Post on 22-Mar-2016
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cookbook for the (sustainable) university14 innovations in practice
Richard Engels Anna Harnmeijer
Hart voor de ondernemer, oog voor de leefomgeving
Wat kunnen wij voor bedrijven betekenen?Wij ondersteunen bedrijfs voering op het gebied van milieu, kwaliteit en arbo. Bij ons zijn bedrijven verzekerd van een uitvoerbaar, onafhankelijk en betaalbaar advies.
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BMD Advies 6 vestigingen in heel NederlandVestiging ElstTel 0481 483188 of s.witjes@cn.bmdadvies.nlwww.bmdadvies.nl
Wet & Regelgeving• Uitvoeren RI&E op het gebied van facilitair management• Opstellen projectplan ten behoeve van het voorkomen van risico’s• Energiebesparingonderzoek• CO2-scan• Geluidsmetingen• Luchtvochtigheidmetingen• Werkplekonderzoek
Kwaliteit & Zorgsystemen• Kwaliteit & Milieu zorg• Interne audits• Energiezorg• Klanttevredenheidonderzoek• Opzetten en implementeren calamiteitenplan• Verzorgen van diverse trainingen
Duurzaamheid & Innovatie • Duurzaamheidplatform• CO2-footprint• Duurzaam inkopen
Foreword
“If not our universities and colleges, then who will lead the way to sustainable practice?”Julian Keniry, Senior director at the National Wildlife Federation’s Youth and Campus programs, USA.
There are currently 64 universities and colleges in the Netherlands enrolling about 578000 stu-dents per year. With a combined budget of about 9400 million Euros per year, higher educational institutes in the Netherlands have a substan-tial influence on the integration of sustainable practices by their business partners and in the wider community. Universities and colleges are our source of innovation: they shape our un-derstanding of the world and the decisions and behaviour of our future work force.Although universities are good at demonstrating the scale of the environmental problems and are breeding grounds for sustainable technolo-gies, the knowledge they generate is only slow-ly seeping into the daily operational practices of the university organization, let alone generat-ing ripple effects in the wider community. This booklet is thus partly about short-cuts to imple-menting sustainable alternatives in universities and colleges. Rather than waiting to implement industrialized proven-technologies, universities and colleges can step to the forefront of the societal transition towards sustainability, by be-coming test-beds for social and technological in- house innovations. As S.H. Creighton wrote in her book Greening the ivory tower, universi-ties are “microcosms of society”. As organiza-tions composed of multiple actors with differ-ent roles, talents and resources, they provide an ideal ‘live laboratory’ to test and showcase these innovations in practice.
This booklet describes a selection of unique projects across the world in which knowledge, leadership and university or college operational management come together. During the mak-ing of this book, we glimpsed the enourmous variety of impressive sustainability initiatives, each driven by a small core of passionate and ambitious student, staff or external leaders. Far from being a comprehensive overview of sus-tainable university practices, we adopt a cook-book formula to describe the process by which a small selection of inspiring sustainability initia-tives were developed. Each recipe is an insight into the resources and actors that need to be mobilized to use opportunities and overcome constraints in setting up these iniatives.These 14 innovations in practice demonstrate several common denominators: individual lead-ership, novel forms of collaboration and simply utilizing opportunities that are up for grabs!
p20 Sustainable Architecture
p10 Ctrl-Alt-Del emissions
p36 Open source Beer
p40 ecoworks
p8 Eat less CO2
p12 Unidiesel
p38 ECU Earth Day
p30 ecological aesthetics
p32 Ozzie HotRot
p22 Campus Climate Sollutions
p24 Gung-ho on water quality
p33 Tufts Recycles!
p12 Deep Fried Fuel
p16 Gorillas on the rise
p27 Financing sustainable practices
“[As a university employee] you are constrained by your organization.[..] In this respect, stu-dents are lucky in that they have the freedom to demand changes, irrespective of universitypro-cesses and procedures. And so they should!” Guido van Gemert, Environmental Health and Safety officer at Radboud University Nijmegen, Netherlands “We invite students to invite us in their organiza-tion [...] The university is a learning experience, and we want students to approach us about recycling bins. We might have already picked up the issue, but we won’t tell students. We invite students to point stuff out to us. They have many eyes and see many things. Some of these things we see as well, and others we don’t.” G. Rendall (pseudonym), blogger at insidehigered.com “We like working with students, they are very energetic, and sometimes take leadership on sustainability issues that are left unattended by the university. [For example,] students here have picked up to need for more awareness about energy conservation. Students are great at rais-ing relevant and overlooked issues.” Guido van Gemert, environmental officer at RUN, The Netherlands.
“By involving students in removal of smaller weeds and replanting of the site, we aim to create some feeling of ownership and urban stewardship for the project site.” Beth Mitchell, Environmental Officer on biodiversity, Australian National University
“When students can find ways to incorporate sustainability related issues on ground into re-search projects or get credit for them they really come on board in a hurry” Jessica Wenger, UVa, USA
“[Working with students] has its ups and downs, but by and large we have been very pleased with the students: it has taken a lot of load from us in having them go out and collecting all the field data. It requires a little more work in terms of organization, but students we’ve had have been pulling up a lot” Jeff Sitler, EHS staff member at UVa
STUDENT LED INITIATIVES
Stage Communicatie en Marketing bij CREM B.V. te Amsterdam
MDG Scan Internship Sustainalytics bij Sustain-alytics te Bunnik
Stage Communicatie en
Marketing bij CREM B.V. te
Amsterdam
Statiaire educatieve uitgeverij
bij Codename Future in
Den Haag
Stagiaire Initiatiefrijke projectassistent voor scholieren-versie Treemagochi bij Stichting Kairos Tools
Voor een stageplaats waar je naast het behalen van studiepunten ook bijdraagt aan duurzame ontwikkelingen in de wereld.
DUURZAMEstagebank
Meewerkstage SNS Asset Management bij SNS REAAL te ’s Hertogenbosch
NJR Wants You (Nationale Jeugdraad) landelijk
Stage nieuwe communicatie en
communicatiestrategie bij
FairGround Sessions in Amsterdam
Stage afdeling Client Services bij
Robin Good te Amsterdam
Stagiair Hosting en stagiair programmering bij The Hub in Rotterdam
MDG Scan Internship Sustainalytics bij Sustainalytics te Bunnik
Kijk snel op www.duurzamestagebank.nl 7
(institute) ETH Zürich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology) (where) Zürich, Switzerland (objective) To realize a shift towards a more sustainable food demand, supply and consumption on campus (what is it) Convince your university catering service to offer and clientele to buy more sustainable, cheap and tasty meals.
(ingredients) 1 university with a canteen, Mensa or catering service 1 yummy sustainable vegetarian menu1
4 students to co-ordinate the programme 1 person of authority of choice at your university 1 Jamie Oliver (servings) Reduces the carbon footprint of 15 university cafete-rias and restaurants. Promotes sustainable eating habits of 14.000 stu-
dents and 7.111 university employees
Make the university board, facility manage-ment and caterer commit to cheap, sustain-able and tasty food. A life cycle analysis com-paring the carbon emissions from the current restaurant menu with a (partly) local vegetarian local menu quantifies the step towards a carbon neutral campus5. Right now, campus cater-ers refrain from offering cheap vegetarian food because they think clientele won’t buy it, and because the university does not demand it. By demonstrating the impressive benefits and pro-moting the project, Judith hopes to mobilize the various actors in the university to make sustain-able catering a collective concern and ambition of the university community.
(serving suggestions) Use customer surveys to reveal which sustain-able meals are equally or more preferred by staff and student canteen and restaurant clientele than current less sustainable alternatives. Be pragmatic. Plead for the diet change with the largest reduction potential and easiest applica-bility. Don’t be a militant vegan, vegetarian or environmentalist. Let your university commit itself to support student research projects on the sustainability of diets and reward students with study credits.
Let your university commit itself to integrate newly available knowledge and know-how into the Mensa menus offered. Create a website that receives and displays new sustainable recipes, with a ‘diet emission cal-culation tool’ and with relevant campus news to involve the university community in the project. Scout the region for local produce and poten-tial partnerships, preferably with your campus caterer. (thanks to) Judith Ellens, student ETH Zürich
Eat Less CO2
(links) 1 www.ivu.org/recipes/indian-root/curried.html 2 www.fao.org/docrep/010/a0701e/a0701e00.HTM 3 www.ecoworks.ethz.ch 4 www.sustec.ethz.ch 5 www.lcafood.dk
(recipe) Realize the potential for CO2 reduction through changing eating habits. Our food production and consumption is responsible for a large amount of greenhouse gases and that the livestock sector contributes as much to climate change as traffic2. Consumers are generally unaware of the carbon footprint of their diet, and although the caterer at ETH offers organic and vegetarian foods, those who choose for sustain-able meals are not rewarded in their choice or made aware of its consequences. Vegetarian meals are just as expensive as their meat-con-taining counterparts.
