A Sustainable Future: Eco-Activism Opportunities for Youth
Everyone has heard of the consequences associated with climate change, yet not many are cognizant of a minute, yet persistent underlying cause: the irresponsible consumption and production of paper products.
Excessive paper production results in more than just deforestation; clear-cutting forests is displacing millions of wildlife inhabitants and releasing enormous amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. In 2021, the paper and pulp industry was responsible for emitting 190,000,000 metric tons of CO2 emissions, a historic high in the sector and the 4th largest contribution to greenhouse gas emissions in the US overall (IEA and The World Counts). Moreover, paper production also requires significant amounts of energy and water. It takes 500 liters of water, 2 kg of solid waste, and a substantial amount of often non-renewable energy to produce a single stack of paper--totaling 8 billion trees a year to satisfy global paper demands (Statista). Although trees are renewable resources, the pace at which they grow makes it difficult to replace felled trees or reverse disruptions to ecosystems. Aside from the 30 million acres of forest that paper production destroys per year, paper waste accumulation in landfills is also a notable cause of greenhouse gas emissions and pollution. This is detrimental to both the environment, for unrecycled paper emits potent methane that is 25x more toxic for the atmosphere than CO2 (The World Counts), and to human health, considering incinerating paper waste also generates air pollution (National Resource Defense Council).
Within this issue, ASF has identified a further barrier to combatting irresponsible paper consumption and general climate action: an "activism anxiety" that may inhibit youth from fully participating in environmental activism.
While some youth are undeniably passionate and actively involved in change-making, others may feel disengaged from these issues, whether stemming from cultural, economic, or political factors.
One of the key factors that can limit youth engagement in activism is access to information and resources. Many young people may not be aware of the seemingly-mundane issues in their communities or have mentors who can help them recognize their potential for impact. This is particularly true for youth from marginalized communities, who may face additional barriers to accessing opportunities while remaining unaware of the implications these issues hold for their futures. More practical barriers like time constraints due to school, work obligations, or geographical barriers may also impede youth from participating in "traditional" activism like attending protests, thereby dissuading them from partaking in activism at all.
"Activism anxiety" is evidently a significant issue, particularly because youth are the most promising combatants of paper waste where it remains a pressing reality: in our schools. According to A Sustainable Future's research, the average high school uses up to 4 million sheets of paper--400 trees worth--in a single year. The Reflective Educator estimates that educators in the US use over 47 billion sheets of paper each year (Errera).
Although addressing the irresponsible consumption of paper is hardly a one-step solution, change can start small--starting with our students and our schools.
A Sustainable Future (ASF) is a student-run, nonprofit environmental initiative that focuses on reducing paper consumption within the academic setting. Although we may be young and relatively small in number, we are committed to doing our part in decreasing the stress of both planet Earth and the demands associated with modern climate advocacy by helping our fellow students overcome their barriers to activism! ASF provides online workshops and lessons for students to educate themselves and others on sustainable paper consumption, as well as guidelines (complete with 1:1 meetings and personalized instruction!) for students to conduct paper consumption research in their own schools. Originally founded as an advocacy project for SDG 12, ASF has been educating students and communities ever since through the mediums of videos, sustainable recipes, and presentations.
ASF is proud to offer its Sustainability Programs--namely its Paper Consumption Model Program--free-of-charge for all students, which facilitate their educational, social, and personal growth as environmental advocates. The online Paper Consumption Program not only introduces students to academic research, but also the analysis of large-scale data through fundamental machine learning and statistical techniques, real-world presentation/socio-emotional skills, and critical community outreach tactics to raise awareness on sustainable paper consumption. Upon completion of the program, students will have created a customized paper budgeting plan for their schools based on data they've collected through their school-based research, thereby helping their schools better gauge their paper consumption and take steps to mitigate extraneous usage. While conducting research, organizing collective action, and pioneering district-level change may intimidate students, ASF offers the skill-building, resources, and experience needed to accomplish this environmental endeavor. Additionally, students can enroll in guided lessons to bring environmental advocacy to their own schools through supplemental events like enacting composting programs and hosting presentation nights, which come complete with full support and instructions needed to participate. Through all of the aforementioned, students understand their own agency/potential for impact and organize collective action for sustainable paper consumption.
As members of the ASF network, students not only engage in hands-on environmental advocacy but also contribute to the primary ASF output/product: the national ASF Paper Consumption Model.
