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The group officially formed in 1997 when Ron Blackmore, a concerned member of the Colgate community, came together with Environmental Studies faculty, Students for Environmental Action (SEA) student leaders, and the Faculty and Staff Environmentalists group, originally organized by Blackmore.
The effectiveness of the Campus Ecology Group comes from the diversity of its members, which combines idealists and people who know what to do to evaluate and implement the ideas. The group works together to determine the best possible course of action for each issue that arises.
Every semester the group brings forth recommendations and ideas pertaining to energy use, waste reduction, recycling, campus auto use, and property management, and then works to see that these issues are addressed by distributing initiatives to different organizations. In addition to working on its own to implement and distribute ideas, the Campus Ecology Group makes recommendations to the Sustainability Council and acts as a steering committee for the annual Green Summit.
Among the group's ideas that were put into action were the use of more efficient light bulbs in the reading areas of the library, availability of fair trade coffee in the Coop, development of the Green Bikes initiative, better recycling and trash facilities in the student apartments, environmental awareness efforts on campus, and better publicity of Colgate's environmental initiatives. The group is also continuing to work on local food and food waste issues.