ACUPCC Annual Report: Campuses Modeling Behavior for External Communities
Oh, no! You won't be getting a printed SCUP–45 Preliminary Program in the mail this year. Instead, SCUP is going green and regularly updating this digital version (PDF), which you can download at any time. Check it out! You don't want to miss higher education's premier planning conference, and your one chance this year to assemble with nearly 1,500 of your peers and colleagues: July 10–14, Minneapolis.
SCUP Link The new annual report for the American College & University Presidents Climate Commitment (ACUPCC) is available now (PDF). It includes vignettes about successful projects on a wide variety of campuses, and describes efforts to facilitate using what has been learned on campus in local and regional communities. The ACUPCC grew in impact, stature, and size in 2009. With 665 ACUPCC signatory schools by the end of 2009 and a 5400% growth since the launch of the program, the higher education sector is now the first in society to substantially commit to achieving carbon neutrality. Notably, 195 Community Colleges, where thousands of students are being trained for clean energy jobs, are now a part of the ACUPCC, with 29 having joined in 2009.
After completing their greenhouse gas inventories in 2008, the first cohort of signatories reached their next major milestone in 2009: the creation and public release of Climate Action Plans. The Plans, available online at the ACUPCC Reporting System, illustrate the specific steps schools are taking to reduce their emissions through strategies including: using renewable energy, improving energy efficiency, reducing waste, and improving public transportation options. Schools also outline in their Plans innovative ways they are re-orienting their educational offerings to prepare the approximately three million students who graduate each year from their institutions to meet the massive challenge of climate change.
Regional SCUP Events! Enjoy the F2F company of your colleagues and peers at one of three SCUP regional conferences this spring: - April 5–7, San Diego, CA - "Smart Planning in an Era of Uncertainty"
- April 7, Houston, TX - "Sustaining Higher Education in an Age of Challenge"
Labels: ACUPCC, alternative energy, climate change, sustainability
Student Transportation and Carbon Emissions in California Community Colleges
 SCUP–45 offers LUs for AIA.
Thanks to the California Community Colleges GIS Group, we have discovered a very new master's thesis which took a close look at carbon emissions and student transportation. Of value for a look at using info tech (GIS) to solve sustainability issues, and also for a look at the inadequacy of enrollment data to support this kind of research. You'll either find this fascinating or not at all interesting, and it's not exactly easy to figure out how to download the file.
Abstract: California’s system of community colleges is the largest system of higher education in the world; it is comprised of 110 college campuses and over 2.5 million students. Each day millions of students make the daily commute to the campuses. This commute impacts the students in the form of time spent commuting as well as the monetary cost of owning and driving an automobile. The commute also has an environmental impact upon the local community. This project focuses on one of those environmental impacts, the carbon emissions from the automobiles. Both the impact upon the students and the impact upon the community are directly linked to the distance of the commute. By performing network analysis within a geographic information system (GIS) to estimate the distances which students travel to campus it was possible to provide estimates of the impact of the commute upon the students and the communities through which they travel. The commute distances were estimated by calculating the quickest routes between the centroids of the ZIP codes in which the students reside and the campus which they attend. The results of this project were presented to the Foundation for California Community Colleges to help in raising awareness of the impact of student commuting, and to support future research and planning. 
Regional SCUP Events! Enjoy the F2F company of your colleagues and peers at one of three SCUP regional conferences this spring: Labels: carbon emissions, climate change, facilities planning, sustainability, transportation
AASHE Sustainability Discussion Forums Launched
AASHE has launched a suite of campus sustainability discussion forums covering topics in education and research; campus operations; and campus planning, engagement, and administration. Anyone with an interest in learning about or contributing to the growing body of knowledge on campus sustainability may participate in the forums. The aim is to provide a central place for sharing ideas and best practices and asking and answering questions. Contributors are expected to be largely North American, but the forums are open to all. The forum topics parallel the 17 sub-categories in AASHE's Sustainability Tracking, Assessment and Rating System (STARS), released in September (STARS v.1.0 Early Release). The 17 topics are: co-curricular education, curriculum, research, buildings, climate, dining services, energy, grounds, purchasing, transportation, water, waste, coordination and planning, diversity and affordability, human resources, investment, and public engagement.Labels: aashe, climate change, STARS, sustainability
The State of Sustainability: AASHE Annual Review of Sustainability (PDF)
Federal Stimulus Bill: Chasing the Sun
This part of a continuing series of explorations of the economic consequences of parts of the federal stimulus package focuses on solar energy. "The U.S. Department of Energy is still in the process of choosing the projects that will receive loans and deciding how other newly available subsidies will be spent. But the potential windfall is already jump-starting plans for wind farms in the Midwest, massive solar plants in the deserts of southwest Nevada and southeastern California, and geothermal power plants in the Northwest."