ASF's Paper Consumption Model is an innovative statistical tool that is publicly available to help schools both predict paper consumption and determine appropriate paper expenditures based on various factors such as departments of interest, total number of faculty, month, etc. Trained nationally on data collected from the academic setting, ASF’s consumption model utilizes regression modeling to create a customizable consumption plan, tailored to help individual schools minimize their harmful environmental impact whilst streamlining expenses on the national school. This model guides schools in making sustainable and cost-effective decisions regarding paper purchases, as well as adopting additional sustainable practices (among which include classroom-based approaches for teaching students about sustainability).
‣ To read more on the paper consumption model, click here.
‣ To watch a demonstration of the model in use and the process behind its creation, click here.
‣ To access the paper consumption model prototype, click here.
ASF's solution serves those at the heart of this environmental movement: secondary-level academia and its students. There are approximately 50 million students attending public school in the United States alone (Census Bureau), and ASF hopes to equip every one of them with not only a greater understanding of irresponsible paper consumption but a desire and ability to leave an impact. At ASF, we reach others through the expansive mediums of online workshops, lessons, and visual media--equipping students with the necessary resources to become climate activists in their own communities.
A Sustainable Future's website currently serves over 200 monthly users and supports 30+ member schools.
Most importantly, asustainablefuture.org is publically accessible to all. As outlined previously, youth engagement in activism is often limited by a lack of access to information, resources, and opportunities. For example, marginalized youth may not have access to quality educational opportunities or mentors who are able to assist them through every step of conducting and presenting their research. They may also face limitations in transportation, time, or funding requirements to completely build these programs ground up.
With ASF's widely available Sustainability Programs and accompanying resources, students are given all the tools and instruction needed to take those first steps into environmental advocacy--regardless of where they are from or what resources they supposedly "lack". ASF's Sustainability Programs imbue students with real-world skills and confidence to overcome their barriers to activism, and when students fully recognize their potent power as environmental advocates, they become critical participants in the climate movement.
Students piloting the Paper Consumption Program have already reported increased confidence levels (from an average of 4.2/10 to 7.6/10) in their presentation abilities and a deeper understanding of basic statistical processes such as linear regression (83% of students had no prior knowledge of statistics prior to participating in the program and 76% of students reported they either "understood well" or "understood greatly" linear regression after completing that chapter of the program). Skills students gain from participating in ASF's Sustainability Programs are skills that will aid them critically in future prosocial careers--environmental or not. As the ASF Network continues to expand, we hope to see student-led environmental initiatives cropping up across the country, making an impact that spans hundreds of schools, dozens of states, and millions of paper products saved.
Finally, although the ASF Model has been incredibly fortunate to train off printer data from schools and students with the available technology to track it, we recognize this is not the case for all schools. Luckily, ASF's model can be used by any school—of any size, state, and income level. We currently serve 1,216 students in the student body and over 150 faculty members in the districts where ASF's model is currently being utilized; in the next year, we hope to directly and meaningfully affect over 6,314 students. With more data to train on from all different school demographics, we have faith ASF's model will initiate a nationwide environmental movement, ultimately serving 98,577 public education institutions in the US.
Considering A Sustainable Future is an environmental movement built by students, for students, it only makes sense for all of our team members to currently be students in the public education system. As students, we understand that finding the opportunities to ignite change can be especially daunting without knowing where to start, and wish to help students beyond the scope of our own schools! Luckily, through our ability to connect with others with the power of the internet, we've come to understand student/school opinions and circumstances more thoroughly.
We incorporate a lot of user feedback into our website. When we initially founded ASF, we wanted to make ASF's approach to environmental advocacy as student-friendly as possible by educating others through the mediums of videos, sustainable recipes, and presentations on sustainable resource consumption. After an early presentation, Sustainable Students, students expressed high interest in using a similar approach to share what they learned with their loved ones, thus inspiring us to make a "database" for all of our resources: A Sustainable Future's website!
Ever since then, it has become A Sustainable Future's top priority to ensure that students of all backgrounds and ages are given the opportunities to make an environmental impact on their schools. Consequently, we sent out a survey to gauge interest in ASF's mission through various social platforms, from Instagram to Discord to community forums like GirlUp, and currently use this method to onboard new team members for ASF.