Organize a network of professors, policy makers, students and facility managers. Eat Less CO2 started after winning a prize for ‘most emission reductions’ at a workshop by the Eco-works Platform for CO2 Projects3. Judith Ellens has started to involve different parties necessary to make a change towards sustainable menu’s in the university cafeteria. The Ecoworks workshop facilitated contact with facilities management, and Judith has approached several university professors to assist in doing a life cycle as-sessment. Additionally, two Phd students from SustTec4 will provide organizational support in launching event that will put sustainable food in the picture.
Design an alternative, sustainable veg-etarian menu. Eat-less-CO2-volunteers will compose a low carbon menu consisting of local and seasonal vegetarian products. With this alternative menu, Judith hopes to win the hearts of university caterers to discuss what big wins can be made in menu composition.
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(institute) Universiteit van Amsterdam (UvA) (where) Amsterdam, The Netherlands (objective) To eliminate all CO2 emissions of a big computer room and build the first climate-neutral computer room in the Netherlands. (servings) 50% reduction in electricity spent on lighting 30% reduction in energy used by computers Increased student and staff awareness about sustain-able university practices 42.822 kWh of renewable energy generated per year 1 nomination for the Digikring Award 20081
(ingredients) 2 devoted students 1 sustainable movement in the student council 1 computer hall with 248 computers 1 flat roof near the computer facility A dash of willingness among university facility and ICT employees Government, municipal and university goals to reduce C02 emissions. €150,000 financial support from the university Board of Directors
(links) 1 www.ict-co2.nl 2 www.kiesmei.nl (NL) 3 www.studentenraad.nl/duurzaamheid (NL) 4 www.studentenraad.nl/csr (NL) For the project presentation movie (NL) see: www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Wu8Fo4b5dM 5 www.klimaatbureau.nl 6 www.senternovem.nl/sde 7 eetd.lbl.gov/EA/Reports/39466/ (EN)
or www.studentenraad.nl/csr
Ctrl-Alt-Del emissions
(recipe) Make sustainability a primary goal in the university student council. Kiesmei, the big-gest student party in the UvA student parlia-ment1, took a sustainable university as one of its five primary goals. Eight members of the student council formed a Commission on Sustainability2. Two of them devoted a large amount of their time to sustainable solutions and came up with the idea of a climate neutral computer hall, in which energy use reduction is combined with production of renewable energy3. Acquire funds and support for the realisa-tion of the project. Both the UvA Board of Di-rectors and the UvA Facility and ICT department have committed to support the programme. Financial support will be provided by the UvA board of directors, the municipality of Amster-dam, KlimaatBureau Amsterdam4 and several other government subsidies supporting renew-able energy generation5 Develop a PC Power Management system for university computers6. These configu-rations allow computers to minimize energy consumption when not in use. Screensavers are replaced by software that automatically puts the screen on standby after a short time of inactivity. Other software will switch computers off auto-matically at night from a central point. These two measures will lead to a 30% energy reduction. Install windmills and solar panels on the roof of the university building. 8 small-scale wind turbines and 19 solar systems will be installed, generating 42.822 kWh of alternative energy per year.
Exchange regular TL-lights for LED TL-lights. LED TL-lights will reduce 50 % of the electricity spent on lighting. Promote the project among students and university employees. Each computer will indicate that the room is climate neutral. Media attention, a huge ‘energy mirror’, and a grand opening during a university-wide sustainability week will raise the project profile and sensitize the university community to sustainable univer-sity practices.
(serving suggestions) Enable regular communication between students and the university policy mak-ers. A lot of students have good ideas for a more sustainable university, but members of the student council are blessed with the advantage of the right to advise and regularly meet with the university board.
Gain university support to expand and implement the project university-wide. The University of Amsterdam has already planned to copy the PC Power Management plan to all other student computer facilities in the university, reducing the electricity bill with €10,363 a year. If all the computers of the university’s employees would be included in the project, cost savings from reduced energy use would amount to €175,985 per year.
(thanks to) Justus Dengerink, CSR UvA
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(institute) Massachusetts Institute of Technology (where) Boston, United States (objective) To run MITcampus shuttle buses on waste oil (servings) Saves the university €3.200 in waste disposal fees Saves the university up to €9.500 in fuel costs Lowers the universities’ carbon footprint Revenue worth €2.200 p/annum
(where) Technical University of Crete, Chania, Greece. (objective) To design and implement a functional energy- autonomous biodiesel unit to fuel university vehicles. (what is it) Unidiesel collects waste-oils from restaurants, and prevents oils to end up in sew-age or landfill. Using a self-sustained waste-oil conversion unit, Unidiesel fuels university vehicles with renewable biodiesel. (ingredients) 1 Oikos International Award recognizing outstanding entrepreneurial student pro-jects in the field of sustainable development. 1 award-winning technology design for an energy-autonomous biodiesel unit 3 engineering students, exploiting the full potential of their new technology design €9000 in funds, provided by a Cretan student business initiative fund called UniStep 1 academic community ready to lend a hand 1 building, constructed specifically for the project About 2,500 tonnes of waste oil per year from the Crete tourism sector 1 contract with the university facility department for fuel delivery at €0.80 per litre.
(recipe) Design an autonomous biodiesel production unit. UniDiesel1 started as an entry in a UNES-CO contest called the MondiaLogo Engineering Award2. I. Sarantapoulos c.s entered a unique design for a fully solar- powered biodiesel production unit based on palmoil. The entry received an honourable mention in 2005. The project was also awarded with the 2007 Innovact European Young Entrepeneurs Award3, and the 2008 Oikos International Student Award4.
Realize the potential of your invention for improving the universities environmental per-formance. The waste oil produced in the tourism sector in Crete is a good, free source of oil for biodiesel production. By selling the biodiesel to the university for on-campus use, in time the project can be financially autonomous, while decreasing the carbon footprint of Chania University.
And solve a persistent waste problem on the side. Currently, there is no collection system for waste-oils, nor are there legal requirements for disposal. The total waste flux, some 800-1000 tonnes of oil annually for the city Chania alone, is currently discarded through the sewage system, or brought to a landfill. This disrupts the wastewater treatment plants, and pollutes the groundwater and surface water.
Attract funding from a student business initiative fund. A fund aimed at stimulating stu-dent business initiatives, Unidiesel started constructing a prototype of their biodiesel production unit.
(ingredients) 2 students with backgrounds in chemical and mechanical engineering dedicated to fuelling the university shuttles using biodiesel. 1 program stimulating undergraduate involve-ment in cutting edge, ongoing research1. 1 multi-disciplinary team consisting of 6 students in environmental engineering, chemical engineering and economics. 10.000 litres of waste oil p/annum. €20.000 in funds from the mtvU/GE ecoma-gination2 award. €2.400 in funds from MIT and a €12.000 loan from the MIT. 1 solar - powered MBP Bioenergy Vegetable Oil Conversion Unit, worth €12.000. 1 contract with MIT Department of Facilities for selling the fuel. A laboratory to accommodate biodiesel process-ing on campus grounds.
(recipe) Dare to dream of converting a fleet of 6 campus shuttle busses from diesel to bio- diesel. The Biodiesel@MIT3 project was initi-ated in fall 2006 by Joe Roy-Mayhew and Matt Zedler, both students in bio-engineering. They realized that waste vegetable oils from campus cafeteria and restaurants could be converted into fuel, reducing GHG emissions and reusing waste at the same time.
Promote the project to win university sup-port, and win an award on the side. Although the Biodiesel@MIT project was initiated with the help of both the Universities Environmental Health and Safety office and the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP)1, the project struggled for financial resources and ac-commodation on campus. Because the project group was not part of a faculty or research
Deep Fried FuelU
nid
iese
lgroup, the university could not decide on where to house the project. Additional university sup-port started to materialize only after the project won the mtvU/GE Ecomagination prize2.
Start up your own biodiesel production facility. The purchase of a conversion unit was made possible by an existing university fund and loan scheme providing a €2,200.00 donation a €12,000.00 respectively. Biodiesel@MIT is now operating as a non- profit organization and will start producing fuel in spring 2009. To allow for start-up irregularities in the fuel, the project will begin to deliver a 5% biodiesel mixture, and build up to provide a 20% mixture within the next few years.
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The unit has a productive capacity of 60 litres a day, and runs on a 80 watt photovoltaic solar panel, and a solar collector for heating the reactor. Testing has been completed in 2008, and Unidiesel is ready to start producing Biodiesel this summer.
And start producing Biodiesel of excellent quality, using only solar power. Unlike most biodiesels, Unidiesel produces fuel that can be used without blending with fossil fuels. Because the energy content of biodiesel is 10 percent lower than ordinary diesel, Unidiesel sells the diesel at 10 percent of the price of ordinary diesel. Still, the business model looks profitable, and I. Saran-toupolous c.s. look to expand the project into a profitable business.
