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The student campaign, formed in October, requests that students pledge not to work for, buy from or invest in targeted companies until the companies meet the group’s environmental demands. 

The campaign is currently running in 153 college campuses throughout the country, said Ben Prochazka, Western States Field Organizer for ecopledge.com. Their goal is to collect 75,000 signatures nationwide, calling on specific companies to take simple and specific steps to protect the environment, he said. 

One targeted company is Citibank/Citigroup. Ecopledge is asking the bank to stop or cancel funding for the Three Gorges Dam Project on the Yangtze River in China. 

Prochazka said Citibank is one of the chief financial participants in the proposed three-mile dam. He said it will displace l.2 million people and thousands of acres of land. 

“We want to make it clear that students should take their values to the workplace,” said Lauren Baker, campaign coordinator for the California Student Public Interest Research Group (CalPIRG), which backs ecopledge.com. 

Saying that Cal students generally can anticipate rewarding careers, the freshman organizer said, “as students we have the power to influence companies as their future workers.” 

Dave Harris, Earth Week 2000 Program Coordinator, said the signature goal for the Cal campus is 4,000 pledges. 

“Students no longer are going to just buy what makes them happy,” said Harris. They’re going to take their consciences with them to the marketplace. 

Ecopledge.com also is calling on Nestle to end its production of genetically modified food product, said Prochazka. Also on the boycott list is the Disney Corporation - ecopledge is requesting tem to stop using pbc in their toy manufacturing. Prochazka said pbc can release the toxic chemical dioxin. The group also wants Coca-Cola to use 25 percent post recyclable material in its plastic bottles. 

Prochazka said the ecopledge was formed to leverage the power of students, consumers and investors in the marketplace to hold these companies and others directly accountable, by asking them to take simple steps to protect the environment.