Colleges Missing Their Climate Targets Goals, Says CSM
by Kristin Underwood, Sacramento, CA 
on 10.27.08
Image source: University of Vermont
Not to be Debbie-Downer this Monday morning, but the Christian Science Monitor reports that colleges and universities, not unlike countries that made climate commitments, are having a hard time meeting those goals. Don't get us wrong, colleges big and small have made huge strides compared to where they were five or ten years ago in reducing their carbon footprints. According to their climate commitments, though, their work has only just begun.
Over 580 college and university campus presidents across the US have all agreed to create an inventory of their carbon footprint and within two years set a date to make their campus carbon neutral. As this program is still relatively new, all campuses are still in the quantifying stage. Carbon footprint estimates were due this fall to the ACUPCC (American College and University President's Climate Commitments) program, but actually getting these numbers has proven to be more difficult than thought. Only 190 out of 580 colleges that made commitments have turned in any data. After the low-hanging fruit, like turning out lights and setting up recycling bins, colleges have to start asking the tough questions and getting into budgets in order to achieve bigger and bigger savings. Quantifying the footprint of multiple campuses, classrooms, operations, travel, purchasing, basically every aspect of campus life is, not surprisingly, taking longer than expected and its up to college faculty and often the Campus Sustainability Coordinator to figure it out.
The upside is that some colleges, like the University of Vermont, were not only able to quantify data, but they have data going far enough back to show that while the school is expanding, their footprint is down to below 1990 levels. One thing UVM staff noted as helpful was taking back control of when students can be in buildings, turning on heating and lights. By making a "curfew" for some buildings they were able to reign in some of those expenses.
Increased commuting also helped to lower the carbon footprint, but also meant a loss in revenue as fewer cars on campus meant fewer parking permits and fees. Also, putting capital and budget requests together during planning helps because many of the items needed to lower carbon footprints will take several years to see a return on investment. It can be hard to justify a big-ticket item unless you are looking several years down the road.
The folks at AASHE and others overseeing the climate commitments all agree that they are not too worried about the delay in reporting, as this is still new for most campuses and the plans are broad, and multi-year in scope and implementation. For more information on greening college campuses, check out AASHE.
More on Greening College Campuses
12 Colleges Chosen to Fight Climate Change
Green College Rankings Now Available From the Princeton Review
TH Interview: Richard Levin, President of Yale University
University Presidents Promote Higher Education Climate Commitment
Follow @TreeHugger on Twitter & get our headlines with @TH_rss!
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FYI-
UVM's new "Green" building is a glorified shopping mall with a 5 story cathedral ceiling and "waterless" urinals that seem to be regular urinals with no water. It also has some large embedded planters out on a deck which they call a "green roof". I was excited to see what they had done before I got there and then appalled when I saw what they thought was "green". UVM students had been telling me for years that the school liked to promote itself as an environmental leader without actually making any environmental efforts. Now I believe them.
I work at UVM and would be happy to answer any questions you might have about why UVM is touting itself as "green", or how we arrived at the decisions we did- such as installing waterless urinals. They really are just "regular" urinals without water....that's a *waterless* urinal.
Also, there is almost 19,000 ft2 of green roof incorporated into the Davis Center, the new building you refer to. I'd also be happy to tell you why it is designed as it is.
Unfortunately, a lot of green building elements aren't necessarily the showy solariums a lot of people think of when they think of green building. A lot of it is about efficient building envelopes, equipment, HVAC systems, windows, etc. If you want to see a heat recovery wheel, I can arrange that too, by the way.
I don't know if you can contact me directly through this site, but feel free to respond.
I work at UVM and would be happy to answer any questions you might have about why UVM is touting itself as "green", or how we arrived at the decisions we did- such as installing waterless urinals. They really are just "regular" urinals without water....that's a *waterless* urinal.
Also, there is almost 19,000 ft2 of green roof incorporated into the Davis Center, the new building you refer to. I'd also be happy to tell you why it is designed as it is.
Unfortunately, a lot of green building elements aren't necessarily the showy solariums a lot of people think of when they think of green building. A lot of it is about efficient building envelopes, equipment, HVAC systems, windows, etc. If you want to see a heat recovery wheel, I can arrange that too, by the way.
I don't know if you can contact me directly through this site, but feel free to respond.
mmsmith. I am not agreeing with the initial post of the fellow that was talking badly about U of vermont. However, When i approached sustainability heads to learn more about SoyPrint- they didnt even respond for discussion. The average toner cartridge for laser printers takes 2 liters of petroleum to produce its toner. We at SoyPrint have found a way to use soybean oil instead of petroleum. A university like Vermont could help save thousands of barrels of oil a year. With dwindling oil reserves, we have better things to use oil on than toner for our printers! Any chance you think there could be someone at Uvermont that actually cares about the amount of oil they use? The response at surrounding schools has been amazing, many are already implementing a sustainable printing practice through SoyPrint. Please let me know
Matta@soyprint.net