(serving suggestions) Currently, UniDiesel cannot ask money for their waste collection service, because restaurants have no cost in disposing of the waste. Greek law makes no requirements for the disposal of waste oils, which makes Unidiesels businessmodel less profitable. A change in government policy would place the burden of cost at the polluters instead of the cleaners. (links) 1 www.mondialogo.tuc.gr 2 www.mondialogo.org 3 www.innovact.com 4 www.oikos-international.org
Sell your product to the facilities depart-ment. Biodiesel@MIT has signed a contract with the facilities department to sell the biodiesel at 0,30 $ a litre. However, the project will continue to run as a non-profit organization because of the tax and administrative burden that comes with a business organization.
(serving suggestions) Charge a fee for the service of waste collection from campus restaurants. This would make the project less dependent on gifts and loans. Before the project started campus restaurants were paying to have their waste oil removed. Biodiesel@MIT collects the waste for free.
Link the project to research and edu- cation on renewable fuel technology. The Biodiesel@MIT project is an ideal display for renewable fuel technology, and can complement the existing environmental technology curricu-lum. Conversely, the project can benefit from ongoing research in the same field. Right now, the link between Biodiesel@MIT and research and education activities remains minimal.
(thanks to) Sara Barnowski, President of Biodiesel@MIT (2009) (links) 1 http://web.mit.edu/urop 2 www.ecocollegechallenge.com 3 http://web.mit.edu/biodiesel 4 http://web.mit.edu/environment/ehs/ehs_ management.shtml
(thanks to) Ioannis Sarantopoulos, Student at Technical University of Crete
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(institute) McGill University (where) Montreal, Quebec, Canada (objective) “To construct an organic recycling plan for the McGill community, because composting is a necessity and a responsibility”.
process by providing lots of nitrogen rich mate-rial. The farm was only 30mins away from the campus by truck and the material delivered was composted in an open field in windrows. Drum up members. For a $5 annual subscrip-tion, individuals receive a 4 litre re-sealable con-tainer, and plenty of sawdust to adsorb excess moisture which can be emptied at an organic waste depot on McGill campus. At the end of the season, subscribers can collect unlimited quantities of premium grade compost for free. Additionally, Gorilla Composting sells a 25$ garden composter, which consumers can fill up without worrying about weekly drop-offs. Gorilla Composting organizes public worm composting workshops and their website explains all about the intricacies of do-it yourself composting. Muster collaboration with waste providers. Gorilla Composting works together with selected restaurants and campus cafeterias to gather organic waste without too much contamination. Restaurant managers were contacted on an individual basis, and readily agreed to provide source separated organic waste for compost-ing, perhaps because they see the mass of food wasted each day. Unfortunately campus establishments did not save money on waste pickup because McGill had a flat rate contract with the garbage disposal company. Garbage and transport companies were hired at double the regular rates, because they were not going to the landfill, so it was considered as 2 trips instead of 1. It cost around $330 for each 20 or 40 cubic yard container.
Attract funds to upscale the project. Campus- wide operation of the composting programme required funds for staff and trucks to collect, store and transport food waste. Gorilla
(what is it) Gorilla Composting1 is a student-run initia-tive that gathers organic waste from campus cafeterias, university buildings and individuals, and transports in to a local farm where it is pro-cessed into compost. Compost is made freely available to its subscribers. (ingredients) A dozen crazy student organizers willing to work hard on voluntary basis. 350 litres of organic waste per week. Several hundred subscribers, paying an annual fee of 5$. 1 drop-off location on the campus grounds. 1 composting facility at a local farm. Half a dozen professors and environmental engineering students providing the know-how for optimizing the compost process. Several student groups and an alumni founda-tion that can be persuaded to contribute funds and collectively contribute thousands of dollars based on a student proposal. Support from campus cafeteria managers and facility staff
(recipe) Realize that it requires unconventional methods to make the university sustain-able. ‘Gorilla composting’ is a pun on ‘guerilla tactics’, chosen because the group realized it would require fundamental changes in manage-ment to make McGill University sustainable. Set up a system that works and is cheap to op-erate. The reason Gorilla Composting was cheap to operate was that they chose not to install new industrial machinery, complex operation or staff. Gorilla Composting simply dumped 20 cubic yard containers onto a farm. The farm was happy to receive this because it helped their composting
Gorillas on the riseComposting demonstrated that this could be done after receiving $15,000 from the Alumni Association. The campus-wide system ran for over 1 year, recovering waste from nearly all establishments on campus, but ceased in spring 2007 because the university administration refused to take any managerial or support-ing role in the system, and the student project ran out of funding. Despite potential savings in garbage costs and improved environmental image, the administration has still not developed the campus wide collection program, although Gorilla Composting demonstrated a functional system, which operated very cheaply. Despite the downsizing, Gorilla now operates a drop off for members who still want to compost in downtown Montreal.
(missing ingredients) Support from university management is essen-tial. Students currently leading the Gorilla Com-posting initiative are convinced that an industrial composter is needed to up-scale the project to serve the entire campus with an organic waste collection service. This composter could process 100 tons of organic waste per year and would require modest university funding. In 2009 Go-rilla Composting will organize a university petition to demand university support.
(thanks to) Kealan Gell, waste-crazed MSc. student in Agricultural Engineering, Wageningen University and ex- Gorilla Composter.
(links) 1 http://gorilla.mcgill.ca
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Our ‘Campus Environment 2008’ study showed that only a minority of schools are educating the majority of students about natural systems at the very basic level. Even less are translating that into how human beings are impacting natural systems and what can practically be done about that. Only about 4% require all students to take a sustainability class. The most disturbing trend is that if you major in engineering or business or health sciences or teacher education you are much less likely to gain that exposure.Julian Keniry, Senior director at the National Wild-life Federation’s Youth and Campus programs, USA
On the translation between knowing and doingIt’s hard to know why there have been no behavioural changes [since the introduction of concept of sustainability]. If we were educating for sustainability we could say something about this transformation into behavioural change, but we have not been educating for sustainability! Most of what we know about the translation of knowledge into behaviour is anecdotal. But part of the reason I am doing this work and so many people that I know are doing this work is because we were inspired by a teacher. I think faculty are tremendously influential. Yes if it’s a boring course, it might not be transformative, but I think you have to start with education.Julian Keniry(where we are now)
(the smallest step)
(your vision on sustainability)
On novel forms of educationAll of those students who are stepping up on social justice issues should be treated as leaders and campuses should pay for them to spend a summer on teaching them basic civics: how does the system work and how do you influence it?Julian Keniry
On the integration of sustainability criteria in curriculaHistorically, environmental issues have been remained within the category ‘environment and technology’; [in architecture] the emphasis has been on the design and the technology has been a secondary concern, added to the initial design afterwards.Alison Pooley, Program Coordinator at the Cen-tre for Alternative Technology, Wales. “It is actually nice to have the laboratory in your backyard. So often, faculty is running off 100 miles away to research sites. Our stormwater management site is a teaching tool and case study for urban planning classes, environmental science classes and civil engineering classes situated right next to our classrooms ”. Jeff Sitler, EHS staff member at the University of Virginia, USA
EDUCATION & CURRICULUM
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(institute) Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT), University of East London, (UEL) (where) Machynlleth, Wales (what is it) An environmental organization and a univer-sity collaborate to offer Master programs in sustainable architecture and technology. (ingredients) An NGO with 35 years of experience in alternative technology 1 university professor interested in alternative technology 18 students interested in a mix of traditional and modern technologies Recognition from professional architectural organizations “You can legislate for change, you can legislate against people building things out of concrete, but what you canít legislate is the values that underpin why they would want to do that”Alison Pooley
Get the course validated by professional organizations. Altough CAT has received many student inquiries, part of the architecture world in Britain has remained hesitant about the MSc programmes. The Architects Registration Board2 has validated the Masters programme, and The Royal Institute for British Architects3 will validate the AEES in 2010 once the first cohort of stu-dents has completed the program.
(serving suggestions) One of the problems in validating the courses lies in the categorization of course criteria. The issue of sustainability is boxed as a separate cri-terion, isolated from criteria of design or legisla-ture. By focussing more on design, environmen-tal issues are addressed at the end rather than throughout the process of architectural design. By teaching the MSc courses, CAT promotes a more integral approach to designing buildings.
(recipe) Build a solid reputation as a knowledge centre for sustainable technology. The Centre for Alternative Technology1 started out in 1973 as a community dedicated to eco-friendly principles and a ‘test bed’ for new ideas and technologies. It quickly started to display its own take on sustainable technology in a permanent exhibition. The organization has since grown to employ 90 staff members and 60 part-time volunteers. Dedicated to educating principles of sustainable technology, CAT offers on site activities, expositions and courses to a variety of target groups, including university students. Offer study activities to university students. Cooperation between UEL and CAT started when one university teacher started to include a week long study visit to the centre to the cur-riculum of an UEL MSc in architecture. Students liked the CAT programme, which included practical as well as theoretical components, and suggested CAT should host the entire course. UEL started hosting the UEL master for one week every month. Since 2005, the course is run fully by CAT staff.
