Bates College will strive to:

• conserve natural resources and support their sustainable use;
• conduct affairs in a manner that safeguards the environmental health and safety of students, faculty, staff and the surrounding community;
• reduce the use of toxic substances and the generation of wastes and promote strategies to reuse and recycle those wastes that cannot be avoided;
• purchase renewable, reusable, recyclable and recycled materials and
• conduct our business practices in accordance with this policy.

In our education and research missions, Bates College will strive to:

• foster an understanding of and a responsibility for the physical environment;
• ensure that individuals are knowledgeable about the environment and health issues that affect their discipline and/or department;
• orient newcomers to our community with regard to the campus- wide environmental ethic;
• encourage environmental research; and
• conduct research and teaching in an environmentally responsible way.

In our student and employee relations, Bates College will strive to:

• delineate individual responsibility and guide action for ensuring safety and minimizing adverse environmental impacts in the implementation of this policy.

Bates will consider full compliance with the law to be the minimally acceptable standard and will exercise whatever control is reasonable and necessary to avoid harm to the public health and environment, whether or not such control is required by regulations.  Bates will initiate, promote, and conduct programs that fully implement this policy throughout the College.