President's Climate Commitment: Smart and Sustainable Campuses Conference
Today's opening panel focused on the American College and University President's Climate Commitment. Already halfway to its goal of 1000 signatories by December 2009, this commitment has already been signed by more than 500 university and college presidents.
In case you're not familiar with the initiative, the commitment includes a requirement to eliminate campus greenhouse gas emissions and integrate sustainability into curriculum options. Once a school has signed on, it is required to inventory its GHG emissions within the first year, and implement climate-related actions shortly after. The APCC exists as a central organization to provide support and peer-to-peer communication. Signing helps to integrate schools with others and manage a collective effort.
Three Presidents who have signed spent some time describing actions their colleges have taken:
C.D. Mote , President of the University of Maryland
UMD signed the commitment due to the APCC's consistency with an existing campus orientation towards sustainability. As well as providing opportunities for leadership, signing was part and parcel of the university's determination to reduce the community's carbon footprint.
The first step was to create an Office of Sustainability which conducted a greenhouse gas inventory and headed up a campus climate work group. Initial actions included the adoption of a LEED-Silver standard for new buildings and retrofits, working towards reliable and efficient technology for storing energy, and working with Operations to streamline lighting, cleaning, heating/cooling systems and transportation. Three full-time employees staff the Office of Sustainability, which reports to the UMD Vice-President of Administrative Affairs, and the campus climate work group includes over 50 student, staff and faculty volunteers.
On the student activism front, activities like a Focus the Nation teach-in, Powershift, and Recyclemania are commonplace and popular. A composting effort from an Honors student group is collecting 6 tons of compostable food waster per week! The work group is also coordinating a speakers series on sustainability to more fully engage the campus, and a new inter-disciplinary major in environmental science and polity has been added to the curriculum.
Chancellor Marshall Drummond of the Los Angeles Community College District
LACCD, which serves all of the Los Angeles area, was one of the original 12 signers of the APCC, and has gone farther than most towards energy independence. In fact, by the end of 2009, Chancellor Drummond expects to take the whole network of schools completely off the grid.
Other actions include building retrofits and construction that meet a minimum LEED-Silver or -Gold. Paybacks are already manifesting themselves: the original expected payback of 10 years has been shortened to 2 or 3! In the past, the community college network's utility bill came to around $12 million, but Drummond expects that about $4 million will be saved yearly. LACCD was helped in this effort by private sector partners who used tax breaks and discounts to pay a mere 10 cents on the dollar for some of these cleaner technologies.
Not only are the energy needs being met by sustainable sources, but even the furniture and indoor carpeting are made with recycled and recyclable material. When planning a budget for furniture, Drummond expected to need a budget of $100 million, but only spent about $60 million on the furniture, and the 100%recyclable pattern came with a price tag of a mere $15/yard. Water efficiency was increased by low-flow irrigation, waterless urinals, a cistern for water capture, gray water systems, and using native plants in landscaping to reduce the need for irrigation. While many of these changes are difficult and require significant changes to existing infrastructure, LACCD has done a good job at circumventing these issues as they arise.
Drummond closes by acknowledging that over the next few decades, technology will change drastically, but I admire his dedication to getting off the grid nonetheless and deal with those challenges as they come. These projects also provide some great opportunities for students to get involved in cleaner energy and engineering work and see their practical applications. For more details on these programs, check out www.LACCDbuildsgreen.com.
Jonathan Gibralter, President of Frostburg State University
Frostburg signed onto the APCC in April 2007. Within two months, a Steering Committee of 23 people had been formed to guide the development of an action plan. Subcommittees include teams for waste management, curricular opportunities, space utilization, energy and others.
Results are already showing, such as the decision that all new campus buildings will be at least LEED-Silver certified or the equivalent. All appliance purchasing requires Energy Star products, and the university fleet is slowly being overhauled with hybrid cars. More access has been provided to public transportation, and the campus has begun to implement a plan of purchasing at least 15% of energy from renewable sources within the year. The new FSU Research Building used an abandoned mine underneath the building site to create a closed-loop geothermal system, rather than simply grouting (filling in) the old mine. Finally, using the Clean Air-Cool Planet model, the university ran a carbon audit, to provide a baseline for their towards-carbon-neutral trajectory.
I'm grateful when speakers acknowledge obstacles on the path towards sustainability. One of Gibralter's main concerns is with wind turbines, which the local community is opposed to. A lot of forests were clearcut in Frostburg's home of western Maryland for mining, and now that those forests are replenishing themselves, the last thing residents want is to see turbines on their mountaintops.
**I'm Xarissa Holdaway from the Campus Ecology team at the National Wildlife Federation. I'm live-blogging the UMD Smart and Sustainable Campuses Conference, and will be checking in every few hours over the next two days to tell you what I'm learning. Please forgive any spelling/grammar typing mistakes, I'm doing this on the fly and will be returning to edit later!
In case you're not familiar with the initiative, the commitment includes a requirement to eliminate campus greenhouse gas emissions and integrate sustainability into curriculum options. Once a school has signed on, it is required to inventory its GHG emissions within the first year, and implement climate-related actions shortly after. The APCC exists as a central organization to provide support and peer-to-peer communication. Signing helps to integrate schools with others and manage a collective effort.