Develop your own master programs. Since 2007 the CAT Graduate School of the Environ-ment, CAT offers MSC two courses: Archi-tecture: Advanced Environmental and Energy Studies (AEES), and Renewable Energy in the Built Environment (REBE), which are taught by CAT and validated by UEL. Additionally, CAT offers a course leading up to a professional ar-chitecture diploma since 2008. The courses are interdisciplinary, ranging from building physics to environmental economics.
(links) 1 www.cat.org.uk 2 www.arb.org.uk 3 www.architecture.com
(thanks to) Alison Pooley and Joan Randle, CAT UK
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(institute) Gainesville Community College; University of Florida (where) Gainesville, Florida (objective) To set up a work-and-learn greenhouse gas emissions consulting course (what is it) Campus Climate Solutions (CSS) is a com-pany offering a work-and-learn course open to students and the wider public, as well as emissions consulting services at affordable prices. (Alison Erlenbach, Campus Climate Solutions) “…train people to find real solutions to climate change.” (ingredients) 1 ambitious student initiator 1 community college offering classrooms free of charge to accommodate courses Half a dozen teachers willing to consult free of charge 1 dozen students ambitious in the field of climate consulting 1 government that wants to cut CO2 emissions fast.
Campus Climate Solutions1
(recipe) Realize the potential of the greenhouse gas emissions management sector. When Campus Climate Solutions (CSS) initiator Alison Erlenbach did a GHG emission inventory for the Univer-sity of Florida (UF), she realized the lack of skilled consultants in this field. Many of reports to the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment, an agreement amongst higher education institutes in North America that compares emission inventory reports amongst signatory universities, were of considerable lower quality than Erlenbach’s work as a student intern at UF. With President Obama committing to combating climate change, Erhlenbach expects the market for consulting in this field will expand rapidly. The ‘2009 Greenhouse Gas & Climate Change Workforce Needs Assessment Survey Report’2 states that there will be a critical shortage of climate mitigation. Win an international prize with a project proposal. Campus Climate Solutions won the 2008 Oikos International Curriculum Change Award3. The prize money (500 Euro’s) brought in some essential funding and made it easier to attract partners such as Carbon Solutions, the Center for Innovation & Economic Development (CIED) and Climate Safe. Build a network of climate change professors and experts to coach the process of setting up a company. Student organizations are often not seen as full competitors on the market, and Campus Climate Solutions has used this to its own advantage. Although the student consultancy would be a potential competitor for professors or experts from the field, it was easy to obtain their consulting services for free. The community college at Gainesville agreed to host the course at no charge. Recruit students and get consultin’. Right now, CCS is preparing its first course. Over a dozen students have signed up and local companies are interested in the services CCS has to offer. Students have to pay a $90 commitment fee, which will be refunded when the course is completed. Additionally, the course is offered to part-time students. Because these students will not work as consultants at CCS, they have to pay the full fee of $290. (serving suggestions) Expand the business model to other universities, and push universities to change their curricula. Right now, the majority of students in the United States are not interested in greenhouse gas emission consulting, and as a result, Universities are not interested in offering courses in this field. By showing that students can make a good career as emission consultants, the demand for learning these skills will increase, and universities will be compelled to teach them. (Links) 1 www.campusclimatesolutions.org 2 www.ghginstitute.org/downloadables/Reports/2009survey.pdf 3 www.oikos-international.org/projects/award.html (thanks to) Alison Erlenbach, student at University of Florida
22 23
(institute) University of Virginia (UVA) (where) Charlottesville, Virginia (objective) To verify whether stormwater best management practices (BMPs) on location live up to their design criteria and produce the intended improvements in water quantity and quality. (what is it) The Office of Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) works with students and faculty to design, measure, analyse and evaluate the effectiveness of stormwater management solutions and to do baseline assessments for stream water quality. (ingredients) 2 dedicated environmental compliance officers Half a dozen newly constructed ponds and wetlands for stormwater management 1 university administration sensitized to sustainability issues 1 Environmental Health and Safety Office concerned about the downstream catchment effects of its water management with initial internal funding of approximately $5,000 $10,000 from Nitsch engineering2 willing to fund a stormwater monitoring program $10,000 funds from the Boston Society of Architects to match Three university professors sharing their expertise in exchange for practical field experience for their students Half a dozen dedicated and skilled students 3 university automatic samplers
(servings) Improved water management for the river basin community Tens of students gaining study credits or financial compensation and practical experience per year Ongoing development of knowledge in stormwater management (recipe) Be curious about the effectiveness of campus stormwater managment. The Virginia University campus is located within Meadow Creek watershed. To comply with water quality laws in the state the Virginia, several stormwater management solutions, such as wetlands, creeks and ponds were constructed as an integral part of the campus landscape planning. Curious about the effectiveness of installed stormwater best management practices, Jeff Sitler, from the Environmental Health and Safety office, developed an idea for a monitoring program1. The director of EHS approved the plan and provided approximately $5,000 in funding to acquire equipment for water quality analyses.
Strategically scout for ideal sponsors. The monitoring program attracted $10,000.00 from Nitsch Engineering, the company responsible for many of the stormwater management designs on campus.
Gung-ho on water quality
Put students to work and reduce program costs. By drawing on students and faculty from the Department Environmental Sciences and the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering to carry out storm water assessment, the costs of the program remained minimal. The initial baseline sampling program included quarterly sampling, howeverthe program was reduced to biannual testing when the larger stormwater monitoring program began. Baseline samples were taken at 10 different sites and analyzed for pH, alkalinity, conductivity, turbidity and nitrate, nitrite, iron, phosphate and oxygen content.
Attract further funding and extend the project. In 2008 the project proposal was extended in cooperation with the Faculty of the Department of Environmental Sciences and the Department Environmental Sciences and the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Using the funding from Nitsch Engineering as seed money, EHS succeeded in attracting $10,000.00 funding from the Boston Society of Architects3. This additional funding allowed the installation of automated samplers for measuring the water quality changes after a storm event, and of transducers for flow measurement. Currently the programme is manned by 2 staff members from the Environmental Health and Safety office, 3 professors and 4 students. (links) 1 ehs.virginia.edu/stormwater/home.html 2 www.nitscheng.com 3 www.architects.org
(thanks to) Jeff Sitler and Jessica Wenger, EHS staff at UVA
24 25
FACILITY MANAGEMENT & ADMINISTRATION
Fin
anci
ng
su
stai
nab
le p
ract
ices
in H
igh
er E
du
cati
on
Inst
itu
tio
ns
an in
terv
iew
wit
h J
ulia
n Ke
niry
. Fi
nanc
ial c
onst
rain
ts a
re a
com
mon
arg
umen
t no
t to
cho
ose
mor
e su
stai
nabl
e en
ergy
alte
rnat
ives
. Jul
ian
Ken
iry,
aut
hor
of ìE
code
mia
î on
the
envi
ronm
enta
l pe
rfor
man
ce o
f un
iver
sitie
s, a
nd c
o-au
thor
of
ìGre
en In
vest
men
t, G
reen
Ret
urnî
, di
spel
s th
e m
yth
that
sus
tain
able
equ
als
unaf
ford
able
Ö
Ene
rgy
cost
s w
ill i
ncre
ase
over
tim
e. A
t ou
r N
WF
head
-qu
arte
rs a
t R
esto
n, V
irgin
ia,
we
are
wor
king
on
beco
min
g cl
i-m
ate
neut
ral.
We
doní
t w
ant
to r
ely
on c
arbo
n of
f-se
ts;
we
wan
t all
of th
e re
duct
ions
to b
e ba
sed
on o
n-si
te e
ffici
ency
and
re
new
able
ene
rgy
effo
rts.
Our
late
st e
stim
ate
for
our
grou
nd-
base
d he
at e
xcha
nge
proj
ect i
s th
at it
will
pay
back
itse
lf in
60
year
s. O
ur p
resi
dent
then
sai
d: lo
ok, t
hatís
wro
ng: t
he m
odel
s ar
e pr
obab
ly o
ff an
d w
e ar
e go
ing
to s
ee e
nerg
y co
sts
risin
g,
so b
asin
g ou
r es
timat
es o
n to
dayí
s en
ergy
pric
es is
just
ver
y sh
ort-
sig
hted
. S
o no
w N
WF
is g
oing
to
go a
head
and
inve
st.
We
see
univ
ersi
ties
and
colle
ges
now
sta
rting
to w
ork
with
the
expe
ctat
ion
that
ene
rgy
pric
es w
ill ris
e in
the
fut
ure,
mea
ning
th
at th
e pa
ybac
ks th
ey c
alcu
late
toda
y m
ay lo
ok v
ery
diffe
rent
to
mor
row
.
Ext
end
your
pay
back
per
iod.
One
way
to d
eal w
ith in
crea
s-in
g en
ergy
pric
es i
s ex
tend
the
pay
bac
k pe
riod.
