Inside the fight for sustainability at Catlin Gabel School

By Ryan Jan, ‘23

Image courtesy of Catlin Gabel School

Sustainability has long been a core part of the Catlin Gabel School (CGS) experience. Whether it was gardening in the Lower School, or learning about climate change in the Middle School, students have always been taught to be aware of the changing world they live in. 

In the Upper School, this principle of stewardship is evident in the student-led Environmental Action Team (EAT). “We push for environmental change and sustainable progress at [CGS] and in the wider community,” CGS senior and EAT co-leader Audrey Hebert said. 

One of the initiatives that EAT implemented in recent years was Meatless Mondays, in which only vegetarian food was served on campus every Monday. 

Meat is very resource-intensive compared to other types of foods, such as grains or vegetables. A pound of beef, on average, produces 15 times as much of the greenhouse gas CO2 as a pound of rice, and around 60 times as much CO2 as a pound of wheat.

However, since the start of the 2022-23 school year, Meatless Mondays have quietly been abandoned. From the student perspective, this change came suddenly and without communication. In fact, the CGS website claims that Meatless Mondays are still happening. 

“We don’t exactly know whose decision it was,” Hebert said. “We were not told. Meatless Mondays just stopped happening, and we noticed it.” 

This is a part of a worrying trend for members of the EAT and the Sustainability Team. Since the pandemic, Meatless Mondays, as well as other previous programs and policies like on-campus composting, student-led recycling, and the removal of plastic bottles from the cafeteria, have all been discontinued. 

Isaac Enloe, Head of the Beginning School at CGS and leader of the school’s Sustainability Team, which includes EAT and faculty from all divisions, recognized concerns among the students and faculty about “the disconnect between [CGS]’s practices and what our values are as an institution and the values we espouse as an institution.” CGS may be talking the talk, but right now, from the perspective of students and faculty, it seems like that is not translating into action.

One of the biggest factors in those decisions was finances. “The numbers were quite depressed over the pandemic, and [SAGE Dining Services] was operating at a loss, and that was absorbed by the school,” CGS Assistant Head of School Kama Bruce said. As a result, plastic bottles and meat on Mondays were brought back, in an attempt to increase profits. 

“Budget is a big thing here, [CGS] has a finite amount of money coming in,” Bruce explained.

“I have to think about value driven decisions: if I do this, where can I pull this money from, and how are those elements of the school going to respond to even more finite resources?” 

Bruce also pointed out that there should be more cooperation between students and the administration regarding policy changes. “It generally happens at the adult level. One of the things I’m really interested in since I arrived is, what are the conversations that are happening at the student level as well,” he said. “I’m thinking about, how are we bringing these students into this ideation process?” 

Students also feel like the lack of communication between students and the administration hinders their efforts. “Because [EAT] is just a club, we don’t have a connection to the board, we don’t have a connection to the administration that supports us,” Hebert said. “When some of the programs have been abandoned, we don’t know whose decision it was, because it’s all very muddled.” 

Bruce recognized that students feel a “frustrating dynamic” without enough communication between students and the administration. He stated the need for a better integration of community voices into the decision making process, saying “How can we make sure that this is feeling like an entire community commitment, and not a push-pull between students and the administration?”

Hebert also shared concerns with the lack of broader support for EAT’s projects. “[EAT] is a student-run club. The rotating roster of students means that as people graduate, if a project is not picked up by someone in the club, it will likely stop,” she explained. 

“A majority of the changes that [EAT] does, the administration or the larger Catlin community does not help with them. So that means that a lot of our projects only run for two, three years before they are abandoned. It’s a problem of starting projects, but never getting them to last long-term,” Hebert continued.

Fortunately, progress is being made by students, faculty, and the administration. For example, EAT is currently drafting a sustainable purchasing policy that ensures that clothes and other items are bought from sustainable and ethical sources. 

“We’re finding vendors that people can go to, and then we’re hoping to send out this list to club leaders so whenever someone decides they want to make a larger purchase for the school, they know they’re making a good choice,” Hebert said. 

EAT is also cooperating with the Catlin Gabel Students Association to bring back C&C recycling, which was one of the programs that was discontinued after the pandemic. 

Meanwhile, a goal for the EAT, the Sustainability Team, and the school administration is to find ways to encourage behavioral change amongst CGS students. One way to do so is dedicating specific time for all students to take care of the campus. 

“If [stewardship] is important to the school, you should see it in the schedule,” Bruce said. “We need to make time for that to happen, we can’t assume it’s going to happen. And then it becomes a behavioral change, because everyone is doing it.” 

On top of that, Meatless Mondays and other discontinued programs will return, if they become financially feasible. “If SAGE is [financially] running at a positive, then there's opportunities for us to say, ‘what can we pull from this?’ and get back on track,” Bruce said. 

No matter what is done, Enloe believes that it must be done with urgency. “It has life or death urgency, especially for younger generations, our students, at this school,” he said. “Like it or not, this has to be the work of schools going forward. This can’t not be a priority.”