“It’s an honor to be here; it’s good for the soul. I see how well you work together,” said Leith Sharp to an audience Wednesday in the Great Hall. Sharp is a pioneer in the field of green campuses. She worked at Harvard for 10 years, and is currently studying community college sustainability in Illinois.

Higher education is one the most significant sectors in sustainability — with more than 4,000 schools, 15 million students and $300 billion spent every year, post-secondary schools are in a position to make a big impact. Sharper explained that, while working at Harvard, not only did she see the institution change, but the city of Boston followed suit. After Harvard began building green structure, architects in the area all began going green as well.

Sharp used the analogy of being “rudders on rudders to move the ship of sustainability,” to express the importance of small steps.

By changing the light bulbs in residence halls at Harvard, $20,000 was saved in one year. Sharp explained that the task was not easy, as she showed a chart displaying “how many people it takes to change a light bulb at Harvard.” She said it was well worth it in the end.

“It took me 17 years to figure out that the assumption that people are adverse to change is not true,” Sharp said. “People actually thrive on it. What they are afraid of is risk and instability. When we think of social change, we think of these great heroes like Martin Luther King Jr. — but, really, social change is the sum of regular people doing little things. You don’t know what you might trigger and make possible down the line.”

None of the changes Sharp helped to happen started as big things. When they started using biodiesel fuel in buses, they only used it in one bus for two months.

Peer to Peer programs were very successful at Harvard, Sharp said. Students were paid to be green ambassadors. They encouraged green behavior with their peers and ended up helping decrease food waste by one-third and reducing natural gas use by 26 percent.

There was also a competition in the kitchen for the food service employees to see who could do their job in the greenest way. The winner was awarded a green [colored] frying pan.

Sharp also supports a Green Office Rating Program, in which offices are rated with 1–4 green leaves based on how sustainable they are.

“We have to change our behaviors,” Sharp said. “Information is not enough. Only 5 percent of what we do in a day is consciously decided — the rest is habit. We need to turn sustainability into a habit.”

To do this, Sharp gave a few pointers. She said you must make a commitment and make a pledge to be green. At Harvard, posters were distributed that portrayed faculty and students doing quirky green things, such as riding tandem bikes and engaging in green shower habits.

Convenience is also important, she said. Sharp helped institute single stream recycling, with just one bin.

Finally, she said persuasive communication is crucial to change.

“I can’t emphasize how important it is to engage the population,” Sharp said.