Cam
puse
s sh
ow in
crea
sing
willi
ngne
ss t
o do
thi
s. If
the
y no
rmal
ly r
equi
re
a 3-
7 ye
ar p
ayba
ck, s
ome
of th
em n
ow s
ay: o
kay,
weí
ll ac
cept
a
payb
ack
of 1
4, 1
5 ye
ars
in t
he u
nder
stan
ding
tha
t en
ergy
co
sts
will
rise
and
our p
ayba
ck e
stim
ates
will
chan
ge w
ith ti
me.
G
iven
tha
t w
e ar
e fe
elin
g th
e pa
in o
f ris
ing
ener
gy p
rices
, th
e no
tion
that
thes
e ar
e go
od lo
ng te
rm in
vest
men
ts a
nd th
at th
ey
may
hav
e a
shor
ter p
ayba
ck p
erio
d th
an c
urre
nt e
stim
ates
may
m
ake
it se
em is
gai
ning
pop
ular
ity.
So:
ret
urn
on in
vest
men
t dep
ends
on
the
form
ula
that
you
use
an
d w
heth
er y
ou b
uy i
n to
the
ide
a th
at f
ossi
l fu
els
will
be-
com
e sc
arce
r and
ene
rgy
cost
s in
crea
se. W
e ha
ve b
een
faci
ng
supp
ly a
nd c
osts
sho
cks
in t
he U
SA
and
in
2006
the
ave
r-ag
e en
ergy
cos
t in
crea
se i
n hi
gher
edu
catio
n in
stitu
tes
was
26
%.
In t
hat
sam
e ye
ar H
arva
rd U
nive
rsity
fac
ed a
40%
in-
crea
se in
ene
rgy
cost
. Th
at is
a b
ig in
cent
ive
right
the
re.
We
all k
now
we
need
stro
ng c
limat
e le
gisl
atio
n an
d by
put
ting
a ca
p on
car
bon
the
fede
ral
gove
rnm
ent
will
furth
er i
ncre
ase
the
ince
ntiv
e to
inve
st in
effi
cien
t an
d cl
ean
ener
gy p
rogr
ams.
S
tate
leg
isla
tion
help
s. T
he s
tate
of
Virg
inia
doe
s no
t ha
ve
a R
enew
able
Por
tfolio
Sta
ndar
d (R
PS
), so
ther
e is
not
a h
uge
ince
ntiv
e at
sta
te l
evel
. B
ut n
ever
thel
ess
we
see
inst
itutio
ns
mov
ing
forw
ard
beca
use
ener
gy c
osts
are
incr
easi
ng a
nd t
ak-
ing
up a
gre
ater
sha
re o
f to
tal c
osts
, so
it m
akes
sen
se t
o do
so
met
hing
abo
ut e
ffici
ency
and
shi
fts to
cle
an e
nerg
y. N
obod
y w
ants
to
be o
verly
rel
iant
on
foss
il fu
els.
But
in s
tate
s th
at d
o ha
ve a
n R
PS
, the
cos
t- b
enefi
t arg
umen
t is
muc
h st
rong
er f
or
univ
ersi
ties
and
busi
ness
es:
they
are
see
ing
payb
ack
rate
s th
at m
ay b
e do
uble
tho
se in
Virg
inia
. C
alifo
rnia
has
som
e of
th
e be
st r
ebat
e pr
ogra
ms
in t
he U
SA
. Yo
u co
uld
be l
ooki
ng
at a
pay
back
per
iod
of 4
0-50
yea
rs b
ut b
ecau
se o
f th
e re
-ba
te p
rogr
ams
you
are
inst
ead
look
ing
at a
pay
back
per
iod
of
20 y
ears
, w
hich
mak
es t
he in
vest
men
t m
uch
mor
e at
tract
ive.
Sustainability at UVa really started at grass- roots level. We completed a sustainability assessment in 2007 to get a handle of what was going on at the university and see what all the departments were doing. This allowed administration became aware of how much was going on and how much interest there was. It was only after that that administration wanted to take a larger role.Jessica Wenger, EHS staff member at the Uni-versity of Virginia, USA.
On being constrained by norms, proce-dures and regulationUniversity staff feel the constraints on a daily basis; the rules and regulations are the way they are and therefore it’s very difficult to jump out of that. You do need a more holistic integral vision on sustainability to make it work. You can not just solve a problem within the very constrained context of rules and regulations. You must break open these constraints and create the playground to go beyond these restrictive rules and regulations- and that’s scary for a lot of people!Professor Louise Vet, Director NIOO-KNAW and senior researcher Multitrophic Interactions, Wageningen University. My one half is an environmentalist, my other half an administrative officer. You need both legs to walk on: you have to work within the constraints of the organization, but you also need to continuously identify and introduce new ideas for improvement. I am taking small steps, but I am walking...Guido van Gemert, Environmental Health and Safety Officer at Radboud University Nijmegen.
On how to help university staff to make new trade-offs between social, economic and environmental criteriaWhat battles are worth fighting? Which improve-ments are truly significant and should be the ar-eas where we place our emphasis? We can’t do a million things, we can only do several things very well. Finding that balance between foster-ing innovation and creative licence on the one hand and being prescriptive on the other hand is very difficult. You can take the energy and creativity out of people by codifying hundreds of policies that they must follow to the letter. People don’t like that, they like to feel that they can innovate and create. On the other hand if you leave it up to them to do that we may not reach our benchmarks. Julian Keniry, Senior director at the National Wildlife Federation’s Youth and Campus pro-grams. On dealing with risky sustainable practicesAt this point we have the technologies and it’s more a matter of putting the incentives in place, the training systems in place and the infrastruc-ture for energy distribution in place. Ground based heat exchange, solar and wind is now proven technology. That’s not to say that there aren’t new technologies that we need to be innovating, I just think it’s more a problem of not tapping the technologies that are there at this point. In ‘Higher education in a warming world’, we were able to use over 100 examples in 32 states to show different approaches to reducing greenhouses gas emissions and how campuses are saving money at the same time..Julian Keniry
26 27
Mix
pro
ject
s w
ith d
iffer
ent
pay-
back
per
iods
. Lar
ge p
roj-
ects
with
long
pay
-bac
k pe
riods
nee
d to
be
mix
ed w
ith o
ther
pr
ojec
ts t
o br
ing
dow
n th
e av
erag
e pa
y- b
ack
perio
d, s
o pr
oj-
ects
nee
d to
be
appr
oach
ed a
s pa
rt of
a p
ortfo
lio in
stea
d of
be
ing
asse
ssed
inde
pend
ently
. Lig
htin
g re
trofit
pro
ject
s te
nd to
pa
y fo
r th
emse
lves
in a
cou
ple
of y
ears
, so
if y
ou p
ull a
ll yo
ur
proj
ects
with
thei
r var
ying
pay
back
per
iod
toge
ther
in o
ne p
roj-
ect
portf
olio
: so
lar
air
pre-
heat
ing,
win
dow
film
, ph
oto-
volta
ics
and
win
d, th
en y
ou c
an re
duce
you
r ave
rage
pay
back
. You
use
th
e pr
ojec
t w
ith t
he lo
wer
pay
back
to
help
just
ify a
nd fi
nanc
e th
e on
es w
ith lo
ng p
ayba
cks.
For
inst
ance
, at
NW
F ou
r to
tal
portf
olio
pay
back
is e
stim
ated
at
20 y
ears
acr
oss
all o
ur p
roj-
ects
and
tha
t w
ill gi
ve u
s a
50%
red
uctio
n in
GH
G e
mis
sion
s.
For
the
rem
aini
ng 5
0% w
e w
ill pr
obab
ly h
ave
to g
o al
l sol
ar
phot
o-vo
ltaic
and
that
will
incr
ease
our
ave
rage
pay
back
per
iod.
W
e ar
e no
w lo
okin
g to
priv
ate
foun
datio
ns, f
eder
al g
over
nmen
t an
d ou
r ow
n m
embe
rs fo
r gra
nts
to ra
ise
fund
s fo
r tha
t.
Cho
ose
an a
ppro
pria
te f
undi
ng s
trat
egy.
The
re is
nít a
pat
-te
rn o
r one
pre
dom
inan
t way
uni
vers
ity s
usta
inab
ility
proj
ects
in
the
US
A h
ave
been
fina
nced
, ins
tead
ther
e is
a d
iver
sity
of w
ays.
O
ne is
to
wor
k w
ith t
he lo
cal u
tility
sec
tor;
and
in s
ome
stat
es
this
is d
riven
by
gran
ts a
nd re
bate
s. 2
3 st
ates
now
hav
e re
new
-ab
le p
ortfo
lio s
tand
ards
whe
re th
e st
ate
is re
quire
d to
gen
erat
e a
certa
in a
mou
nt o
f cl
ean
ener
gy b
y a
certa
in d
ate.
