John Robinson, the Executive Director of the University of British Columbia's Sustainability Initiative sat down with AASHE to discuss the recently opened Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability (CIRS) building. Dr. Robinson has been teaching at UBC's Institute for Resources, Environment, and Sustainability since 1992. Prior to joining UBC, he taught in the University of Waterloo's Department of Environment and Resource Studies.

Keep reading for a detailed look into the making of a regenerative building, and what makes CIRS a new kind of "green" building.

If you are interested in participating in the AASHE Interview Series, email Niles Barnes at niles@aashe.org.

In addition to the long-term environmental benefits that the building can provide, what social benefits does the Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability (CIRS) building embody and exemplify as a “green” building?

CIRS seeks to be green, humane and smart.

Regarding “humane,” CIRS aims to provide a socially and biophysically healthy environment for human habitation which adapts to changing needs and uses over time, and which contributes to a continuous improvement in the health, productivity and happiness of building inhabitants.

Regarding “smart,” the CIRS building process applies human design intelligence augmented with monitoring and feedback to engage building inhabitants to get the most out of the available energy and material flows afforded by the site and its surroundings. We seek to integrate building performance and the performance of building inhabitants in an ongoing dance intended to improve the green and humane features of CIRS over time.

Related CIRS features include:

• good acoustical performance.
• building inhabitant control over local environment conditions to increase comfort (e.g. air flow, air temperature, operable windows, adjustable lighting, etc.).
• access to daylight in every occupied area of the building.
• natural ventilation when conditions allow it.
• pre- and post-occupancy evaluations of building inhabitant satisfaction and creation of a feedback loop for continuous improvement over time.
• a set of sustainability principles for the building that can be adhered to by building inhabitants to incentivize them to participate in energy and water conservation efficiency programs and waste reduction initiatives.
• access to building performance and energy and water use and efficiency data through a user interface that allows participation in the continuous optimization of energy and water use in the building.

Who were the key stakeholders involved in the CIRS building project? What role did you and others with the UBC Sustainability Initiative play in conceptualizing and implementing the CIRS project?

I conceived the project in 1999 as part of the Sustainable Development Research Initiative at UBC (now the Institute for Resources, the Environmental and Sustainability), in response to a need for demonstrated sustainability research in design and building practices – a showcase of applied sustainability principles. The vision was refined in discussions with architect Peter Busby. Alberto Cayuela, Associate Director of the UBC Sustainability Initiative and CIRS, was a key member of the team from the early days.

Partners have committed more than $23 million in support for CIRS, including the federal government ($8.4 million), the provincial government ($5.7 million), and Modern Green Development, China’s largest green real estate developer ($3.5 million). CIRS also has strategic partnerships with corporations such as Haworth for adaptable workspaces, and Honeywell for building controls and automation – both of which made in-kind contributions to the facility.

Given that much of your own work has focused on marrying sustainability-related curriculum with operational efforts on campus, are there efforts underway to integrate the CIRS building into coursework at UBC? For instance, will students be involved in measuring and tracking reductions in GHG emissions, maintaining renewable energy technologies, etc. as part of for-credit work?

Students are involved in all areas of research at CIRS. Specific examples include lifecycle assessment of CIRS and other buildings; pre- and post-occupancy evaluation; studying the social dimensions of sustainability; measuring and tracking building performance; behavioural change programming; and community engagement tools and processes.

What were the biggest challenges in executing the CIRS building project?

The CIRS Technical Manual documents dozens of challenges across multiple areas and systems. Some highlights include:

• Maintaining the project team energy: At times during the 12-year development of the project, CIRS was “on life support” and the prospect of project completion was thought unachievable. Without continuous effort and the determination of Peter Busby, Alberto Cayuela and others, the project would never have been completed or the project ambitions might have diminished by compromise.

• Maintaining the project team continuity: A number of important stakeholders in the history of CIRS left the project team or joined other organizations. This proved to be a challenge where detailed and easily accessible project documentation is imperative to maintain the continuity of the project design process and ensure achievement of project objectives.

• Educating stakeholders: A key task of the project team was educating the stakeholders regarding the complex issues of sustainability involved in the project and ambitious goals set for CIRS. The project vision had to be communicated effectively to different types of audiences, including building professionals, academics and the general public.

• Resolving ambitions with costs constraints: The project team had to deliver a high-performance building with innovative systems within the acceptable range of costs for standard lab buildings. Some systems, such as external operable solar shades and a control system for the operable windows in the office/lab blocks, could not be implemented because of the budget constraints.

• Balancing design objectives: The decision to use a wood structure was made very early in the design process and constrained some of the more elaborate possible building forms and design features. One of the early design sketches for CIRS showed the building cantilevered over the pedestrian path that existed on the site. While this dramatic form may have made CIRS more iconic and brought more attention to the project, the project team decided that the wood structural system was the most sustainable option.

What outreach and engagement strategies were used to keep the campus community informed of the CIRS project during the construction process?

Strategies included use of social media (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Flickr) as well as articles in UBC Reports.

How have building occupants been educated about the green or sustainable elements of the building?