Read more: http://www.technologyreview.com/business/22833/Labels: climate change, energy, federal, policy, research, solar, stimulus, sustainability
Paul Rowland to Head the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education
Keeping it Green, Even in a Recession
Kresge Announces New Higher Green Building Standards for Challenge-grant Applicants in Higher Education
In addition to its recent partnering with Second Nature (to assist under-resourced institutions with green building) the Kresge Foundation will require, beginning June 2010, that any "proposals for facilities-capital grants from colleges and universities that plan to use the funding for building projects – new construction, renovations, and expansions" meet minimum LEED Silver standards.
“The Kresge Foundation is very concerned about the long-term impact of global climate change and deeply committed to environmental conservation, which is one of our nine core values,” says Education Program Director William F.L. Moses. “We believe it is important that the nation’s colleges and universities, which have been among the leaders in building green facilities, attain high environmental standards in their building projects.” Read the article here: http://kresge.org/index.php/news/article/kresge_announces_new_higher_green_building_standards_for_challenge-grant_apAnd also, visit the Campus Sustainability Home Page: www.campussustainability.infoLabels: climate change, facilities planning, green building, Kresge, Second Nature, sustainability
Getting the Green Roof Right
We thought this was a nice summary of some of the planning constraints on building successful green roofs:
"The first common dilemma in the construction of living green roofs, and other landscapes over structure, is that, in conventional building, the execution and completion of site work are often subordinated to the completion of the building."
Read the full article from Architecture Week, here: http://www.ArchitectureWeek.com/2009/0527/building_1-1.htmlLabels: architecture, climate action planning, climate change, facilities planning, green buildings, sustainability
National Trends in Sustainability Performance: Lessons from Facilities Leaders
This article from Facilities Manager (PDF) describes some of the findings of a 2008 study (with which SCUP assisted) by the Campus Ecology Project revealed campus operations as leading the effort to green college and university campuses. The study compared 2008 trends with those of 2001 and identified some missed opportunities. Facilities and other operations staff do have a ways to go,
however, in fully seizing the potential to reduce waste and curb
costs. One of the missed opportunities to curb waste and costs is
to monitor energy consumption on a building-by-building basis
through the use of utility sub-meters—only 29 percent report
monitoring energy use in more than 50
percent of the buildings on campus.
Investing in generating clean, renewable
energy on-site is another largely
missed opportunity to curb costs
long-term. Fewer than one-fifth of
schools report using either on-campus
clean sources for heating and cooling
(14 percent of schools) or on-campus
cogenerated heat and electricity (9
percent of schools), and the percentage
generating clean electricity on-site (as
noted above) is even lower. Labels: climate change, sustainability
Climate Action Planning Wiki from AASHE
We've been waiting for this to be launched, as it offers experienced SCUPers the opportunity to contribute integrated planning knowledge in a way that can be easily accessed by the [mostly] young people who are trying to catalyze sustainability-related change on their campuses by climate action planning. Maybe it's the perfect time for you to learn how to contribute to a Wiki (essentially an online, shared editable access, collaborative document). The core of the wiki was written by Walter Simpson, a sustainability expert who has presented during SCUP webcasts and has previously written for Planning for Higher Education. Labels: ACUPCC, climate action planning, climate change, sustainability
Energy Utilities and Sustainability
APPA's Facilities Manager magazine does one of the best jobs in higher education at consistent, regular theme issues on important topics. Its current March/April 2009 issue is an exemplar, with the theme of "Energy Utilities and Sustainability." Articles include: " Campus Climate Neutrality - Yes We Can! It's a Big Challenge, But Here's How to Do It" (PDF) by Walter Simpson; " Carbon Emissions Trading and Combined Heat and Power Strategies: Unintended Consequences" (not yet available on line) by John C. Tysseling, Mary Vosevich, Benjamin R. Boersma, and Jeffery A. Zumwalt; " National Trends in Sustainability Performance: Lessons from Facilities Leaders" (PDF) by Kristy M. Jones and L. Julian Keniry; and " LEDs: DOE Programs Add Credibility to a Developing Technology" by Susan Conbrere (not yet available on line). Labels: climate change, energy, facilities, sustainability, utilities
Mayors Climate Protection Center: Big Cities and 'Going Green'
 SCUP–44's opening plenary speaker, Susan Anderson, was formerly the director of Portland's Office of Sustainable Development. Her new role combines responsibility for both sustainability and planning for the city. How interesting. Be sure to be there in Portland, July 18–22 for Values and Vision Create the Future.
