The Green Network

Since its foundation in 1940, one of the priority objectives of the University of Colima (UdeC) has been to create solid links between the University and the community. To meet this objective, the UdeC has developed different outreach programmes throughout its history. The Green Network is one of the most successful projects. The initiative aims to boost and disseminate environmental culture within and outside the University. To achieve this, the Network undertakes environmental activities that are put into practice through the voluntary participation of high school students, university students and university staff, connected through an Internet platform that enables participants to promote their actions.

The Green Network provides the structure for two types of action groups: clubs, which are made up of high school students, and committees, which are made up of university students. All action groups include a coordinator and a promoter. The coordinator is usually a university student or a member of the University’s staff whose function is to organise, promote and disseminate the environmental activities that are carried out within and outside their faculty or workplace. The role of the promoter is to propose and start up environmental activities in the community. There are at least two promoters in each committee or club. All members of an action group work with the support of the university department to which they are attached. Likewise, the University Centre for Environmental Management collaborates with the groups and provides advice. In addition, the groups that make up the Green Network can disseminate and share the results of their activities on the project’s website. Coordinators and promoters are responsible for drawing up detailed reports of their activities so that they are regularly presented. However, each action group is free to undertake the environmental activities that it considers to be most necessary in its community or university centre.

In addition, the Green Network organises environmental awareness workshops on university campuses, through which it aims to attract new members to the Network and train them so that they can set up their own initiatives. It also participates in the University of Colima media, where it presents short radio clips called “Reverde Ser” (Being Green). On an international level, through the Dutch broadcaster Wereldomroep, the Network produces the programme “Nuestra Madre Tierra” (Our Mother Earth).People’s attitudes need to change if we are to build a sustainable social and economic model for the present and future. Awareness needs to be heightened on the need to make daily habits more sustainable. People need to learn how to do this. As recognised by UNESCO, the UN, the World Conference on Higher Education, the ANUIES and the SEMARNAT (in Mexico), higher education and its institutions have an essential role to play in encouraging more sustainable daily habits, both in the university environment and in society as a whole. Higher education institutions are crucial actors in theoretical debates on sustainability and the environment and in drawing up criteria and policies that guide decision-making in the public, private and social sectors and in the mass media. With increasing frequency, social authorities are requesting advice, research and, in general, knowledge and information that can guide opinions and the practice of citizenship in sustainability-related issues. The University of Colima’s Green Network was established with the aim of it becoming a benchmark in the inclusion of environmental culture as a crossdisciplinary focus of higher education institutions.

Although the initiative is still in its early days, heads of the Green Network consider that, since its creation, it has brought together thousands of students and university staff from the five university campuses through organising and disseminating different events. In 2007, 13 volunteers gave 33 environmental education workshops, 26 of which were endorsed by the UdeC’s Continuing Education Office. The Green Network’s website and mailbox are significant indicators of the project’s effects on people’s environmental attitudes. Every day, the website receives an average of 9 requests for information and the Network handles from 3 to 5 consultations and proposals for projects and activities that benefit the environment. In addition, between October 2006 and 2008, leisure and cultural activities were carried out, such as exhibitions, photography and essay writing competitions, in which 1100 students participated. In the workshops organised to promote values and attitudes of environmental responsibility, 95 university students were trained and made a commitment to disseminate environmental culture from their spaces. This multiplying effect led to 668 environmental promoters joining the Green Network.

The Diploma in Environmental Leadership has been taught every year since 2006. The Green Network provides content and helps to coordinate the course, which is aimed at all young people who have an interest in environmental issues.
In addition, the Network has formed several collaborative relationships with other organisations, such as Earth Charter International in , the National University of Costa Rica (UNA), the Earth Charter in Guanajuato and the Department of Urban Development (SEDUR), through the Environmental Office of the Government of the State of Colima, among others.

2006; ongoing