VILLANOVA UNIVERSITY
SUSTAINABILITY PLAN
AN ETHOS OF SUSTAINABLE LIVING
The Villanova Sustainability Plan integrates the University’s value-centered principles with environmental stewardship, promoting inclusion of all members of the University and impacting all aspects of sustainability. Based on the framework of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs), and guided by the principles of catholic social teachings, the methodology for this plan provides clear goals tailored to Villanova, as well as quantifiable targets with set action plans. At the core of all sustainability activities, both large and small, is Villanova’s vision for this plan: to establish an ethos of sustainable living.
As an Augustinian university, Villanova is committed to shaping a campus community among ourselves and beyond, that witnesses the healing, liberating, and empowering truth of the Creator. Generating and advocating sustainable action will help create a future that provides enough, for all, forever.
EXPLORE THE SUSTAINABILITY PLAN
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SUSTAINABILITY PLAN OUTCOMES BY 2030
As a University community, Villanovans are committed to working together to create a more sustainable world. The Villanova Sustainability Plan 2020–2030 specifically outlines the changes we aim to realize on campus by 2030. These outcomes include:
100%
Electricity purchased from renewable energy
0%
Food insecurity among all Villanovans
100%
Financial need met
0%
Pre- and post-consumer food waste to landfill or incineration
45
Current projects
100%
Of Villanovans paid a living wage
100%
Elimination of all single-use plastic sales on campus
50%
Reduction in all emissions
100%
of Villanova students exposed to sustainability education
UNITED NATIONS SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS (UN SDGS)
The UN SDGs were created and adopted by UN Member States in 2015 and serve to “provide a shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future.” These goals recognize that global challenges such as poverty, inequality, and environmental degradation can, and must be solved collaboratively to create a prosperous and sustainable world. Villanova chose the SDGs as the framework for the University Sustainability Plan due to their large coverage of a wide range of important and interconnected issues.
LAUDATO SI' PLEDGE
United to the concern of the Church as expressed by Pope Francis in Laudato Si, the Augustinian Province of St. Thomas of Villanova commits itself to promote education, reflection and action to care for our common home.
In response to the invitation of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development to participate in the Laudato Si Action Platform, and in coordination with other religious communities of women and men, we publicly state our pledge to work toward sustainable solutions that foster integral human development by combatting hunger and poverty, restoring dignity to the excluded and protecting nature.
We resolve, over the next seven years, to:
1. Pray fervently and reflect assiduously on our responsibility to care for God's creation.
2. Elaborate an action plan to integrate and confidently advance each of the seven Laudato Si goals in our personal, communal and institutional life.
3. Educate and encourage awareness among the members of our Province, encouraging us to examine our consumption patterns and lifestyle, to adopt behaviors more consistent with our environmental concern.
4. Introduce in our community discussion and pastoral encounters the topics of sustainability, environmental justice and integral ecology as expounded on in Laudato Si in an effort to encourage as well as live an ecological conversion.
5. Promote in our pastoral activities (homilies, conferences, workshops and classrooms) awareness, advocacy and actions to reduce our carbon footprint and embrace a culture of encounter and solidarity with those at the margins and most vulnerable and most impacted by environmental maltreatment.
6. We entrust our efforts to the intercession of St. Augustine, aware that the Augustinian community is called to be a prophetic sign in the world to the extent that fraternal life becomes a source of sharing and a cause for hope.
Villanova University's official signed pledge
Would you like to read more about how Augustinian spirituality in reference to environmental stewardship? Read this enlightening booklet written by our very own Fr. Arthur Purcaro, O.S.A., about the connection between St. Augustine and the Environment.
You may also visit the official Laudato Si’ Action Platform website for more information about this initiative and the other participating partner organizations. And if you haven’t yet, make sure to read Pope Francis’s encyclical, Laudato Si’, which can be found in multiple languages.