Anjana Sharma, CC ‘06, holds a strong conviction: “You can’t hope that any student will change their behavior if they don’t have the information on how to do so.”

That’s why she jumped at the opportunity to compile and write the very first “Guide to Green Living at Columbia.” The Green Guide is a companion to the “Guide to Living at Columbia,” an annual compendium of university policies and procedures.

The Green Guide evolved from meetings last spring of the Green Umbrella Coalition comprising administrators, faculty, staff and students working in various ways on sustainability issues and possibilities. It was at one of these gatherings, Sharma says, that Director of Housing and Dining Scott Wright “floated the idea of getting all the information we’ve accumulated as resources for all students, and helping everyone be ‘all green.’”

Wright then came up with a part-time summer job opportunity for this work. Sharma was hired.

“I compiled a lot of information from different departments – Facilities, Operations, and Purchasing – and from other students,” she says. “I also did on-line research for off-campus resources in the New York Metro area.”

Sharma says the Guide “went through many different iterations and Green Umbrella and Environmental Stewardship Task Force reviews before it was finally done.”

“Ideally,” she says, “every year it will undergo review as a constantly evolving document.”

Referring to the Green Guide with its cover photo of shiny green grass and handsome layout, Sharma says, “Heather (Tsonopoulos) made it beautiful.” Tsonopoulos is Housing and Dining’s marketing and communications manager.

Sharma, from San Mateo, Calif., remembers that as a child, she and her family participated in clean-up activities around San Francisco Bay. “I was always interested in the relationship between the human quality of life and the quality of ecosystems,” she says. But it wasn’t until she came to Columbia that she became consistently involved in environmental concerns, especially as a member of Students for Economic and Environmental Justice.

Sharma was initially involved with the SEEJ initiative, begun in 2002, to influence CitiGroup and its environmental standards. She talks about the power of students at Columbia and elsewhere to promote change on behalf of the environment and speaks proudly of the effects at CitiGroup: “They are the first financial corporation to implement environmental standards in their operations. Because this is now part of every financial decision they make, they have spurred others. This is really big.”

The recipient of a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship, Sharma spent the 2004-2005 academic year in Managua, Nicaragua. She studied environmental engineering and interned with a public health non-governmental organization.

On her return to Columbia for her senior year, she rejoined SEEJ – this time with the effort to make recycled paper Columbia’s choice. “As environmental stewardship was becoming recognized,” Sharma says, “we were going into new phases. It was a big deal to get the endorsement” of the administration for the use of 30 percent recycled content paper.

Sharma, whose concentration at Columbia was Environmental Biology, has just started working at a new food cooperative in East New York, Brooklyn, where she’s organizing a health screening desk. The coop is sponsored by Mt. Sinai Hospital.

Her next step, consistent with her vision of a better world? Completing applications to medical schools “all over the country.”