Campus Sustainability Month • Office Supply Swap • Sustainability Magazine • Soil Microbes • Hopkins Dining Updates • Green Halloween Tips |
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Happy Fall and Campus Sustainability Month! We’re celebrating JHU's new electric buses and the energy reduction wins of labs across campus during this year’s Freezer Challenge, as well as encouraging student organizations to apply for our new sustainability grants. Read this edition of our newsletter for our conversation with Center for a Livable Future’s Lee Horrigan about the importance of soil microbes, check out Students for Environmental Action’s new sustainability magazine, and learn about one of the local farms that Hopkins Dining partners with in our new “Farm Flock” feature!
There are so many great events happening at Hopkins and beyond, from our office’s weekly events for Campus Sustainability Month, to JHIPH's Planetary Health Student Symposium, to the upcoming Fisher Center office supply swap, to a farmstand pop-up with Hopkins Dining, to the Greater Baltimore Climate Summit 2025. Check out our Green Gatherings section for a sample of events – and head to our Events calendar for even more!
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Celebrate Campus Sustainability Month with OCS |
This October, OCS is joining other universities in celebrating Campus Sustainability Month! As part of the celebrations, we are excited to recognize a range of recent sustainability wins across the university.
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| Electric Bus Launch Celebration |
Join us as we celebrate the launch of JHU’s five new electric buses, an exciting step toward a greener, more sustainable future on campus!
📅 Date: October 15, 2025
🕒 Time: 11:30 AM – 1:00 PM
📍 Location: Behind Shriver Hall
The celebration will include light refreshments, giveaways, music, a ribbon-cutting ceremony, bus walkthroughs, and a ride around campus on the new bus. Learn more about our new electric buses and how we’re taking an important step toward advancing the university-wide sustainability goals.
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OCS Campus Sustainability Month Weekly Events & Giveaways |
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Our Engagement intern team will be hosting fun events and giveaways on the Homewood campus every Tuesday throughout October to celebrate Campus Sustainability Month. Come say hi and learn more about sustainability on campus!
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On 10/7, our first tabling event of the month featured a trivia game to match eco-friendly labels with their meaning (e.g. Fair Trade, Organic, etc.), giving participants a chance to win herb plants. And our second event on 10/14 invited participants to get excited about JHU’s new electric buses by playing public transportation-themed trivia for a chance to win a pothos cutting in recycled lab glassware!
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| JHU Labs Win International Freezer Challenge |
Congratulations again to JHU's labs for their participation in this year's International Freezer Challenge! JHU was named the top-performing academic institution among more than 110 peers in the annual challenge, which promotes best practices in cold storage management. Learn more about this year's winners, JHU's Green Labs program, and how labs across the university are working to reduce their energy use and operate more sustainably.
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REMINDER: Student Organization Sustainability Grants |
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Applications for the new OCS Student Organization Sustainability Grant must be received by October 31! This grant supports events that are designed sustainably, have an environmental focus, or otherwise engage with the goals in the JHU Climate Action & Sustainability Plan.
The first 20 eligible applications will be considered, and all applications must be received by October 31. Multiple groups can get funding, so be sure to apply if your student group is interested.
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Now Accepting Donations: Inaugural Fisher Center Office Supply Swap |
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Do you have extra office supplies that you no longer need? The Fisher Center Office Supply Swap is happy to accept them; donation boxes are located outside our front door at Preclinical Teaching Building (PCTB) 211. Donations will be accepted through October 21.
Are you in need of office supplies but lack the funds to pay for them? Then join us at the swap on October 23 to shop for FREE supplies! You need not have donated to shop the swap. This is a great opportunity to reuse and recycle, as well as to save money.
For more information, please contact Diane Lanham at dlanham1@jhmi.edu. This event is organized by the Sherrilyn and Ken Fisher Center for Environmental Infectious Diseases at the School of Medicine.
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SEA Publishes Fall 2025 Sustainability Magazine |
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Students for Environmental Action (SEA), a student-led environmental club, has put together a sustainability magazine featuring essays, articles, poems, and art contributed by club and Hopkins community members.
The magazine includes a variety of topics ranging from coping with eco-anxiety to sustainable farming techniques to new environmental educational initiatives in Vietnam. SEA hopes this collection of pieces sparks new ideas, gives voices to different perspectives, and encourages us to continue sustainability conversations.
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Upcoming Presentation on Baltimore “Univer-City” Partnership to Expand Compost Access |
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JHU's community composting program was started as part of a partnership between the Baltimore Department of Public Works and three Baltimore universities, funded by a USDA grant. Homewood and East Baltimore campuses both have a food scrap collection site where Hopkins affiliates and community members can drop off compostable items from home. Since the sites opened in August 2023, over 4,900 lbs of waste have been collected and composted!
Leana Houser, OCS's Sustainability Manager for Zero Waste, will be discussing the program and JHU's partnership with the city and peer institutions on a plenary panel at the virtual National Zero Waste Conference in October.
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What If Soil Microbes Mattered? Interview with Leo Horrigan of the Center for a Livable Future |
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In this month’s Sustainability Spotlight, we sat down with Leo Horrigan of the Center for a Livable Future to learn more about his recent book and his motivations for writing it.
