As part of a larger request made by ASSU Executive’s Student Services Division (SSD), The Green Store, an initiative of SSD, has applied to receive Special Fees for next year. This means students will petition for and vote to determine whether or not they will grant the store the $7,165 in student-based funding it requested according to the online petition.
According to ASSU policies, all groups receiving Special Fee funding must offer their services free to all undergraduate students, unless explicitly given an exception by the Senate Appropriation Committee. The Green Store and the Airport Shuttle Bus programs, however, both offer their services to students at a price.
The Green Store acts as a business, selling cups, eco-friendly laundry detergent, and power strips to the student body. The Green Store began selling its eco-friendly products in 2008. Since then it has grown in both the number of costumers and number of products sold. Customers can order products online and the Green Store will deliver the products to the customer’s door.
While much of the Green Store’s expenses are covered by revenues from selling these products, the store still requests funding for its operations, largely because it subsidizes its cup sales to incentivize students to use the cups. Several senators, however, have voiced concern over the business model of the store.
In the past two years, the store’s subsidy has been appropriated by the ASSU Senate from the General Fee Reserve Fund. Last year, the Green Store’s expenses were significantly less than its revenue, meaning that it only used $1,354.65 of the $5,000 subsidy it received from the General Fee Reserve. At the end of the year, the extra funds were returned to the Reserve to be dispersed by the Senate.
After learning about the store’s business practices, Undergraduate Senator and Review Executive Editor Alex Katz stated, “It doesn’t make a lot of sense to charge people twice.” He also raised concerns over the Green Store buying their products before they had costumers for them.
“I don’t fully understand the business practice,” stated Katz. “It sounds like a smaller subsidy would be sufficient for the Green Store to continue to operate.” This would require that the Green Store use revenue from sales to purchase their products, rather than investing in products at the beginning of the year with student fee money.
Green Store Director Susie Choi explained the store’s practice by saying, “We have to spend money on new products as well as materials and equipment.” The store “needs to invest in product stock before it can begin selling,” she said.
The store’s request for $7,665 for next year comes as an increase to the $6,365.98 the store received for this year. Choi explained that the increase this year comes from the need to have enough money set aside to subsidize bulk cup orders, which have been increasing.
Choi stated that “becoming economically sustainable is not the goal of Green Store.” The goal is to “encourage sustainable living on campus by providing eco-friendly products at the lowest prices we can and by making these green alternatives accessible to students.”
Senator Anton Zietsman, chair of the Appropriations Committee, was skeptical of the store’s business plan as well. He stated, “The Green Store provides a valuable service, but I definitely don’t think the way its run now is sustainable in the long term.”
Next year, if SSD receives their requested Special Fees, any extra funds will not go back into the General Fee Reserve at the end of the year; they will be put into an SSD-specific Special Fee reserve fund.
ASSU President David Gobaud believed that any left over funds put into a SSD reserve fund would be reused by the Green Store in subsequent years. He stated, “My guess would be that in future years instead of requesting the money from the student body you would pull it from the reserves.”
It will be possible, however, for left over funds to be used in an SSD division other than the Green Store in future years. Zietsman explained that if the Senate approves a budget modification proposal by the SSD Financial Officer, then excess funds that were initially voted by students to fund the Green Store in 2010 could be appropriated to another SSD venture like the Airport Shuttle Bus program or the Wellness Room.
Choi certainly believes that the Green Store is important to Stanford. She cited the 40,000 cups sold last year as evidence, saying, “it has established a presence on campus.”
Ultimately, the student body will determine what is more important to them, promoting environmentally sustainable lifestyles or requiring sustainable business practices. Zietsman reminded readers, “It’s up to the students, it’s going to be students’ money if it goes on Special Fees.”
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Do you have some sort of bias against Susie Choi? Are you against sustainability? You’re giving Green Store a bad name when most of the people who run it put a lot of their own time and effort into it, and Susie Choi truly believes in sustainability. She isn’t in this for the money — in fact, she barely gets any real economic profit from this. She honestly wants to give back to the community and help Stanford be sustainable. Is this article an effort to keep people from signing the Special Fees ballot, or to make Green Store go out of business? Because it really ISN’T a business. It’s non-profit. And I think the amount of money they request is minimal compared to a lot of other groups. Like flicks? Don’t they request around 70 grand? And all they do is show weekly movies. That kind of money could go to making 8 other colleges sustainable. What’s more important in the long run? Why are you writing degrading articles about groups that are just trying to give back to the Stanford community? And like Katz said, you DON’T fully understand the “business practice” so why give readers a skewed view of Green Store without giving them all the facts? At least they gave back what they didn’t use last year, and there is no doubt they will put the money to good use the next year. And you compare Green Store to Airport Shuttle Service… the shuttle service has to be paid for individually also, but it also is good for the environment, as most carpools are. Why aren’t you writing negative articles about the shuttle service and how they charge students but still request special fees?
AZA, the Review covered similar practices with airport shuttles back in November. Read about it here: http://stanfordreview.org/article/airport-shuttles-strain-assu-budget
Hi Tim, from my understanding (and delving into past articles), the Review has something against the way Special Feees was/is being run… you even have an article about the worst Special Fee Requests:
http://stanfordreview.org/article/special-fee-requests-bad-and-ugly
So why didn’t you guys write thoughtful articles about those groups? Why pick on Green Store, which actually does give back to the community and environment, while requesting less fees than those groups do?
Dear AZA,
As a campus news organization, the Stanford Review is tasked with applying fiscal scrutiny to operations conducted with the use of student funds. When Stanford students contemplated signing the SSD Special Fees petition, many of them would have (hopefully) asked themselves, “why am I paying twice for Green Store services–once through Special Fees and once for its product?” (keep in mind that all of the other Special Fee groups that you alluded to are NOT asking for special fees AND selling products to students).
My article answers that question. Readers now know what happened to the extra money from the past two years and what would happen to the money next year. Students who are going to pass Special Fee funds for SSD need to know this information. They can use it to make an informed decision about whether or not they want to fund SSD with their money. If anything, answering this question, and explaining how the Green Store will reuse its funding would have probably made students more inclined to pass the store’s Special Fee request.
Please also take note of the article’s objectivity. The viewpoints of Director Susie Choi are prominently featured in the article, as are the opinions of those senators questioning the store’s business practices. I fully researched the financial situation of the Green Store and explained it in the article.
In response to your second comment, the article you are referring to is a features piece meant to advance an opinion. Some Review staff writers may possess the opinion that Special Fee requests should be decreased, but their expression of that opinion is exclusive from coverage of groups like the Green Store and Airport Shuttle Bus. The Stanford Review will be covering, both with news and commentary, the majority of the Special Fees groups in the upcoming elections issue.
I hope I have effectively answered your questions and concerns. This article is not meant to attack Susie Choi or the Green Store. Stanford students deserve to know how how their General/Special Fees are being spent. They also deserve to know how their ASSU Executive initiatives are being operated. How that affects sustainability and the Green Store will be up to the students themselves when they vote in April.
Regards,
Kyle Huwa