(PRWEB) June 12, 2008 — The Go Green Initiative: Now the Largest Environmental Education Program in the World
O
ver 1.5 million students and teachers in the U.S. and around the world are a part of registered Go Green Initiative (GGI) schools. This program began on founder Jill Buck’s kitchen table in 2002, and is now the largest and fastest growing environmental education program in the world.
"The growth of the Go Green Initiative is truly exponential," says Jill Buck, Founder and Executive Director of Go Green. "Just three years ago, the GGI had 170 registered schools, 125,000 students, 9,000 teachers, and I was thrilled. Now, midway through 2008, we have 1500 schools, 1.5 million students, and over 113,000 teachers! We operate in 13 countries: the U.S.; Canada; Mexico; Bosnia; Cameroon; Greece; India; Indonesia; Macedonia; Netherlands; Philippines; Uganda; and the U.K.; and our website receives over 2 million hits per month. And the best part is that the GGI is free to all schools."
Schools participating in the Go Green Initiative worldwide are reporting remarkable results when it comes to waste diversion. The Go Green Initiative Association, providing a comprehensive environmental improvement plan to schools across the country, is the first program of its kind to teach school communities to quantify and report these types of diversion numbers.
"We are so excited to see such positive results without mandates or legislation of any kind – to know that so many schools across the globe are involved because they want to be, not because they have to be," said Jill Buck. "It’s so inspiring to see this level of voluntary stewardship&all at no cost to taxpayers."
And the numbers speak for themselves. Between Dec. 05 and Mar. 08, Go Green schools kept more than 7 million pounds of recyclables out of the world’s landfills. Practically speaking, the cumulative diversion results can be interpreted to learn the real environmental impact the reporting Go Green schools are having on the planet. These schools avoided the use of:
- 44 billion BTUs of energy use
- 2,604 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions
- 18,606,000 gallons of water
- 1 million gallons of oil
- 9,653 cubic yards of landfill space, due to paper recycling alone
The reporting schools, along with other schools in the Go Green family, are looking forward to a continuous improvement of their waste diversion in 2008 and beyond. "Our network continues to grow exponentially," says Buck. "We’ve already translated into Spanish, French and Mandarin, and have been asked to translate the program into Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Russian, Arabic and German."
About the Go Green Initiative Association – The Go Green Initiative is the world’s fastest growing fully comprehensive environmental action plan for schools. By promoting environmental stewardship on campuses from elementary schools through universities, Go Green works to involve families, businesses and local governments in the common goal of protecting human health through environmental stewardship. Since its inception in July 2002, the Go Green Initiative has been endorsed by the National School Boards Association, National Recycling Coalition, adopted by eight State PTA Boards, implemented in all 50 U.S. states and over 1500 schools, along with schools in Europe, Mexico, Asia and Africa. There are currently over 1.5 million students and teachers in registered Go Green schools.
More information is available online at www.GoGreenInitiative.org.
Media Contact:
Jill Buck, Go Green Initiative Association
(925) 487-0777; jillbuck(at)gogreeninitiative.org
