Representatives from seven of the 14 Big Ten schools are collaborating to create the Big Ten Students Sustainability Association, a group to promote sustainability initiatives across the Big Ten campuses.

“There’s so much communication between the Big Ten schools,” said Christina Cilento, Associated Student Government vice president of sustainability. “It really makes sense to have a source of communication that’s solely based around sustainability so we can really support each other in our projects and find out what other schools are doing that we might want to implement.”

Cilento, a Medill sophomore, was contacted in September by University of Maryland student Ori Gutin, who emailed 160 student groups from all 14 Big Ten campuses with the idea.

“I was really impressed. I couldn’t believe we hadn’t thought of doing this before,” Cilento said.

Gutin, who serves as the director of sustainability at Maryland’s Student Government Association, got the idea by talking to staff at Maryland’s Office of Sustainability, who told him they were collaborating with other staff at Big Ten schools to promote green initiatives. He decided to create something similar among students.

“On your campus you have your student organization, and when you’re brainstorming to do something on campus, you have those minds thinking of an idea,” he said. “But beyond that, there are students all across the Big Ten working in different sustainability organizations that are all thinking ideas like this. And whether they’re looking through a different lens, they’re looking at entirely different issues and solutions to those issues.”

Because the Big Ten is an athletic association, it mostly deals with sustainability issues related to athletics, such as air travel emissions from sports travel. Gutin said he also wants the Big Ten to try to become a carbon neutral athletic program.

The association is still in its beginning stages. Organizers are looking at what initiatives other schools have in place, which they call a “sustainability snapshot.”

The snapshots ask questions such as what the schools are doing about greenhouse gases, water, food and transportation, said University of Michigan student Angela Yang.

“It’s another chance for schools to collaborate so we can see what other schools are doing, particularly with the Climate Action Plan that Illinois is doing,” she said.

Cilento found many schools had similar programs in place, but there were also initiatives that were unique to certain schools, and initiatives that are unique to Northwestern, such as the ongoing push to ban plastic water bottles on campus.

“I think there are some unique and creative solutions that Northwestern has been coming up with, but I think there’s also some other projects that other schools have been doing that make you think outside of the box for what we can do here as well,” Cilento said.

They will discuss these snapshots in a conference call next month. Gutin said he hopes that after they meet they can create a more organized structure, with a set mission statement and values.

Gutin said he hopes to get one representative from each school in the Big Ten, and that the association will continue from year to year.

Cilento also hopes the association grows more in the future.

“We’re hoping that starting 2015 and the next couple of months we’ll be able to start tackling large scale sustainability issues for the Big Ten Conference as a whole,” she said.

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