For Brian Anderson ’15, a September 24 campus visit to share his work in climate action brought him back to the classrooms of Founders Hall—but it wasn’t a return to roundtable discussions. Anderson and his colleagues work to find and emphasize points of intersection between different sectors impacting the environment, from electric vehicles to agriculture, using an approach familiar to Saints.

“I've really turned my office into quite a St. Andrew's format. I constantly bring everyone into our conference room and we just sit and talk for an hour,” Anderson says. “It's a really good way to push people to explore ideas and figure out ways that things are interconnected.”

Anderson works in Delaware’s state climate office, within the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control. He is currently coordinating the mitigation section of Delaware’s climate action plan, to be published in November, which includes a roadmap for Delaware to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

Around a table in Classroom 13 on Wednesday, Anderson spoke with environmentally-conscious students and employees, including Coordinator of Sustainable Initiatives Jess Buxbaum. During the roundtable, Saints had the opportunity to talk with Anderson about their own environmental studies, ways individuals and the whole St. Andrew’s community can support Delaware’s transition to net-zero, and more.

Raised in Pennsylvania, Anderson says his years at St. Andrew’s helped shape not only the communication style he uses with colleagues, but also the knowledge of Delaware’s beauty and challenges that informs his work. Though the 2015 grad has returned to campus several times, this week was Anderson’s first chance to pay forward a life-changing St. Andrew’s experience.

“St. Andrew's is where my general interest in the outdoors turned into being interested in what it means to work in environmental spaces or environmental roles,” he says. “I have such a distinct memory: one Saturday, alumni in creative fields came back and taught mini-seminar classes in their fields … I can pretty specifically identify that as the time when I realized, ‘No matter what you pursue, if you're keen on the environment, you can weave it in.’”

Anderson hopes to do his part in encouraging students to weave together environmental work and their other passions. While students told Anderson it often feels like their generation is expected to solve climate issues on behalf of everyone else, Anderson and his colleagues strive to meet younger people where they are when it comes to environmental work.

Anderson believes that projects that use existing features of one’s everyday environment to help make positive changes for the planet are vital—and engaged, knowledgeable people working in varied disciplines help make those projects work. At St. Andrew’s, that might look like Saints’ efforts to combat food waste on campus; in the wider world, community leaders can make infrastructure changes that encourage more sustainable transportation or help community spaces like parks double as barriers for coastal flooding.

“You're taking something that's already there, making a very simple switch, and it's improving everybody's life,” Anderson says. “It's the intersectionality at every turn that I think is really cool. I think that's how we keep students really engaged … It always comes back to what people are most passionate about. If you can identify something that someone is already interested in and then … [show how] that thing can be a component of necessary change for the environment, that's when people respond best.”