New Sustainability Website
October 26, 2009
Aloha,
UH Mānoa has launched its new sustainability website: a virtual meeting place called Malama Honua ("Caring for Earth" in Hawaiian). This idea emerged as many campus members were discussing approaches to strengthen and institutionalize our campus sustainability efforts, as conceived by the UH Mānoa Sustainability Council.
There clearly are a large number of successful sustainability programs on campus led by our students, faculty, and staff, but many felt that the campus would benefit from one central go-to location for information, along with an institutional commitment to help coordinate and sustain such campus activities. From that idea, Assistant Vice Chancellor for Planning Eric Crispin, who is focusing on sustainability for our campus, worked with a dedicated group of folks to develop Malama Honua — mahalo to Brian Chee, Ann Sakuma, Cindy Knapman, Diane Chang, Sandy Shitanishi, Dave Nixon, Shanah Trevenna and Eileen Ellis for their talents and energy on this project.
The goal of Malama Honua website is to share information about sustainability efforts on campus, so people will know what is happening, how they can get involved and what research is being conducted that may resonate with their interests. Its success will depend on our actively sharing articles, ideas, calendar events and other information via Malama Honua, so please participate and contribute to this activity.
Malama Honua is designed to serve as the first step in the development of an initiative, informally termed the "Mānoa Sustainability Corps", to advance UH Mānoa's leadership in sustainability as demonstrated by the impressive contributions of our faculty, staff and students in such areas as climate change, energy efficiency, renewable energy, and sustainability. In this way, we will focus on endeavors that can first be implemented and tested on campus, then subsequently shared with UH System members and the citizens of Hawaiʻi.
Celebrating their role in this larger context, the student team "Help us Bridge" (HUB) of Sustainable Saunders cordially invites you to a Launch Party Eco Village and a pau hana party/forum on Wednesday, Oct 28th - for more information, visit sustainableUH 
.
Mahalo for everyone's efforts, individually and collectively, in securing a green future and energy independence for UH Mānoa and for Hawaiʻi.
Virginia S. Hinshaw
Chancellor
vhinshaw@hawaii.edu