The Mayors Climate Protection Center was launched in early 2007 to provide mayors with the guidance and assistance they need to lead their cities’ efforts to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that are linked to climate change. Throughout the nation there is clear evidence that mayoral leadership is producing business and community support for policies that reduce emissions. While progress is already being made in many cities, our goal must be to increase the number of cities involved in the effort, and to equip all cities with the knowledge and tools that ultimately will have the greatest impact on undo the causes of global warming.
The website includes what you would normally expect, but also has sections titled "Reports and Surveys" as well as "Best Practices." We took a look in detail at one of the PDFs shared in "Best Practices" titled Climate Protection: Featuring 2008 Mayors' CLimate Protection Award Winning Enties, (PDF), which is a 27-page document with brief case studies of some city-initiated projects, nearly all of which could have been done by a campus or in collaboration with one. Labels: cities, climate change, sustainability
The Best Idea Yet for Greening Campus IT
The anonymous sustainability blogger (Who is in charge of his campuses' ACUPCC work), G. Rendell, has a new idea: Now there’s a better idea. It will take a while to work the details out and even longer to get the infrastructure in place, but it’s basically a flash of brilliance. So much of the electricity consumed on campus goes into various electronic appliances (using the term in its broadest sense). Each of them has its own, individual power converter, and the simple act of converting the AC to DC accounts for about 20-30% of the electricity used. But remember, we have to convert the power from high-voltage AC because that’s what we have available in every office. Meanwhile, campuses are installing solar arrays and wind turbines and other means of generating electricity. Solar panels generate low-voltage DC, which has to be converted to high-voltage AC before it can get fed into the campus electrical network. Wind turbines can generate AC or DC equally well, but the more voltage they’re required to generate, the more wind you need. (See where this is going?) Why not have a separate electrical network across campus, which delivers appropriate low-voltage DC to offices and (maybe) residence halls. There’d need to be standards worked out, but even if some voltage step-up or step-down were required some of the time, the losses would be far less than in the AC-to-DC scenario we’re now facing. And campuses are locales where a separate network could (relatively) easily be installed. And DC could be generated effectively and efficiently on more campuses than can AC. And the DC network could include significant power storage to smooth out the power available, as well as a (centrally converted, larger scale hence more efficient) feed from the electrical grid to assure power availability even at the end of long stretches of sunless, windless days and nights.
Labels: ACUPCC, climate change, energy, sustainability
Understanding More About Geothermal Systems
Even if you're not in facilities planning, you may want to be a bit more knowledgeable about "geothermal." If that's the case, this brief article by Bill Johnson (PDF), from Facilities Manager, is for you. [T]he rising cost of energy has your institution focused on improving energy efficiency on campus. Now it’s up to you and your fellow campus facility managers to create mitigation strategies. One such strategy might be right there under your feet. Ground source geothermal energy enables us to tap into the earth’s stored renewable energy for heating and cooling facilities. Proper application of ground-source geothermal technology can have a dramatic impact on the efficiency and financial performance of building energy utilization (30%+). At the same time, using this alternative energy resource can provide significant contributions to an institution’s carbon reduction goals. How can you take advantage of this potential energy source to meet campus carbon footprint reduction goals, capital budgets, and return on investment?
This article reviews the state-of-the-practice and the kinds of engineering and programmatic expertise that are required to properly scale geothermal applications up to the institutional level and provide optimized benefits. Some pitfalls of poorly-designed systems are described, and approaches to avoid these are presented. But first, the big picture on geothermal systems.