To also better comprehend student opinions about technological alternatives to paper, we sent out surveys to students in both middle (42 responses received) and high schools (39 responses received). The polls report that 76% of students were comfortable with making a full transition to technology and 81% currently aspired to be more sustainable in schools. These surveys also confirmed our decision to keep ASF’s student resources free for students, considering how they found that 88% of students were interested in contributing to the climate movement, yet only 26% knew how. Furthermore, among feedback received from the 29 student testers who are piloting ASF's Sustainability Programs, we are already revising ASF's Paper Consumption Program to reflect their desires to strengthen specific "chapters" of the program (statistics, cold-emailing, presentations, etc.)!
As for ASF's Paper Consumption Model, feedback from current ASF member schools has been invaluable: from streamlining the user interface to enhancing the model's overall accuracy. We value user insight greatly and have reached out to the intended users of our paper consumption model--administrative decision-makers--to gain feedback on beneficial features to incorporate into our model. Furthermore, from observing our “competitors” and speaking with more experienced environmental organizations, ASF was encouraged to incorporate more environmental impacts from the paper usage calculations into the model and also to develop stronger user incentives for using the model.
For a humble, youth-led organization that began as a group of passionate students who wanted to change their school for the better, we are honored to see ASF come this far.
- Enable learners to bridge civic knowledge with taking action by understanding real-world problems, building networks, organizing plans for collective action, and exploring prosocial careers.
- United States
- Pilot: An organization testing a product, service, or business model with a small number of users
We are applying for the opportunity to both engage in a supportive, innovative, intellectual community and help brainstorm ways for ASF to overcome its current challenges. What ASF asks of the Solve community is similar to what it asks any of our partner organizations:
- Exposure
- While ASF's network has undeniably grown, it is still difficult to approach schools not local to current ASF Outreach Coordinators
- ASF would like to tap into Solve's extensive community of innovators
- Data collection, event outreach, etc.
- ASF hopes Solve can connect ASF with other organizations and innovators that can accelerate its campaign!
- ASF would like to tap into Solve's extensive community of innovators
- Cultural: changing the attitude around paper consumption
- Academia currently exhibits a significant reliance on paper products, making viable transitions strenous at-worst and lengthy at-best
- ASF would like to introduce more students to its pilot Paper Consumption Model program as well as its other sustainability programs!
- Commitment/Structure: ASF is entirely student/volunteer-run, meaning if not for the wholehearted dedication and passion of our team members, ASF would likely not be able to support its operations. We aim to onboard individuals in more permanent positions, such as an Executive Board of adult advisors
- This is quite an awkward request to make, particularly as we do not know where to find interested individuals nor wish to burden our mentors further
- While ASF's network has undeniably grown, it is still difficult to approach schools not local to current ASF Outreach Coordinators
- Data sourcing and collection
- Forms must be designed and distributed to minimize bias as much as possible
- Difficult if it is hard to distribute surveys in the first place
- Random sampling methods are tedious (but necessary!)
- Legal: IRB Forms
- All student researchers must first obtain IRB approval before administering any surveys to students
- The process--although not arduous--can delay response rates to surveys, as students must receive additional parental permission to fill out the survey.
- Forms must be designed and distributed to minimize bias as much as possible
- Forming partnerships
- Convincing schools to use our consumption model
- Schools most likely have their own methods of determining how funds are allocated towards certain resources, even if those funds are ill-spent
- Time/logistics: Narrow window to present budgeting plans (end/beginning of school year)
- Providing ASF's students with more concrete resources (ex: monetary) when approaching School Boards with their models
- Organizing meetings with district supervisors may be difficult for students in certain areas due to a variety of issues
- Our own meeting was successful, but other students may require more support when presenting their own models
- ASF is extraordinarily grateful for the mentors and partnerships that support it, but we are always looking to partner with more innovative minds and organizations for the largest impact!
- Convincing schools to use our consumption model
- Polishing our consumption model
- Logistic: Need more crowd-sourcing/exposure to collect school data representative of the entire nation
- Technical: The app for ASF is currently in production, and we would greatly appreciate further feedback and advice!
- Our physical technological paper alternative is currently in development (similar to Rocketbook's Smart Notebook), but we need more access to advanced scientific resources and potentially laboratories to continue refining and building off our hypothesis/prototype.
With the proper mentorship, support, and exposure that ASF needs, we know we can face these setbacks head-on--powering forward to innovate A Sustainable Future.
- Human Capital (e.g. sourcing talent, board development)
- Legal or Regulatory Matters
- Monitoring & Evaluation (e.g. collecting/using data, measuring impact)
- Product / Service Distribution (e.g. delivery, logistics, expanding client base)
- Technology (e.g. software or hardware, web development/design)
