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If Nilda Mesa’s environmental experience could be characterized in one word it might be this: variety.
Mesa launched her career in environmental policy in the office of the California attorney general before being named an appointee of the Clinton-Gore administration.
Mesa went on to spend time in France, studying art and architecture. Mesa said this time allowed her to see how environmental decisions are made in other places and how people in other places put everything together.
Mesa finally made her way into the academic sphere of environmental work, accepting the position of assistant vice president of environmental stewardship at Columbia University.
The office grew out of the work of the Environmental Stewardship Task Force and was officially established in 2006 by Robert Kasdin, the senior executive vice president of the university.
Mesa’s mission: to work with students, faculty and staff to reduce the university’s environmental footprint at all of its campuses.
So what does a typical day look like for Mesa? Again, her work seems to be characterized by variety.
“We’re more Google than Microsoft,” said Mesa, smiling. “We try to promote entrepreneurship.”
In other words, students, faculty and staff frequently approach Mesa’s office with ideas. Their office tries to find the support and resources to make the ideas happen.
Mesa said their office gets some of their best ideas from the students. And those ideas are often translated into real changes in the university.
In one instance, students wanted to explore converting waste cooking oil from student dining into biodiesel to power the shuttle buses that Columbia runs, said Mesa. The students went through the process of figuring out what exactly it would take to put the idea into action. In the end, it made more sense economically to outsource to a company who converts cooking oil to biodiesel, which the university did as a result of the students’ project.
When Mesa isn’t working directly with students, she may be working with the mayor’s office or the Manhattan borough president’s office. The Office of Environmental Stewardship is taking part in PlaNYC, which aims to cut greenhouse gas emissions in New York City by 30 percent by 2017. PlaNYC made a special challenge to colleges to reduce their emissions by 30 percent, in line with PlaNYC’s objectives. Mesa’s office has made that pledge for the Morningside campus.
Mesa recounted witnessing changes in environmental stewardship in her four years with the office, both on the campuses and in the neighborhoods surrounding the campuses. One of the biggest changes Mesa said she has seen has been the expansion of greenmarkets. Mesa said she thinks there is now more of an awareness of the possibilities of greenmarkets.
While eating locally may be new to some, Mesa said she grew up with it. Her family moved from Cuba to Chicago when she was still young, and kept a tradition of cooking meals and using local produce when possible.
Was this family tradition the root of Mesa’s environmental interest? It may be difficult to say, but one thing is certain: that interest has woven its way from policy to academics, shaping both.
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