By challenging the power structure that threatens these conditions, SEAC worked to create progressive social and environmental change on both the local and global level.
Called Threshold, this historic conference on the weekend of October 27–29, 1989, was a success, attracting more than 1,700 students from 225 universities and schools from 43 states and several countries.
The work on the Rio Summit was conducted under the banner Action for Solidarity, Equality, Environment and Development (A SEED), and involved youth organizations from around the world.
[3] A SEED grew into SEAC’s largest project, including a speaker’s tour, educational events, and coordinated conferences in three states and 23 countries over a single weekend and connected together by email and fax.
At its peak SEAC employed 13 full-time staff in 1991, split between the national office, work on A SEED, and field organizing.
In the summer of 1996, SEAC's Coordinating Committee decided to cut a program that held activist training sessions at different schools in order to save money, but this precipitated a loss of philanthropic funding.
Some of the accomplishments of SEAC chapters include: January 1991- As SEACers protested the war in Iraq and at the same time launched the Energy Independence Campaign.
Part of the event was also a protest against the Agracetus Campus, a subsidiary Monsanto known for its genetically engineered Roundup as well as transgenic corn, cotton and soy.
Miami Dade, Florida - A Student Organization for Animal Rights from the Miami-Dade Community College successfully pushed a bill through its General Assembly regarding the situation of factory-farmed pigs.
Late 2002 – Berea, Kentucky – a joint effort observed a leap forward when the Pentagon released information stating “neutralization and supercritical water oxidation -- not incineration -- is its preferred recommended technology for destruction of chemical weapons stored at the Blue Grass Army Depot.” November 2002 - After a two-year campaign, SEAC successfully convinced office supply company Staples to stop offering products that came from endangered forests and start offering recycled paper products.
Shepherdstown, West Virginia - A student won an election on the town council which was “a huge role in fighting gentrification as well as signing the town onto the US Mayors' Climate Protection Agreement” “No Coal Days of Action” exposed Citibank and Bank of America’s support of destructive coal companies when SEACers performed a “die-in” and effectively shut down the Citibank branch in Washington, D.C.[8] March 2007 - Students protested mountaintop coal removal at “Mountain Justice Spring Break”, West Virginia.
When the mountaintop removal blasts ignite, dust particulates of materials in the soil become airborne and are having a negative impact on human health.