For years, BYU has diverted its food waste from landfills to produce its own mulch, a combination of table scraps, leaf litter, grass clippings, and wood chips. And for years, we’ve spread that mulch in tree rings, flower beds, and hillsides. It’s a joyous scene when students show up to help, as they did this week when 120 volunteers formed bucket brigades along the nature trail east of the football stadium at an event we call “Mulch and Mingle.”
It’s a low-tech, low-cost solution to a range of problems, says Bill Rudy, who leads BYU's composting efforts. The mulch improves water retention, wards off pests, prevents waste, reduces emissions, saves money, and beautifies campus. Plus, it gives the students an excuse to make a mess, which they appear to do wholeheartedly.
Call it an act of devotion. As members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—BYU’s sponsoring institution—we learn that caring for God’s creations, including His children, is a sacred responsibility. In April 2000, President Russell M. Nelson counseled, “As beneficiaries of the divine Creation, what shall we do? We should care for the earth, be wise stewards over it, and preserve it for future generations. And we are to love and care for one another.” Likewise, Bishop Gérald Caussé taught in October 2022, “Great spiritual blessings are promised to those who love and care for the earth and their fellow men and women.”
Stewardship, in other words, is a form of discipleship of the Savior.
This simple truth prevails at BYU, where the aims of the university state that a BYU education prepares students “to improve the moral, social, and ecological environment in which they and their families live.” By becoming disciple-stewards through our individual and institutional conduct, we show love for Jesus Christ, who “created the heavens and the earth” (3 Nephi 9:15) through the power of the priesthood, under the direction of our Heavenly Father (see Moses 1:33). We also better fulfill our mission as a Christ-centered, prophetically directed university.
Visiting BYU in March 2020, Elder M. Russell Ballard of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles recognized students for their “commitment to a more sustainable future” and extended a challenge: “Whether it is environmental, economic, or social, I would hope you will continue to find creative solutions to help protect the future for all of God’s children in our world. We should do whatever we can to protect and preserve the earth, to make life better for those who will live here. We have a divine stewardship, as noted in Doctrine and Covenants 59:16–20”—which teaches us to use earthly gifts “with judgment, not to excess, neither by extortion.” He continued, “We are inhabitants of the same planet, and we are dependent upon each other for our mutual survival, happiness, and peace.”
I share Elder Ballard’s confidence in our students. Visiting them in classrooms, meeting them at campus events, or volunteering beside them at service projects, I like to get to know them by asking about their “sustainability superpowers,” those things they’re doing that take some effort but, in their view, make the world a better place. Their answers vary—recycling, thrifting, taking public transit—but invariably, these “small and simple things” (Alma 37:6) appear to have the greatest effect not on humanity but on the human heart. I sense a purifying ardor in their responses, just as the transformation of organic material in a mountain of mulch creates heat as a byproduct. They are changing the world from the inside out.
They are also doing what Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf might call “the hard things.” In a campaign to educate friends and family about climate change, BYU students have sparked tens of thousands of conversations on seven continents. They’ve worked to save the Great Salt Lake and restore the Provo River delta. Abroad, they’re fighting pollution and poverty, and they’re not waiting to graduate to do it. As one student put it, “On the sign for BYU, when you come in, it says, ‘Enter to Learn. Go forth to serve.’ This is my way of doing both.”
The world needs stewards now more than ever, just as it needs disciples of Jesus Christ. Widespread pollution, deforestation, and other forms of man-made environmental degradation are collectively changing our climate, making weather more unpredictable, extreme, and destructive, and magnifying societal problems like disease, poverty, homelessness, and hunger. This in turn fuels unrest, conflict, and death, preventing God's children from filling "the measure of their creation" (Doctrine and Covenants 88:19). A divisive political landscape adds to the complexity of these problems, hindering efforts to implement solutions. I believe our students have a unique role to play, serving, lifting, and leading in a world that yearns for hope and joy.
How? By study and faith. When the World Resources Institute, a think tank, launched its Initiative on Faith and Sustainability in 2021, it shared a compelling statement from its founder, Gus Speth. “I used to think that top environmental problems were biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse, and climate change,” the longtime environmental advocate said. “I thought that thirty years of good science could address these problems. I was wrong. The top environmental problems are selfishness, greed, and apathy, and to deal with these we need a cultural and spiritual transformation. And we scientists don’t know how to do that.”
Those who understand their sacred stewardship do, Elder Marcus B. Nash taught in 2013, “I have learned by study and faith that if we understand who we are, the purpose of life, and the reason the earth was created—and keep these things in mind—we will treat this earth, and all in it, in a higher, nobler way,” he said.
I tell our students that we need the scientists, yes, but we also need the artists. We need the entrepreneurs. We need the scholars of ancient languages. We need everyone. Every student—and I would add, every BYU employee, graduate, friend, and neighbor—can contribute to BYU’s efforts to care for the earth and one another, as directed by prophets and as instructed by the Lord himself when He said: “For it is expedient that I, the Lord, should make every man accountable, as stewards over earthly blessings, which I have made and prepared for my creatures” (Doctrine and Covenants 104:13). None of us is off the hook.
To that end, I’m grateful for BYU’s efforts to cultivate disciple-stewardship from the inside out. With new academic courses and programs, new policies that encourage sustainable transportation, continued recycling, extensive energy and water conservation, to name just a few examples, we’re creating change. Last month at a conference titled “Stewardship Over the Earth and the Human Family,” faculty showcased interdisciplinary research, forged new connections, and learned about available resources from university administrators. On the same day, students organized a sustainability and social impact career fair that drew hundreds of their classmates.
I’m also grateful for the support of campus partners like the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, where scholars are supported in their work to inspire and fortify Latter-day Saints in their testimonies of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ and engage in the world of religious ideas. This week, for the second consecutive year, the Sustainability Office and the Maxwell Institute came together to host an uplifting conversation with environmental humanities professor George Handley as part of Green Week, a twice-annual celebration of stewardship on campus. This year he was joined by Dr. Jamin Rowan and Dr. Lenart Škof, to whom we’re also grateful.
What does a “higher, nobler way” look like at BYU? Institutionally, it starts with a covenant community where devotion, citizenship, scholarship, and operations are rooted in disciple-stewardship. Individually, it might start with each of us doing one thing consistently and to the best of our ability to bless the human family or heal our common home, and then expanding our efforts. As our capacity grows and our impact increases, others may feel inspired to join us.
We’ll get the buckets ready.
Bremen leads strategic planning for sustainability and resilience at BYU. An experienced program manager, he has worked previously for Yale University, Johns Hopkins University, and the Natural Resource Governance Institute.