Wha
t w
e ar
e se
eing
is t
hat
utilit
ies
are
look
ing
to c
ampu
ses
alm
ost
im-
med
iate
ly b
ecau
se t
hey
are
big
ener
gy c
onsu
mer
s an
d gr
eat
plac
es to
sho
wca
se s
olut
ions
. So
reac
hing
out
to th
e ut
ility
sec-
tor a
nd lo
okin
g at
the
stat
e-ba
sed
ince
ntiv
e st
ruct
ure
is o
ne w
ay.
Ano
ther
way
is r
otat
ing
loan
fun
ds o
f va
rious
typ
es:
Har
vard
, C
olor
ado
Sta
te a
nd H
umbo
ldt S
tate
Uni
vers
ity h
ave
one.
Whe
n a
proj
ect
pays
for
its
elf
the
proc
eeds
go
back
int
o th
e fu
nd
to b
e us
ed f
or o
ther
pro
ject
s in
stea
d of
los
ing
the
mon
ey i
n th
at fi
scal
yea
r, w
hich
is a
dis
ince
ntiv
e to
con
serv
atio
n. If
you
sa
ve m
oney
you
now
get
to
keep
tho
se r
even
ues
and
rein
-ve
st t
hem
in f
urth
er c
onse
rvat
ion.
Tho
se a
re p
retty
cle
ver
in-
cent
ives
tha
t w
e ex
pect
to
beco
me
mor
e w
idel
y im
plem
ente
d in
the
fut
ure.
Thi
rdly,
the
Uni
vers
ity o
f M
ichi
gan,
Dar
tmou
th
Uni
vers
ity re
ceiv
ed la
rge
alum
ni g
ifts
for s
usta
inab
ility
proj
ects
. U
se y
our
Buy
er P
ower
. G
eorg
e W
ashi
ngto
n U
nive
rsity
in
Was
hing
ton
D.C
. es
timat
es i
t ha
s 26
000
vend
ors,
so
they
co
uld
exer
t tre
men
dous
infl
uenc
e. T
he q
uest
ion
is:
are
they
ac
tual
ly e
xerti
ng it
thr
ough
the
con
tract
spe
cific
atio
n pr
oces
s?
I th
ink
spec
ifica
tions
for
sus
tain
abilit
y cr
iteria
are
ver
y pa
tchy
. K
evin
Willi
ams
expl
ains
in h
is b
ook
ëBuy
ing
for t
he fu
ture
í how
ca
mpu
ses
can
use
thei
r cl
out
to a
chie
ve a
nyth
ing
they
wan
t w
hen
nego
tiatin
g pr
oduc
ts a
nd s
ervi
ces
with
ven
dors
.
From
wha
t Iív
e se
en,
outs
ourc
ing
can
have
bot
h po
sitiv
e an
d ne
gativ
e ef
fect
s on
sus
tain
able
pra
ctic
e. It
all
com
es d
own
to
nego
tiatin
g sp
ecifi
catio
ns a
nd le
verin
g ch
ange
. C
ampu
s le
ad-
ers
have
sto
od u
p an
d sa
id:
if yo
u do
nít
go g
reen
we
will
look
fo
r ano
ther
ven
dor.
Ther
e is
com
petit
ion
for t
he b
usin
ess
whi
ch
prov
ides
som
e le
vera
ge. F
or in
stan
ce, U
C S
anta
Cru
z go
t the
ir ve
ndor
to a
gree
to p
rovi
de a
ll th
eir f
ood
from
a 2
00 m
ile ra
dius
. O
n th
e ot
her
hand
Iív
e se
en c
ampu
ses
that
had
an
exte
rnal
ve
ndor
but
whe
n th
e ve
ndor
did
not
com
ply
with
the
ir re
ques
t th
ey te
rmin
ated
the
cont
ract
and
re-
inte
rnal
ized
cam
pus
cate
r-in
g. J
ust b
ecau
se c
ater
ing
is in
tern
ally
pro
vide
d do
esní
t nec
es-
saril
y m
ean
its m
ore
gree
n. It
may
be
hard
er to
fire
an
inte
rnal
di
ning
ser
vice
than
a c
ontra
ctor
!
Julia
n K
enir
y is
sen
ior
dire
ctor
at
the
Nat
iona
l Wild
life
Fede
ratio
nís
Yout
h an
d C
ampu
s pr
ogra
ms
and
co-
foun
der
of N
WF
Cam
pus
Eco
logy
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gram
(L
inks
) w
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gy: N
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org:
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rg: A
mer
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Col
lege
and
un
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clim
ate
com
mitm
ent (
AC
UP
CC
) Fo
r m
ore
info
rmat
ion
on fi
nanc
e st
rate
gies
: K
eniry
J.(1
995)
, Eco
dem
ia. C
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art
Man
agem
ent f
rom
Adm
inis
trato
rs, S
taff,
and
Stu
dent
s, W
ash.
, D
.C.:
Nat
iona
l Wild
life
Fede
ratio
n.
Eag
an, D
avid
J. K
eniry
, Jul
ian
(199
8) G
reen
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ow P
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Sav
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illion
s on
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s. R
esto
n, V
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ia N
atio
nal
Wild
life
Fede
ratio
n A
utho
rs:
Dav
id J
. Eag
an D
. et a
l (20
08),
Hig
her E
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war
m-
ing
wor
ld, N
WF
Rep
ort,
avai
labl
e at
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wf.o
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s K
. (20
01),
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ing
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he fu
ture
: Buy
ing
for t
he fu
ture
, P
luto
Pre
ss, L
ondo
n.
Bar
dagl
io P
. and
Put
man
A. (
2009
), B
oldl
y S
usta
inab
le: H
ope
and
Opp
ortu
nity
for H
ighe
r Edu
catio
n in
the
Age
of C
limat
e C
hang
e, W
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C: N
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s(recipe) Do an ecological and hydrological assessment of the campus grounds. In 2002 the environmental management committee, which was set up by the facilities and services division of the university and consists of university staff representatives, carried out an assessment of ecological services and biodiversity of birds, frogs, vertebrates, reptiles and mammals on site. In the process of writing up the results, the committee formulated a biodiversity management strategy for the urban areas of ANU Canberra campus grounds. Identify opportunities for integrating biodiversity with the built form. Within urban areas, such as the ANU campus, land prices are at a premium. Rather than just conserving significant landscapes, ANUgreen looked for landscaping projects around new buildings that required a land-scaping plan and budget anyway. By designing a project within the budget of the conventional land-scape planning, decision- makers were inclined to accept their design. The construction of a new Phenomics department offered the first opportunity to integrate ecological criteria into the landscaping design. The committee’s ecological landscaping plans include installation of a water retention and erosion prevention constructions (swales), making use of natural drains, removal of weeds, and plant-ing of certain key species to recreate a specific habitat, in this case an ephemeral pond. ANU green choose the ephemeral pond system over a normal waterbody because it is more produc-tive: once there is water, al sorts of animals will flock the site, particularily invertebrate life, such as dragon flieswhich in turn attracts frogs and small birds. Convince the development contractor to integrate ecological principles. In the eye of the contractor the ecological design conflicted with the aesthetic principles of landscape architecture. Landscape architecture will typically grade whole
sites and often apply clean fill, removing the soil profile, while ecologists prefer to leave the soil profile intact when removing large weeds. The contractor was only persuaded after the realiza-tion that the ecological design would be cheaper than the original landscaping plan. Stubbornly persist in realizing the ecological landscaping design. Having found agreement with contractors was not enough: overseeing the project in each phase of implementation by sub-contractors proved to be essential to prevent and fix conventional landscaping practices from being implemented. For instance, while the pond was designed to collect water from the surrounding landscape, subcontractors installed storm water drains for flood mitigation. The concession was a cap on storm water drains. Promote the project and involve the commu-nity to win community support. People were initially startled with vegetation removal during
the first phase of the project. Support only arose once people could recognize the visual results of re-growth of local endemic species resulting from the project. For a recent project ANUgreen successfully raised the project profile and public attention by involving local government, local water authorities, the botanic garden, CSIRO (the national public research organization) as well uni-versity staff in the project committee. This broader stakeholder involvement also allowed collaboration between up and downstream water users in the catchment to control weed growth. Students were gradually involved to remove smaller weeds and to replant sites. The results are positive: the site at the Phenomics attracted the whistling tree frog, which had not been seen at the ANU grounds previously. Learn from each project. The initial project at the phenomics department provided invaluable lessons for the landscaping and rehabilitation projects that were to follow.
