"We want to help improve the university's environmental record and its impacts on the rest of the world and society," said Kai Chan, a graduate student in the department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and co-chair of Greening Princeton.

The group examines the influence of certain foods on the environment, their social ramifications and their effects on student health. The group makes purchasing recommendations to Princeton University Dining Services and disseminates literature in the dining halls describing these environmental concerns.

"We are educating the campus community, administrators and students about the importance of the issues we work on," said freshman Cathy Kunkel, group president. "Any major changes in policy that Greening Princeton can facilitate could set a precedent for other institutions to follow."

The group has already succeeded in changing the content of Princeton dining hall menus, most notably in the variety of seafood offered. Students in Greening Princeton researched the amount of harm done to certain aquatic environments and helped Dining Services purchase less harmful products, making Princeton the first university to implement an eco-friendly seafood policy.

"We worked quite heavily together, and all of it is very positive," Dining Services Director Stuart Orefice said of his collaboration with Greening Princeton.

Dining Services has also labeled its seafood offerings according to the harm done to its environment. Red indicates a high level of harm done to the animal's environment by fishing it, yellow is medium and green is low.

"The labeling process itself is an accomplishment," Chan said. "If concerned about this issue, students can look at the labels and choose not to eat certain foods."

In addition to replacing many of the "red" seafoods, such as the overfished Atlantic cod with "green" products, such as the less-fished Icelandic cod, Dining Services has added organic tofu, organic breakfast cereals and two blends of fair-trade coffees to the dining halls. Funding for these additions and the group's informational literature about these new features came from Dining Services.

"This has really been a multifaceted initiative, ranging from educational campaigns, creativity on the part of the chefs, expertise from environmental nonprofit groups, and flexibility of Dining Services to cover any additional expenses," said Jayatri Das, a Greening Princeton co-chair and graduate student in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. "We're very proud of this project."

But Greening Princeton strives to respond to the environmental concerns of the entire university community, including the student body. The group is analyzing results of its first campuswide survey, assessing which eco-friendly foods are most important to the majority of Princeton diners. Based on the results of the survey, the group will work with Dining Services to submit a report to university funding committees and seek financial support for the most preferred products without increasing the cost of meal plans.

"The plan for the fall is to write a report on antibiotic-free meats, fair trade organic grown coffee, organic produce and dairy products," Orefice said. "Over 60 percent to two-thirds of the community is interested in products I just described."

Greening Princeton's environmental activism doesn't stop at the dining halls. The group's next major project is getting eco-friendly paper for the university community. Before advocating the use of recycled paper, the group plans to evaluate the difference in quality between virgin paper - fresh from trees - and reused paper that various university departments use for computer printers and copy machines.

"If we find, as other universities have, that there is no difference in quality, we hope to increase the campuswide use of recycled paper," Das said.

The group is also considering collaborating with regional colleges and farming cooperatives, possibly to purchase an organic farm, Das said. A jointly purchased farm would provide a more sustainable, cost-effective source of organic food and educational opportunities, she said.

"With regard to organic food, I think it's important to realize how much healthier these foods are," Kunkel said. "Many pesticides, herbicides and fungicides are potentially carcinogenic."

As the group moves toward more regional collaborations, its graduate student chairs still emphasize the importance of Greening Princeton's close ties to the university administration.

"We have definitely raised awareness among the people who can make changes at Princeton," said Das. "That's one of the hardest things to accomplish."