The Go Green Initiative was founded in 2002 in Pleasanton, California

Pleasanton, California

Pleasanton is a city in Alameda County, California, incorporated in 1894. It is a suburb in the San Francisco Bay Area located about east of Oakland, and west of Livermore. The population was 70,285 at the 2010 census. In 2005 and 2007, Pleasanton was ranked the wealthiest middle-sized city in...

 by Jill Buck

The Go Green Initiative (GGI) is an Environmental Education

Environmental education

Environmental education refers to organized efforts to teach about how natural environments function and, particularly, how human beings can manage their behavior and ecosystems in order to live sustainably. The term is often used to imply education within the school system, from primary to...

 & Stewardship

Stewardship

Stewardship is an ethic that embodies responsible planning and management of resources. The concept of stewardship has been applied in diverse realms, including with respect to environment, economics, health, property, information, and religion, and is linked to the concept of sustainability...

 Program located in all 50 states and in 13 countries. It's free to all schools and operating in pre-schools through universities.

Principles

The Main tenets of the GGI follow the acronym GREEN and stand for:

• Generate compost
  Compost
  Compost is organic matter that has been decomposed and recycled as a fertilizer and soil amendment. Compost is a key ingredient in organic farming. At its most essential, the process of composting requires simply piling up waste outdoors and waiting for the materials to break down from anywhere...
  
  . This is nature's way of recycling. Through basic and worm composting programs, children learn about ecology
  Ecology
  Ecology is the scientific study of the relations that living organisms have with respect to each other and their natural environment. Variables of interest to ecologists include the composition, distribution, amount , number, and changing states of organisms within and among ecosystems...
  
  , biology
  Biology
  Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...
  
   and waste reduction.
• Recycle
  Recycling
  Recycling is processing used materials into new products to prevent waste of potentially useful materials, reduce the consumption of fresh raw materials, reduce energy usage, reduce air pollution and water pollution by reducing the need for "conventional" waste disposal, and lower greenhouse...
  
   everything that cannot be reused and purchase items that can be recycled. With fast shrinking landfill
  Landfill
  A landfill site , is a site for the disposal of waste materials by burial and is the oldest form of waste treatment...
  
   space and diminishing natural resources
  Natural Resources
  Natural Resources is a soul album released by Motown girl group Martha Reeves and the Vandellas in 1970 on the Gordy label. The album is significant for the Vietnam War ballad "I Should Be Proud" and the slow jam, "Love Guess Who"...
  
  , recycling has never been more important. Recycling items such as paper, plastic, aluminum and ink cartridges reduces toxic greenhouse gas emissions and conserves energy. Manage E-waste by finding creative solutions to divert obsolete computer parts, cell phones and other such devices from the waste stream. Schools that recycle provide much-needed materials to manufacturers who produce recycled products.
• Educate students, teachers and parents on environmentally-responsible behavior. When students, teachers and parents work together to make their schools environmentally friendly, they are more likely to take the same behaviors into their off campus lives. Our goal is to create environmentally responsible school communities throughout the nation and across the globe.
• Evaluate the environmental impact of every activity. Identify products and practices that could threaten the health of children and the world around them. Consider improving the campus environment with activities such as eliminating excessive energy consumption; evaluating the toxicity of pesticides used in classrooms and on playgrounds; improving outdoor air quality through increased carpool
  Carpool
  Carpooling , is the sharing of car journeys so that more than one person travels in a car....
  
  ing efforts; and working to improve indoor air quality.
• Nationalize the principles of responsible paper consumption. Consider purchasing post consumer recycled paper
  Paper
  Paper is a thin material mainly used for writing upon, printing upon, drawing or for packaging. It is produced by pressing together moist fibers, typically cellulose pulp derived from wood, rags or grasses, and drying them into flexible sheets....
  
   and office products. Use technology to communicate electronically as much as possible. Seek ways to provide Internet
  Internet
  The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
  
   access to all school families.

Since 2004, GGI has hosted a Global Summit servicing students, teachers, parents, administrators, businesses and government leaders. The 2008 International Go Green Earth Summit will be held in Syracuse, New York

Syracuse, New York

Syracuse is a city in and the county seat of Onondaga County, New York, United States, the largest U.S. city with the name "Syracuse", and the fifth most populous city in the state. At the 2010 census, the city population was 145,170, and its metropolitan area had a population of 742,603...

October 17–18. Go Green Radio, hosted by the founder, Jill Buck, begins June 27, 2008 at 12PM EST on VoiceAmerica.