A “Greener” Student Move-Out

If you start planning now, you can organize a "green" move-out on your campus this spring - and your students will depart (forever, or just for the summer) with strong memories of being green. Writing in University Business magazine, Daniel H. Weiss, president of Lafayette College (PA) offers some practical advice on how to move your move-outs toward being more green:

Six local charities benefited, including a homeless shelter, a food pantry, and an animal shelter. This “green move-out” helped our neighbors and promoted positive town-gown relations—as well as saved us the costs of hauling these good items away as trash.

Lafayette junior Andrew Carlins says he “was inspired because the project seems like such a simple way to have a large positive impact. There just aren’t many greater opportunities for collecting donations than when students are moving out of college.” Senior Max Bass notes that the majority of donated items “were in extremely good condition.”

Let's Go Green by (Re)Commissioning

Inside Higher Ed's anonymous "Getting to Green" blogger, G. Rendell, describes "commissioning" and "recommissioning" and talks about how the recommissioning can have high sustainability value:

Recommissioning, by comparison, is going through a building which has been in operation for a number of years, and bringing it back "into spec". Whether or not it performed on its first day of duty as it was originally intended to, take steps to fix whatever problems now exist. And problems will, in fact, exist . . . Recomissioning isn't particularly cheap. But it usually pays for itself in 1 - 3 years, based on simple energy savings calculations. Think of it as "deferred maintenance" in the most positive possible sense. Really, it's just intelligent building operation -- the buildling, itself, doesn't have to be intelligent, but the operator clearly does.

Shifting from RECs* to Offfsets (*Renewable Energy Credits)

On the Campus Ecology blog, Xarissa Holdway writes about one AASHE session which matched offsets against renewable energy credits:

To the surprise of the presenter, Dave Newport of CU-Boulder, this afternoon’s discussion of GHG offsets and Renewable Energy Credits didn’t degenerate into fisticuffs or even a red-faced screaming match. In fact, the discussion was downright welcoming, which is what I’ve come to expect of the attendees of this conference. . . . While Newport feels that RECs have had their victories, among them increased market demand for renewable energy and the dismantling of some of the geographical barriers to sustainability, the disadvantages of RECs outweigh the benefits. He lists the public perception of REC’s as a ‘sin tax’, the lack of transparency, a poor sense of closure for buyers, and the lack of added value to the initial investment as cons.

Can Colleges and Local Governments Work Together on the Sustainability Agenda?

This closing plenary panel was moderated by Jim Elder of the Campaign for Environmental Literacy and includes Harvey Rubin, the clerk of the courts from Miami-Date County, FL, Kevin Foy, mayor of Chapel Hill, NC, and Debra Rowe, a professor at Oakland Community College and president of the US Partnership for the Decade of Education for Sustainability:

Debra Rowe, a professor at Oakland Community College who is famously involved in countless sustainability organizations and efforts, said that many campus career offices don’t tell students about the sustainability jobs that city governments will need to fill in the future. Sustainability advocates, she said, should use that potential demand to push sustainability education on campus.

She also said that students should be engaged in projects and learning opportunities in local communities to improve their education. That kind of hands-on learning would not only help the local community but also provide more vital lessons for students.

“Cities can get students out of these dumb assignments where we have students jump through hoops,” she said.

Rowe has, with assistance from SCUP in its inception, creating a "Match.com" to match students seeking real-world challenges for credit with professors, and professors who want to offer such credit with cities and communities at playagreaterpart.org.

Most Trees in UC Berkeley Grove Down, Now

What a difficult time it's been for everyone involved at Berkeley:

Four men sharing a single liter of water, high in a lone redwood, were the last holdout tree sitters in the grove near UC Berkeley's Memorial Stadium on Saturday, as contractors hired by the university cut down and began removing dozens of trees nearby.

The university launched the cutting Friday, taking a decisive step after nearly two years of conflict over what the grove protestors say was a Native American burial ground, a war memorial and a vital ecosystem — and where the school plans to build a new athletic facility. . . .

"They're these huge, 100-, 150-year-old trees. You hear them crack and creak and fall over, and it makes you sick, rips apart your stomach," said UC Berkeley student Rene Carranza, 25. "And this is all so people can do sit-ups in air-conditioning."

Moving More Cars Off Campus

This brief USA Today article by Gwen Purdom uses few words to summarize and share a number of ways campuses are planning to get students on foot or onto two wheels, for health and energy reasons:

This fall, Ripon College in Ripon, Wis., is offering freshmen free mountain bikes, helmets and locks in exchange for a promise not to bring a car to campus. The $300-per-student cost is funded by private donations.

The college's president, David Joyce, says the project was meant to avoid building a parking garage, but its side effects are beneficial: less pollution, more exercise and savings on gas.

The timing was right, Joyce says: "We were either extremely brilliant or extremely lucky."

Green Design Institute at Carnegie Mellon University

Of interest:

1. Green Design Institute [pdf]
http://gdi.ce.cmu.edu/

The Green Design Institute is a "major interdisciplinary education and
research effort to make an impact on environmental quality through green
design." The primary goal of the Institute is to form partnerships with
industry, government, and other foundations in order to develop processes
that "can improve environmental quality and product quality while enhancing
economic development." Located at Carnegie Mellon, the Institute involves
faculty, students, and other partners in their efforts to develop practical
pollution prevention technologies and lower costs by recycling scarce
resources, using fewer raw materials, and creating better products. Visitors
to the site may wish to begin by reading the "About Us" section to learn a
bit more about the Institute. After getting acquainted with the goals of the
Institute, visitors to should visit the "Research" section to learn a bit
about on-going projects on sustainable infrastructure, energy and
environment, life cycle assessment, and environment. Perhaps the most useful
section of the site can be found by clicking on "Education". Here, a link to
eiolca.net can be found, which is economic input-output life cycle
assessment software. The model allows users to estimate the overall
environmental impacts of producing commodities or services in the United
States. In addition, courses and course materials on environmental issues
are available here. [KMG]

From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout 1994-2008.
http://scout.wisc.edu/

The Year in Sustainability - AASHE's Latest Digest' Available

The AASHE Bulletin is a weekly email newsletter that documents accomplishments and shares resources related to advancing sustainability in higher education. If you don't subscribe, you should. AASHE has just released the 230-page "digest" of all of its newsletter content from 2007 (PDF, free).

The Digest offers ample evidence of a broadening and deepening of campus sustainability efforts, with more institutions of all types getting involved and campuses undertaking more significant measures than ever before to improve their sustainability performance. Of particular note is the fact that over the course of 2007, 452 presidents and chancellors committed to climate neutrality by signing the American College & University Presidents' Climate Commitment and at least 35 other colleges and universities announced their own climate commitments and energy conservation plans

Digest stories also document the emergence of ranking and rating systems that compare campuses on sustainability criteria. There were at least 6 separate attempts to evaluate campus sustainability performance in 2007, ranging from the Sustainable Endowments Institute's College Sustainability Report Card to Grist magazine's "15 Green Colleges and Universities." AASHE entered the field as well with the release of the first draft of its Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System (STARS).