The students, staff and faculty of Green Destiny Council are working to incorporate ecological literacy and ecological responsibility into Penn State education and operations. The Council's research has resulted in six publications:

1. "Higher Education: Good for the Planet?" 2000. Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America. 81: 152-156. This paper describes the ecological crisis now confronting humankind and challenges universities to become part of the solution (not part of the problem).
   
2. "The Penn State Indicators Report." 2000. This report gauges sustainability, or lack thereof, at Penn State using 33 sustainability indicators.
   
3. "Green Destiny: Universities Leading the Way to a Sustainable Future." 2001. BioScience 51: 36-42. This paper places Green Destiny's sustainability initiatives at Penn State in a national context.
   
4. "Penn State's Emerging Ecological Mission." 2001. Green Destiny Council. This document lays out a comprehensive ecological mission for Penn State.
   
5. "An Examination of the Pennsylvania State University Landscape and its Implications for Learning and the Environment." 2000. This study offers concrete suggestions for making the campus grounds of Penn State both more sustainable and more educational.
   
6. "The Mueller Report: Moving Beyond Sustainability Indicators to Sustainability Action at Penn State." 2001. This study reveals how the "ecological footprint" of Mueller Biology Building could be reduced by half while saving $45,000/year.
   

The following Policy Papers were derived from The Mueller Report and the Indicators Reports:

• "Mueller Policy Paper #1: Reduce Standard Margin Settings", 2001. This Paper shows how PSU could save 72 acres of forest and over $120,000/year by reducing the default margin settings campus wide.
  
  
• "Mueller Policy Paper #2: Environmental Investments = Financial Investments", 2002. This Paper details how to compare environmental improvements to financial investments in order to economically justify greening.
  
  
• "Mueller Policy Paper #3: Platinum LEED Certify All New Buildings", 2002. Provides a rationale to LEED Certify all new buildings on campus to the highest level.
  
  
• "Mueller Policy Paper #4: Institutionalize Long Term Economic and Environmental Planning", 2002. This paper provides a method to reduce the rate of tuition increases, provide better facilities, and decrease waste costs without impairing the research, teaching, outreach, maintenance, operation, administrative, and fund raising functions of the University.
  
  
• "Mueller Policy Payer #5: Highlight Penn State's Environmental Stewardship Record on the Web", 2003. In an age when many students spend more time socializing on the net through email and instant messaging than engaging in face-to-face dialogue, it is surprising that typing "recycling" into the Penn State Search Engine provides a list of hits but none take you to the information on how or what is recycled at University Park.
  
  
• "Mueller Policy Payer #6: Institute Investment Screens on Companies which are Counter to Penn State's Mission", 2003. Penn State currently invests this money to guarantee the highest return and thus may unwittingly support corporations whose practices and aims conflict with our mission. For example, we may be unknowingly profiting from the socially and environmentally deleterious sale of tobacco. In addition to the long list of negative health and environmental effects outlined in Policy Paper #6, the Centre Daily Times recently highlighted a report from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention that showed that U.S. cigarettes contain much more cancer-causing chemicals than those sold abroad. It is inappropriate for educational institutions like Penn State to profit from investing in companies that are unashamedly counter to our mission. Penn State University could screen its investments to eliminate financially supporting companies who profit from the sale of tobacco.
  
  

7. "Awaken: A Penn State Orientation Guide" 2003. This guide is a rallying cry for us, as students, to take control of our four years here. Hence, it is an invitation to explore the "big questions": Where are we in space, time, and history? How are we affecting this earth we call home? What are some things that we wish someone had told us when we were freshmen, so that we could maximize our time here? What are some challenges to the mind, body, and spirit that we will face here? What's the point of coming to college, anyway? How can we use this guide to help each other take ownership of our lives, our education, and the world that we live in?
   
8. "Getting It Done: Effective Sustainable Policy Implementation at the University Level." 2003. Planning for Higher Education.. 31(3): 53-61. Joshua M. Pearce and Christopher F. Uhl. A four-step process that has awakened The Pennsylvania State University to its ecological impact and is moving it toward sustainable resource-use policies is presented as a general model for ecological reform in universities. The first step was to frame the problem by conducting a high-profile ecological assessment of the institution using sustainability indicators. This created both the justification and the momentum necessary to persuade the university to adopt an ecological mission (step 2). Next, a detailed ecological and economic analysis of a university facility was made (step 3) to establish concrete socio-techno solutions that could then be extrapolated (step 4) to form specific sustainable policies for the entire university.
   
9. "Global Climate Change, the Kyoto Protocol, and Penn State University: From Part of the Problem to Part of the Solution." 2004. This report outlines why climate change is a problem, what some if its consequences might be, and what can be done to address it. It then shows how Penn State can reduce its greenhouse gas emissions while maintaining its current educational, research, administrative and outreach activities. In fact, in becoming Kyoto compliant, Penn State will save money and protect itself from increasingly volatile energy costs.