In the shadow of Provo’s Khyv Peak sits another mountain—this one made of cardboard, ready to be recycled. “We were doing a lot of cardboard before the days of Amazon Prime, and now we’re doing even more, if you can imagine,” says Bremen J. Leak (BA ’05), who leads strategic planning for sustainability and resilience at BYU.
The cardboard peak is joined by massive hills of paper and aluminum at BYU’s recycling and composting center at the north end of campus. The efforts there are just one prong of BYU’s sustainability strategy. “BYU has worked for decades to reduce its environmental footprint,” Leak says. In August the university was recognized as a STARS Gold Institution by the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education.
The honor recognizes ongoing work to be more sustainable both operationally and academically, from minimizing food waste in BYU eateries to the university’s interdisciplinary approach to teaching and researching sustainability.
Students can choose between hundreds of courses related to sustainability, some 200 employees conduct sustainability research, and employees increasingly divert campus waste through recycling, composting, donating, or reselling.
BYU’s efforts to be sustainable “foster a common reverence for creation,” says Lucy E. Harper (BS ’24), a recent graduate in biodiversity and conservation who worked with Leak in the Sustainability Office. “We’re doing it . . . to have discipleship and devotion to our Creator,” she adds.
“We hear a lot about disciple scholarship,” says Leak. “We’re also having conversations about disciple stewardship.”
Leak sees the gold rating as a starting point. “We hope that our students will graduate from BYU and go out into the world, demonstrating stewardship in their homes, workplaces, and communities.”