(links) 1 www.tufts.edu/tuftsrecycles 2 http://tuftsrecycles.org/surplus
(thanks to ) Beth Mitchell, ANU Green
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(institute) The Australian National University (where) Canberra, Australia (what is it) The HotRot Organic Recycling project was established as a pilot project to divert organic campus waste from going to landfills to being processes by a university operated composting facility. (ingredients) 1 persuasive environmental manager 1 facility management budget allocated to hire students as consultants 1 HotRot Composting Unit type 1512, manufactured by R5 Solutions Pty Ltd in New Zealand Up to 2000 kg’s of organic waste a day 120 litre and 240 litre green wheelie bins (servings) Diverts up to 500 tonnes of waste per year Provides fertilizer for campus landscaping projects Hosts 2 PhD research projects Employs and provides field experience for dozens of students per year (recipe) Realize a potential for environmentally safe waste disposal. Students and staff from ANUgreen1, ANU’s sustainability office, had been promoting the establishment a campus composting scheme for about 10 years, but facilities management objected on the grounds of health and safety regulations. Stored organic waste may generate smell, leachate, and harbour airborne disease vectors. Organic waste composting was also found to costly. Create awareness that leadership in environmental performance costs mon-ey. The leadership and persuasive skills of ANUgreen co-founder and environmental manager at ANU, Barry Hughes, convinced facility management to invest in better environmental performance, paving the way for project such as HotRot. Find the technology suitable for organic waste processing in urban areas. The NewZealand built HotRot 1512 in-vessel aerobic composter can process 2000 kgís of waste each day, preventing the need for storage of organic waste on campus. The in-vessel technology prevents odours from escaping, and eliminates health risks from airborne disease vectors. Employ students from various backgrounds as consultants to design the pilot project in detail. Already part of the ANUgreen program is a fund that allows the program to hire carefully selected students as consultants, at 750€ a week. In this way, ANUgreen commits to implementing student recommendations. Any reservations from facility management were finally put aside when a student performed an analysis of the return on investment and demonstrated that the project would save money in O
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Tufts Recycles!
(institute) Tufts University (where) Boston, Massachusetts, USA (objective) To set up a university-run, campus- wide recycling program (what is it) Tufts Facility Management works with student interns to separate waste, reuses every prod-uct imaginable and informs students on recycling. (servings) Saves the university $1000 per year in landfill costs Provides the university and local external community with more than 800 pieces of furniture per year Processes about 900 000 kg’s of paper and card-board per year for recycling Processes about 11 790 kg’s of electronic waste per year for recycling Substantiation of environmental performance as part of Tufts University’s image Strengthening university organizational commitment to sustainability goals.
(ingredients) 3 ambitious facility managers with leadership skills 1 university ready to embrace student initiatives 1 full time recycling coordinator A dozen dedicated intern students Tens of students promoting recycling amongst the student population
waste disposal fees. The aerobic composter would earn back its investment in 12-13 years. Additionally, the project hosts 2 PhD research projects, and will continue to offer students an opportunity to gain consulting experience. The initiative has won the ACT NoWaste3 Awards for 2007 in the resource efficiency category. Pick the low- hanging fruit first. The HotRot project focussed primarily on us-ing organic waste that could be easily collected. By marketing the program university restaurants first, only the kitchen staff had to be trained, rather than the whole campus population. Expand your program campus wide. The ANU pilot project has been finished successfully. The follow-up project, for which ANUgreen is gathering funds, will gather up to 90% of all organic waste produced on campus.
(links) 1 www.anu.edu.au/anugreen 2 www.hotrotsystems.com
(recipe) Half a dozen students start a small-scale recycling program. Students mobilized alumni and staff to help distribute and collect waste bins on a regular basis. Students also set up a JumboDrop service that stores and gives away second- hand furniture left behind by students1. Get the university facility department to embrace the student recycling effort. The JumboDrop service was taken up by the facilities department when they realized reusing furniture is so much cheaper than sending them to a landfill. Dawn Quirk manages Tufts Recycles!2 and explains: Tufts Facilities management took over the student move-out donation program be-cause students were having a hard time running it without proper vehicles and storage.
(thanks to ) Barry Hughes
32 33
One facility manager responsible for campus waste management then took leadership in fur-nishing the main buildings with waste separation bins. When the bins appeared to work and saved money in decreased waste disposal fees, budget and manpower became available to disperse the bins all over campus. Facility managers at Tufts are dedicated to inspire other facility managers to change practices at their universities, and train them to work through the existing orga-nizational structures to improve environmental performance. The strict environmental state laws in Massachusetts further helped to push for a strong university policy on recycling. The facility department expands and devel-ops the recycling initiative. Tufts Recycles!is now a comprehensive, campus wide recycling program run by the facility department of Tufts University. Dawn Quirk is full- time employed manager of the program. The recycling pro-gram ranges from organic waste and paper to fluorescent lighting and electronic waste. The program furnishes campus buildings with waste separation bins and mobilizes students to recycle by participating in the nation wide RecycleMania contest, as well as organizing the JumboDrop. Tufts Recycles! latest project is an online univer-sity surplus store, which sells computers, desks etc. that would otherwise be thrown away.
COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT
The recycling program sets up an institu-tion for on-going community involvement and mobilization. Although Tufts Recycles! is now co-ordinated by the facility department, much of the work is carried out and promoted by students. About 12 student interns take part in managing the Tufts Recycles! program, and 15 student Eco Ambassadors raise awareness amongst their fellow students, and mobilize them to do their part in recycling at Tufts University. Right now, environmental performance is part of Tufts University’s image, which further strength-ens the organizational commitment to sustain-ability goals. (Dawn Quirk, Tufts! Recycles) “Any project that is now institutionalized at Tufts University re-ally is the product of a few managers or students taking initiative and sticking with it. They are the key ingredient.” (serving suggestions) Create a work culture that encourages pro-active facility managers to generate, share and implement their ideas. Formalize the task of scouting for innovative grass- roots ideas and activities from the wider university community that could be supported and expanded to generate positive change. (links) 1 http://tuftsrecycles.org/surplus 2 www.tufts.edu/tuftsrecycles/index2.html (Thanks to) Dawn Quirk, Tufts Recyles
Based on the recognition that no single institute is capable of tackling all complex and intertwining issues we face, we have established a number of research networks to inte-grate our efforts and create synergies. We now need to go a step further: connect these networks and create the Network of Networks to promote a higher level of integration.Hiroshi Komiyama, President of the University of Tokyo.
The sustainability issue should be depoliticized to involve non-liberal parties and non-liberal voters in the issue. As a fundamentalist you can make your point but you can’t change the world because you need involvement across political parties to do that.Professor Louise Vet, Director NIOO-KNAW and senior researcher Multitrophic Interac-tions, Wageningen University.
[Choosing sustainable alternatives] is not easy because of conservatism in the build-ing world, fixed contracts and regulation. You must persuade and inspire people on an individual basis which takes a lot of time. It must come from themselves rather than me saying it’s a good thing that it should happen! People must be inspired and emo-tionally concerned about it and it must come close to you. It’s important in a university that students have a very critical eye to what their university as a community and as an organization is actually doing on every front. How much closer can sustainability get to you when, if you use the toilet, you know that whatever you leave there will be used to generate your power supply?Professor Louise Vet
In a university the nice thing is that the need for sustainable alternatives can also arise bottom-up, because students can ask for it. If the two meet the whole middle layer that is doing the actual operational management should follow. You can involve them by in-spiring them and show them what the problem is and why you want this happen: people must be part of the solution not of the problem.Professor Louise Vet
The path to sustainable university is one of central leadership; as a university you must show that leadership to the community and to the outside world and they will respect you for that.Professor Louise Vet
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(institute) ETH and University of Zürich (where) Zurich, Switzerland (objective) To produce an open-source organic beer (Pascal Mages, FreeBeer)1: “..free in the sense of freedom, not price…” (what is it) FreeBeer is an organic beer licensed under a creative commons license. Anyone is allowed to produce their own FreeBeer and even sell it. The recipee is available from www.freebeer.ch. (serves) 10,000 bottles of locally produced open source beer p/ annum Local promotion of the open source concept (ingredients) 1 open source concept 1 innovative organic brewer willing to try something new 1 free recipe for tasty beer licensed under creative commons Half a dozen motivated students with a strong dedication to freedom and openness 1 graphic designer 1 start-up funding from Project 21 (a sustainability collective supporting student sustainability initiatives)2 A dash of funding from Google Inc. and Stepping stone to enable continued production A community that likes beer
(recipe) Become aware and committed to the open source concept. Freebeer originated in Denmark, where a group of students and an artist collective called Superflex developed a beer recipee that would be open for anyone to produce3. Choose to provide opensource beer for a party celebrating the opensource concept. Student 21 eventually found a brewer willing to brew their recipee in Zurich, “Wädi-Brau-Huus”4. But “Wädi-Brau-Huus” required a minimum order of 1,000 litres. Sell off 800 litres of beer not consumed at the party. Party guests could only consume 200 litres of beer, leaving [project 21] with 800 litres. The remaining FreeBeer was bottled and sold off to the local community. After the beer sold out, people started asking for more of it.
Open source Beer
Meet and bring on board suitable sponsors at an open expo. Pascal met representatives from Google Inc. and from an open source IT company called ‘Stepping Stone’5 at the Swiss Open Source Software Conference & Exposi-tion6. They were charmed by ‘Freebeer’ and agreed to provide financial support for sustained production. FreeBeer had gained its foothold in the Swiss Open Source Community. Set up a spin-off company that produces and distributes FreeBeer on a regular basis. Currently FreeBeer offers home delivery in the greater Zurich area and is available at differ-ent events on the ETH campus. For deliveries beyond Zurich a combination of train and truck is used to reduce the environmental impact of transportation. FreeBeer is offered on menus in Zurich and Bern. The beer is certified organic, and except for the malt, FreeBeer uses regional ingredients only. FreeBeer is committed to con-tinued and sustainable development of FreeBeer in Switzerland.