Three Presidents who have signed spent some time describing actions their colleges have taken:
C.D. Mote , President of the University of Maryland
UMD signed the commitment due to the APCC's consistency with an existing campus orientation towards sustainability. As well as providing opportunities for leadership, signing was part and parcel of the university's determination to reduce the community's carbon footprint.
The first step was to create an Office of Sustainability which conducted a greenhouse gas inventory and headed up a campus climate work group. Initial actions included the adoption of a LEED-Silver standard for new buildings and retrofits, working towards reliable and efficient technology for storing energy, and working with Operations to streamline lighting, cleaning, heating/cooling systems and transportation. Three full-time employees staff the Office of Sustainability, which reports to the UMD Vice-President of Administrative Affairs, and the campus climate work group includes over 50 student, staff and faculty volunteers.
On the student activism front, activities like a Focus the Nation teach-in, Powershift, and Recyclemania are commonplace and popular. A composting effort from an Honors student group is collecting 6 tons of compostable food waster per week! The work group is also coordinating a speakers series on sustainability to more fully engage the campus, and a new inter-disciplinary major in environmental science and polity has been added to the curriculum.
Chancellor Marshall Drummond of the Los Angeles Community College District
LACCD, which serves all of the Los Angeles area, was one of the original 12 signers of the APCC, and has gone farther than most towards energy independence. In fact, by the end of 2009, Chancellor Drummond expects to take the whole network of schools completely off the grid.
Other actions include building retrofits and construction that meet a minimum LEED-Silver or -Gold. Paybacks are already manifesting themselves: the original expected payback of 10 years has been shortened to 2 or 3! In the past, the community college network's utility bill came to around $12 million, but Drummond expects that about $4 million will be saved yearly. LACCD was helped in this effort by private sector partners who used tax breaks and discounts to pay a mere 10 cents on the dollar for some of these cleaner technologies.
Not only are the energy needs being met by sustainable sources, but even the furniture and indoor carpeting are made with recycled and recyclable material. When planning a budget for furniture, Drummond expected to need a budget of $100 million, but only spent about $60 million on the furniture, and the 100%recyclable pattern came with a price tag of a mere $15/yard. Water efficiency was increased by low-flow irrigation, waterless urinals, a cistern for water capture, gray water systems, and using native plants in landscaping to reduce the need for irrigation. While many of these changes are difficult and require significant changes to existing infrastructure, LACCD has done a good job at circumventing these issues as they arise.
Drummond closes by acknowledging that over the next few decades, technology will change drastically, but I admire his dedication to getting off the grid nonetheless and deal with those challenges as they come. These projects also provide some great opportunities for students to get involved in cleaner energy and engineering work and see their practical applications. For more details on these programs, check out www.LACCDbuildsgreen.com.
Jonathan Gibralter, President of Frostburg State University
Frostburg signed onto the APCC in April 2007. Within two months, a Steering Committee of 23 people had been formed to guide the development of an action plan. Subcommittees include teams for waste management, curricular opportunities, space utilization, energy and others.
Results are already showing, such as the decision that all new campus buildings will be at least LEED-Silver certified or the equivalent. All appliance purchasing requires Energy Star products, and the university fleet is slowly being overhauled with hybrid cars. More access has been provided to public transportation, and the campus has begun to implement a plan of purchasing at least 15% of energy from renewable sources within the year. The new FSU Research Building used an abandoned mine underneath the building site to create a closed-loop geothermal system, rather than simply grouting (filling in) the old mine. Finally, using the Clean Air-Cool Planet model, the university ran a carbon audit, to provide a baseline for their towards-carbon-neutral trajectory.
I'm grateful when speakers acknowledge obstacles on the path towards sustainability. One of Gibralter's main concerns is with wind turbines, which the local community is opposed to. A lot of forests were clearcut in Frostburg's home of western Maryland for mining, and now that those forests are replenishing themselves, the last thing residents want is to see turbines on their mountaintops.
**I'm Xarissa Holdaway from the Campus Ecology team at the National Wildlife Federation. I'm live-blogging the UMD Smart and Sustainable Campuses Conference, and will be checking in every few hours over the next two days to tell you what I'm learning. Please forgive any spelling/grammar typing mistakes, I'm doing this on the fly and will be returning to edit later!
Comment
April 2010
Some Resources
Financing Sustainability on Campus
Boldly Sustainable: Hope and Opportunity for Higher Education in the Age of Climate Change
Get over there and make your contribution to the Wiki.
Boldly Sustainable: Hope and Opportunity for Higher Education in the Age of Climate Change
Get over there and make your contribution to the Wiki.
About Campus Sustainability Day
Campus Sustainability Day was founded in 2002 as part of the Society for College and University Planning's early efforts—working with Second Nature—to support cross-departmental, cross-disciplinary, cross-functional, integrated campus planning for sustainability. A lot has happened in this area since 2002, and now—although SCUP continues to provide the cornerstone high-quality webcast for Campus Sustainability Day—this network and the day itself are a collaboration between many organizations, including HEASC members and the National Wildlife Federation's Campus Ecology Project.
© 2010 Created by SCUP
You need to be a member of Campus Sustainability Planning Network to add comments!
Join Campus Sustainability Planning Network