brandeis, as a social justice institution, should be a leader. As a university with more resources than most institutions and a greater negative impact on the climate crisis than other Boston area schools, we need to live up to our social justice foundation and work to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and unsustainable practices. We, as proud members of the Brandeis community, call on the university and the university administration to reestablish the office of sustainability and hire a new sustainability coordinator. Positive change and the resources for it are well within our reach—all we need is to work toward it.” As of the time of writing, the petition has 232 signatures on Change.org. Also as of the time of writing, Brandeis has not responded publicly to the petition.
The Hoot spoke with two of the people behind the petition, SEA Vice President Justin Koizumi ’27 and SEA Co-President Lukas Gordon ’26. They elaborated on their goals with this petition, with Koizumi saying “we want to reopen the office of sustainability. I think we need more communication between the students and the administration. I think that’s a bigger issue within this whole problem. I think that there’s a lack of accountability on behalf of Brandeis. By having a petition like this, we can put more and more student support behind actions like these.”
Gordon agreed, adding that “as it currently stands there’s no mention on the Brandeis website of the Climate Action Plans that they were supposed to adopt. … A few of those actions [from the University’s draft Vision 2030 climate action plan] have been adopted, but currently there is no oversight for any of that.” He also noted that “it’s very difficult to find information on what the school is actually doing in terms of sustainability, reducing energy use and carbon emissions. The Office of Sustainability … published all of that and let the students know what’s happening with their money at their school.”
Gordon added that, if he could change one thing about Brandeis’ sustainability practices, he would “like to see all the metrics that the school used to publish about our carbon emissions [and] about what steps we’re actually taking to reduce our environmental impact.” He wants to be able to “compare Brandeis to other schools and see how far along [o]n these goals we are.” Notably, Gordon said that “last year we were able to find that on the website. There were a couple [of] different links that would allow us to track real time data, for solar panels on the library. Those have all but vanished and they’re only accessible through the Wayback Machine.”
Kozumi concurred, and said that his one change would be to have the University engage with the community more often. “More community engagement is better,” he said, “Especially when we’re talking about environmental justice. … I think Brandeis [can] be talking to the Waltham community more often. … It’s a privilege for us to be in Waltham, and when you don’t include the community it does lead to disconnect between the Brandeis community and the Waltham community.”
The pair closed by noting that they “there’s only so much that we as a small club can do on campus with limited resources.” So they’re pushing for “larger institutions like the university to act in the best interests of the planet and the people here at Brandeis.”