What if Soil Microbes Mattered?: Our Health Depends on Them, published in August, explores the roles that healthy soils play in agricultural systems by zooming into life below ground. Horrigan explains critical processes performed by soil microbes (fungi and bacteria) and the symbiotic relationships such microbes share with plants. Healthy crops, foods, and agricultural systems, Horrigan enumerates, all begin with healthy soils.
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The Flock Farmstand: Richfield Farm |
Hopkins Dining is collaborating with Richfield Farm, a local family-owned and operated farm, to host a farmstand event on Tuesday, October 21, from 2 – 5 PM.
Customers can expect fall produce, including pears, squash, pumpkins, and flowers! Tentative location will be at the Athletic Circle outside the Ralph S. O’Connor Rec Center; check our event page for updates.
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Mother Earth Organic Mushrooms: Cultivating Sustainability from the Ground Up |
Mother Earth Organic Mushrooms is a family-run and local pioneer in organic mushroom farming, growing nutritious food with minimal environmental impact for over a century. As part of our partnership with food distributor The Common Market, Hopkins Dining buys their local range of certified organic mushrooms, which are all hand-harvested and grown using upcycled agricultural byproducts such as corn cobs, cotton hulls, and wheat straw.
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Sustainability guides every part of Mother Earth Organic’s process. Their mushroom growing rooms are pasteurized with energy-efficient steam systems, cooling relies on chilled water recirculation, and organic materials are recycled into fertilizer for operations. The company is certified by the Produce Traceability Initiative, ensuring transparency from farm to customer. Even their packaging is evolving — with new fiber trays made from bamboo and sugarcane waste replacing traditional plastics. Mother Earth’s model shows how food production can be both regenerative and deliciously practical.
You can find their products at Hopkins Café, Nolan’s, and Peabody. You can even buy some of their products for your own kitchen at Charles Street Market.
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“Neither a how-to manual nor an activist’s guide, Somebody Should Do Something pairs stories with science (plus some jokes) to help readers recognize their own power, turning resignation about climate change and racial injustice into actions that transform the world.”
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| Lauren Choi, an engineering student at Hopkins, “wanted to give plastic a second life. Her experiment turned into The New Norm, a sustainable textile startup.”
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Lustig, a pediatric neuroendocrinologist, “explains the eight pathologies that underlie all chronic disease, documents how processed food has impacted them to ruin our health, economy, and environment over the past 50 years, and proposes an urgent manifesto and strategy to cure both us and the planet.”
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“In The Uninhabitable Earth, his travelogue of our near future, David Wallace-Wells brings into stark relief the climate troubles that await — food shortages, refugee emergencies, and other crises that will reshape the globe.”
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“Neither a how-to manual nor an activist’s guide, Somebody Should Do Something pairs stories with science (plus some jokes) to help readers recognize their own power, turning resignation about climate change and racial injustice into actions that transform the world.”
– SDG Media Zone, 80th Session of the UN General Assembly (9/24/2025)
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“This project showcases diverse perspectives on global environmental crises and highlights the interconnectedness of Planetary Health challenges. Stories are organized into three themes: Personal Experiences, Awakenings, and Planetary Health Success Stories.”
– Planetary Health Alliance (9/23/2025)
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“Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego and City Councilwoman Kesha Hodge Washington detail the city’s extreme heat challenges, how other communities can deal with rising temperatures, and the successful cooling interventions championed by local leaders in the Valley of the Sun.”
– Bloomberg School of Public Health (9/11/2025)
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“In this episode of Unconfined, reporter Helena Bottemiller Evich and Theodore Ross of the Food and Environment Reporting Network, co-hosts of Forked podcast, tease out the contradictions and paradoxes of food policy in the age of Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.”
– Center for a Livable Future (10/7/2025)
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How can I make my Halloween celebrations more green & sustainable? |
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Just as there are many ways to make your day-to-day life less wasteful, there are plenty of swaps and options to consider if you’re trying to celebrate Halloween without having a scary impact on the planet! 👻
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Sustainable Costumes 🧙♂️
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Sustainable Decorations 🎃
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- Encourage Halloween party attendees to bring their own containers and take home leftovers to prevent waste at the end of your event!
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- Use Free Food Alert to donate food left over from events on campus.
- Compost whatever you can’t donate!
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Hand Out Treats Sustainably 🍬
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- Opt for candies that come in plastic-free packages, like cardboard boxes (e.g. Dots, Milk Duds, Junior Mints), foil, or paper.
- For your own parties, buy in bulk and create your own goody bags with sustainable bags.
- If you buy in bulk from a local refill store, bring your own container to cut down even more on waste!
- Choose bags that are reusable or are made of recycled or natural, compostable materials (e.g. recycled kraft paper bags).
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| - Potential places to shop from:
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Mayor’s Fall Clean Up
With Office of Government, Community & Economic Partnerships and Center for Social Concern
Oct 25 | 8 AM – 12 PM | TBA
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Monarch Magic: Milkweed & Migration Workshop
With BMORE Beautiful, Baltimore GROW Center (DPW), UME Baltimore City Master Gardeners, and Reservoir Hill Improvement Council
Oct 17 | 5:30 – 7:30 PM | Resevoir Hill Community Garden
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Rain Barrel Workshop
With Baltimore GROW Center (DPW), University of Maryland Sea Grant Extension, and Baltimore Community ToolBank
Oct 21 | 5:30 – 7 PM | Baltimore Community ToolBank
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