Labels: ACUPCC, alternative energy, climate change, geothermal, sustainability
Another Way Not to Sustain Ourselves
G. Rendell muses on what we'll call "crises-in-waiting"—worldwide environmental problems affecting everyone and almost inevitably coming, such as widespread problems with access to water. Once you start taking a close look at the sustainability of your campus, water clearly becomes a strategic priority: So, a culture failing to sustain itself would hardly be a first. (And, if we survive this one, will probably happen again in future.) But every resource on which we depend — since none of them is, in truth, inexhaustible — constitutes another opportunity to fail. Climate is one of those resources. So is breathable air. So is topsoil (or other fertile medium for growing food). So is potable water.
And it’s the imminent water crisis which has my attention, at the moment. According to the World Health Organization, over a billion people don’t currently have access to clean water. The IPCC predicts that this shortage (which climate disruption will aggravate, but didn’t create) will affect twice as many people by 2050, and three times as many by 2080. If nations (and “illegal combatants") are willing to go to war to protect their access to oil, what will they do to protect their access to water? Doesn’t sound like a good time to me. Labels: climate change, sustainability, water
Climate Change: Stronger, Faster, Sooner
From Architecture Week, a discussion of impacts on health, food, ecosystems, water, and more: Recent scientific research — published since the deadline for the latest assessment report from the IPCC — reveals that global warming is accelerating far beyond the 2007 IPCC forecasts. This brief collects some of the key findings, including particular impacts of climate change in Europe. . . . Indeed important aspects of climate change seem to have been underestimated and the impacts are being felt sooner. For example, early signs of change suggest that the less than 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) of global warming that the world has experienced to date may have already triggered the first tipping point of the Earth's climate system — the disappearance of summer Arctic sea ice. This process could open the gates to rapid and abrupt climate change, rather than the gradual changes that have been forecast so far. Labels: carbon emissions, climate change, climate disruption, sustainability
How to Shop for Carbon Offsets (+ Update on STARS)
From Elizabeth Redden at Inside Higher Ed: At the AASHE conference, representatives from the American College and University Presidents Climae Commitment released guidelines to assist colleges and universities in their purchase of carbon offsets and AASHE representatives discussed progress with the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System (STARS): Under the Presidents Climate Commitment, colleges set their own time frames for reaching a climate-neutral state. In the short term, given current constraints like fossil fuel-based electricity grids and inefficient older buildings, a college looking to quite quickly cut net emissions to zero would probably have to rely in part on the controversial and confusing process of purchasing carbon offsets, according to new, 73-page guidelines released by the Presidents Climate Commitment at the conference Monday.
The authors of the guidelines are sensitive to the criticism that offsets allow wealthy institutions to “buy their way out” of their sins by purchasing credits for emissions reduced elsewhere but not through their own activities. The guidelines emphasize that colleges should focus on reductions within their own organizations first, while “investments in offsets can be made as soon as these activities are initiated” (in other words, the two steps can happen simultaneously, so long as internal reductions are first pursued and prioritized).
***
In addition to conducting inventories of their greenhouse gas emissions, many colleges have been conducting more general sustainability audits, a process described in depth at a session on “Assessing Sustainability” Monday afternoon. Several speakers described using the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System, a common self-reporting framework being piloted by about 90 institutions that offers the promise of comparisons across institutions over time.
Others described institution-specific efforts. Beau Mitchell, sustainability coordinator for the College of the Menominee Nation, in Wisconsin, described combing through other colleges’ sustainability audits to identify 108 indicators applicable to tribal colleges. Given the high value many Native American tribes place on the land, he described incorporating cultural indicators, quantifying how many students speak a native language or attend ceremonies, for instance, and gaining qualitative data through interviews. “What did your elders tell you about the woods; what did your elders tell you about the water?” Labels: aashe, ACUPCC, carbon, carbon offsets, climate change, STARS, sustainability
The President and the Planet, On a Budget
From Andrew C. Revkin of The New York Times (who recently moderated the discussion on SCUP's Campus Sustainability Day 6 webcast, October 22): President-elect Barack Obama on Jan. 20 will become the most important leader of a species that has exploded in just six generations from a total population of 1 billion (around 1830) to a point today when teenagers alone number 1 billion, a species that is on a path toward more or less 9 billion people by mid-century. In numbers, think roughly of adding two Chinas on top of the one that exists today. Expectations that he will exert planet-scale leadership are high, as indicated in this letter from Nelson Mandela to the next president. Labels: climate change, sustainability
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