(serving suggestions) Use an innovative business format to demon-strate the possibilities of an open and commu-nity- based model. Involve campus catering and make FreeBeer available at campus cafeteria. (Links) 1 www.planetmages.ch 2 www.project21.ch 3 www.freebeer.org 4 www.waedenswiler.ch 5 www.stepping-stone.ch 6 www.openexpo.ch (thanks to) Pascal Mages
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(institute) Edith Cowan University (where) Perth, Australia (objective) To integrate sustainability into curricula for university courses in education and give primary school children hands-on environmental experience. (what is it) 18 environmental non-profit organizations present their activities during an activity fair on Earth Day. Earth Day is held at ECU Mount Lawly campus and targets children aged 6 to 12.
(ingredients) 1 pragmatic co-ordinator 1 network of local environmental groups 10 elementary schools 500 kids, ready to learn all about the environment 1 helpful facilities management office 1 few dozen students €1000 in funds from Edith Cowan University Some outdoor space on campus grounds
ECU Earth Day
(recipe) Realize the importance of practical knowl-edge about the environment. Environmental education projects are an ideal way to diversify your curriculum and bring the real world into the classroom in a strong academic context. Research shows that real-life hands-on learning effectively reaches and teaches children”1. Use the potential of your network. Jennifer Pearson decided to organize an Earth Day for elementary schools after co-ordinating the ìMil-lion Trees Programî2. As convenor of the local chapter of the National Australian association for Environmental Education3, she already had an extensive network of contacts with local environ-mental NGOís. When she became a lecturer in the School of Education at Edith Cowan Univer-sity4, she mobilized this network to organize an event that organizes environmental activities for school children. Perfect the concept by optimizing the co-operation with your network. Environmental NGOís were enthusiastic about presenting their activities to schoolchildren from the very begin-ning. However, creating a collective understand-ing of Earth day objectives and how to realize them was difficult at the first event in 2003. After 5 successful editions, the environmental groups now get in touch with Jennifer months in advance. Present the goals of the day in a light that matches the goals of your partnering orga-nizations. To obtain funding from Edith Cowan University, Jennifer Pearson stressed the promo-tional value of Earth Day. Edith Cowan University is very happy with the positive publicity that is generated by the annual Earth Day. The annual activity links the ECU with the annual, global Earth Day at 22 april. The success has been so overwhelming that the 2009 event will be held at the larger Joondalup campus.
Mobilize student volunteers. Students help to organize the logistics of the day, guiding groups of schoolchildren through the day and supporting activities facilitated by the ENGOís. Organize an inspiring, educational and fun day. Children are offered five 30 minute activi-ties such as: Environment House: Learn how to make your home environmentally friendly, how to reuse and recycle your household waste. Water Corporation: Learn about groundwater, an important drinking water source for Perth. A hands-on session to find out how water moves through the ground and how we can protect this vital resource. David Manningís Animal Ark: Get up close and personal with a range of native animals and learn how to care for them when they are injured.
(serving suggestions) Give students study credits for their practi-cal experiences on Earth Day. Earth Day at ECU is an opportunity for future teachers to gain exposure and practical experience in environ-mental education. Integrating student efforts at the ECU Earth Day into university curriculum in the form of an optional course or field experi-ence would integrate environmental education in the Educational study programs on a structural basis. (thanks to) Jennifer Pearson, Institute of Educational Research and Development
(links) 1 www.newhorizons.org/strategies environmental/front_environmental.htm 2 www.menofthetrees.com.au/MTP/mtp_about.html 3 www.aaeewa.org.au 4 www.education.ecu.edu.au/research/ institute/index.html
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(institute) Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich, ETH (where) Zürich, Switzerland (objective) To bring together the creativity of students, the knowledge of academic staff and the experience of the research and facility staff to decrease the CO2 emissions of ETH Zürich. (Marc Vogt, ecoworks) “A more sustainable university begins with student involvement indecision-making at all policy levels.” (ingredients) 2 ambitious students to found their own environmental consultancy company 1 university dedicated to reduce its greenhouse-gas emissions 104 creative, skilled and passionate teachers, students, administrative and facility management staff. 1 innovative model to use the potential of these different actor groups 1 association that facilitates conferences and meetings demanding a radical and creative problem-solving approach (servings) 17 innovative ideas to minimize university CO2 emissions
(recipe) Recognize the demand for novel ideas for CO2 emission reductions. As president of UniPoly1 in the period 2003-2004, the student organisation for sustainable develop-ment at the university of Lausanne, Marc Vogt sensed a need and a desire at inter-university level to increase university energy efficiency. The federal environmental program (RUMBA)2, provided an integrated analysis of resource management in all Swiss federal institutes of technology. Marc Vogt was determined to link this federal program with student initiatives, for example in waste recycling, and to integrate the concept of sustainability in ETH Zurich curricula. Create a company providing professional advice for organizations on participatory structures and processes. Together with fellow student at the ETH Zürich Martin Räber, Marc founded EarthEffect3, a company that aims to organize the participatory processes needed to improve the environmental perfor-mance in public and private organizations. Af-ter presenting their ideas to a university facility manager, the ETH Zürich invited EarthEffect to embark on a project together: to create platform organization that brings together staff, students and facility and administra-tion to share knowledge and to elaborate on cutting-edge project proposals. ecoworks4 had started! Convince academic staff to embrace your project. The ideal to integrate sustainability initiatives into university curricula matched pre-cisely with the scope of the ecoworks project. The ETH Board supported granting students study credits for participating in ecoworks, and EarthEffect approached professors to integrate ecoworks into the curriculum.
ecoworks Organize an event that forges new collaborations, and create innovative projects. In a 24 hour workshop session, 104 teachers, students and facility manag-ers worked together to concretize previously generated ideas. To facilitate this workshop, EarthEffect called in the help of Unbla4, a professional conference facilitating organiza-tion. For students the event was attractive because for some, they could earn 2 credit points by attending this session. For staff and faculty, it was an interesting project because it gave them the opportunity and the possibility to work together with students and use even-tual results in their work. Thanks to perfect facilities, good catering and an inspiring atmo-sphere, people liked the intensive character of the workshop and came up with 17 promising project proposals. The “eat less CO2 project, described in this booklet, was conceived dur-ing this workshop. (serving suggestions) The ecoworks project does not end with gen-eration of project proposals: the ETH Zurich has committed itself to implement the best proposals generated at the 24-hour creative session. (links) 1 http://unipoly.epfl.ch 2 www.rumba.admin.ch/de 3 http://eartheffect.ch 4 www.ecoworks.ch 5 www.unbla.org (thanks to) Marc Vogt, Martin Räber
40 41
AcknowledgementsJulian KeniryJeff SittlerJess WengerBeth MitchellIoannis SarantopoulosPascal MagesDawn QuirkAlison PooleyJoan RandleMarc VogtMartin RäberJennifer PearsonBarry HughesG. Rendall (Pseudonym)Simon ten VeenLouise VetCaroline LigtenbergHiroshi KomiyamaSjors WitjesSara BarnowskiAlison ErlenbachKealan GellGuido van GemertLiz HarmeijerChristopher BaanTjerk DestombesJustus DengerinkYoshimasa TakahashiJanny de KnegtJudith Ellens
colofonCookbook to a (Sustainable) University is a publication by “Morgen”, the Dutch studentnetwork for sustainability.
EditorsAnna HarnmeijerRichard EngelsDesignEllen ZoetePrintEcodrukkers, Nieuwkoop
We urge readers to distrib-ute, copy, and re-direct this publication for the purpose of Greening the Ivory Tower. Utrecht, March 2009.
Who are we?
‘Morgen’ is the Dutch national student network for sustainable development. It is a small NGO run by students aiming to promote sustainable development in and around higher education. We do this through informing and awareness-raising, supporting and connecting student environmental initiatives and NGO’s, and by organizing student activities. Around 900 people receive our two weekly network mail contain-ing the latest national news and agenda on sustainable development. Our website www.duurzamestudent.nl motivates and informs students about educational, lifestyle and career aspects of sustainable development. Regular ac-tivities include organization of an annual student internship market on sustainable development (Share Your World), energy saving campaigns in student housing targeting both student behav-iour and energy policies of student housing corporations, annual promotion of sustainable consumption among students, publishing of a quarterly magazine, and a range of seminars, debates and workshops. For more information about our current projects, for a complete overview of our partner organiza-tions, or to receive our networkmail, see our website www.studentenvoormorgen.nl or contact us at info@studentenvoormorgen.nl.
student led initiatives
facility management & administration
education & curriculum
community involvement
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