• Mission
• Vision
• Goals
• Who We Serve
• History

Mission

To transform the New Jersey higher education community to consistently practice sustainability and contribute to the state, region and world’s emerging understanding of sustainability, through teaching, research, outreach, operations, and community life. We accomplish this through interaction with our primary stakeholders in the NJ higher education community:

• Executives and administrators
• Professionals in roles including sustainability, facilities, operations, energy management, construction, utility management, career development, purchasing, etc.
• Faculty and researchers
• Students.

Vision

The vision of NJHEPS is to engage and inspire the New Jersey higher education community to become models and messengers of sustainability NJHEPS abides by the following principles and practices:

– Institutions of higher education are responsible to lead society by example and action. To do this, higher education institutions must advance sustainability through the decisions they make in their own operations, policies and actions.

– Through demonstrating the connections between sustainability and the courses of study that students pursue in higher education, colleges and universities can effectively educate future workers, citizens and leaders, providing them with the skills, knowledge and “habits of heart” to advance sustainability in their future work and decisions.

– Only inter-disciplinary study and research can produce integrated, workable, systems-based solutions for our numerous obstacles to sustainability.

– Sustainability involves the just, equitable, and efficient use of all types of capital — human, financial, manufactured and natural — with the goal of replenishment and enhancement rather than long-term depletion for short-term gains.

– The consumption decisions and practices of the citizens and institutions of industrialized countries are central to the attainment of sustainability.

– Using new and richer assessment mechanisms — ecological footprints, life-cycle analysis, full-cost accounting — can enable changes in decision-making that provide broad and profound support for s sustainability.

Goals

NJHEPS’ work is to support and guide New Jersey’s higher education institutions in both individual and collective activities to advance sustainability. The organization is guided by 4 over-arching goals:

1. To advance sustainability through facilitating communication and disseminating knowledge and information from and to the various constituencies of NJHEPS.
2. To develop the understanding of sustainability among the wide spectrum of NJHEPS constituencies as well as other individuals and groups of similar values and goals.
3. To promote partnerships for advancing sustainability among the wide spectrum of NJHEPS constituencies as well as other individuals and groups of similar values and goals.
4. To increase capacity for the practice of sustainability on campus and among NJHEPS constituencies, through building skills, transforming attitudes, and providing resources.

Who We Serve

Higher education institutions in new jersey

• Executives and administrators

• Professionals in roles including sustainability, facilities, operations, construction, utility management, engineering, career development, purchasing, etc

• Students

• Corporate, foundation, and non-profit partners who support the advancement of sustainability in higher education.

History

NJHEPS was established in 1999 by the New Jersey Council of Presidents, The New Jersey Higher Education Partnership for Sustainability (NJHEPS) is an organization created to transform the higher education community to practice sustainability and contribute to the state, region and world’s emerging understanding of sustainability, through teaching, research, outreach, operations, and community life.

Institutions of higher education are responsible to lead society by example and action. Through demonstrating the connections between sustainability and the courses of study that students pursue in higher education, colleges and universities can effectively educate future workers, citizens and leaders, providing them with the skills and knowledge to advance sustainability in their future work and decisions. Campus operations, actions and policies which promote sustainability serve as shining examples what can effectively be done in this pursuit. Identifying, nurturing and expanding partnerships with like-minded constituencies, among institutions and communities cement the foundations of viable sustainability.

The Executive Committee of NJHEPS formed a special committee which is dedicated to generating and upholding a consistent and timely strategic plan that is ratified by the Executive Committee and carried out by all involved parties. The planning committee worked to determine appropriate objectives, and to develop concepts as well as action plans that will help define our journey as an organization committed to sustainability in higher education over the next five years.