First, note that we describe people working in CIRS not as occupants but as inhabitants. Occupants are passive recipients of buildings systems; inhabitants have a sense of place in and engagement with the building. We will ask inhabitants to sign a sustainability charter, committing them to working towards the sustainability goals of the building, in return for very high air quality, individual control over ventilation and real-time feedback on building performance at the workstation level, day lighting throughout the building, and ability to vote on the control strategies of the building.
The inhabitants have been educated through meetings and tours.

How do you foresee the completion of CIRS influencing other sustainability efforts at UBC?

Based on the CIRS experience and the lessons learned thus far we believe that a significant opportunity exists to create an innovative model for the development of new building projects and major building renovations and upgrades on campus. Given the significant benefits that UBC could derive from deploying a more aggressive and far-reaching green building development model, we propose to create a new approach to green buildings on campus based on our CIRS experience and demonstrate it on a representative sample of UBC projects currently on the planning stages.

Aside from the CIRS building, how are you incorporating the social justice dimension into your sustainability work?

Social justice is a key component of sustainability, and our goal is to incorporate it throughout the activities of the University (e.g. rental cost student housing on campus is designed to be cheaper than anything that can be found within a one hour commute from UBC).

In what area(s) do you see the biggest room for growth in the higher education sustainability field?

I believe universities have a critical role to play as societal test-beds for sustainability. As post-secondary institutions, we can prove out the technical, economic and behavioural aspects of sustainability in the simpler institutional environmental of a university, with a view to contributing to commercialization of such technologies and application of such policies elsewhere. Universities have a set of characteristics that make them uniquely qualified to serve in this role for society: we are single owner-occupiers of significant capital stock, with our own energy, water and waste systems; we are (in some jurisdictions) public institutions that can be a little more forgiving on pay-backs and long-sighted on returns; we teach; and we do research. No other societal institution has this mix of capabilities. Thus universities have a responsibility, but also significant academic and operational opportunity, to be at the forefront of the sustainability transition.

This is the second appearance in the AASHE Bulletin Sustainability Student Diary series by Darlene Seto, a graduate student at the Institute for Resources, Environment, and Sustainability at the University of British Columbia. In this two-part diary entry, Seto talks about ways that gender can play a role for a student of sustainability. This first part looks at gender as a concern in environment-related research. The second installment, to be published next week, will look at gender as a concern for students in their academic careers. This blog post was originally posted on the Getting to GREENR blog, which supports GREENR, an interdisciplinary web portal for environmental and sustainability studies. AASHE welcomes questions and invites feedback on each Sustainability Student Diary entry. Submit diary entries of your own for consideration to bulletin@aashe.org.

As a female student interested in all kinds of social justice and sustainability issues, I wanted to take the time here to talk about the particular ways in which gender can play a role for a student of sustainability. Given that this could be a pretty big subject area, I’ve decided to split this up into two broad topics: looking at gender as a concern in environment-related research (which I shall discuss here), and as a concern for students in their academic careers (which I shall take on in my next post).

Gender is of course, a fluid and socially constructed term, although for the purposes of the current post, I’m going to focus on the general female-male dichotomy. Gender, to start with, is a particular locus for inequality and social difference in environmental politics and studies. Eco-feminism is one large strand of research that combines gender and sustainability studies. One of the arguments in eco-feminism examines how women become associated with “natural” or even “primitive” scenes, whereas men become associated with “culture” and, accordingly, as progressive and dominant over nature, and thereby, women. The argument, in practice, is not as dualistic as this may sound. Social inequality exists for both men and women. Nonetheless, the argument and connection stand: women, as a marginalized group, are disproportionately burdened as victims of environmental devastation, and the history of environmental degradation and the oppression of women are linked at numerous intersections.

Furthermore, the way we associate gender with different physical or emotional traits, or forms and types of labor, often results in differing outcomes between men and women in a variety of ways. There are often both formal and informal mechanisms which operate to enforce asymmetrical gender access to resources. In North America, we might think of management positions or pay equity, while in other circumstances, it might be in terms of land ownership, water rights, or food access. Identifying how perceptions of gender can operate in particular situations - and may result in different outcomes for persons of different genders - is an important part of sustainability.

For example, Susan Hanson is one author who has written about how gender and sustainability intersect. In her 2010 article, “Gender and Mobility: New Approaches for Informing Sustainability,” she examines how gender differences in mobility (given that women travel shorter distances, use the car less and public transport more) can affect sustainable transportation decisions.

To better illustrate this, I thought I might give a brief sketch of a couple individuals in my department who are particularly interested in the intersection of these fields:

Danika Kleiber is a fellow Resource Management and Environment Studies (RMES) student at UBC. A self described feminist biologist, she received her Bachelor of Science from Tufts University, where she undertook a double major in biology and women’s studies, and a Master of Science from the Department of Forestry at UBC. Currently, Danika is doing her field work in the Philippines, where she is looking at issues of gender in marine-protected areas. More specifically, she is examining how gender roles influence what is considered "fishing," and how overlooking certain marine resource extraction methods (predominantly used by women and children, but also increasingly by men as well) can undermine effective and equable marine management and conservation.

Leila Harris is a professor of mine with dual appointments in IRES and the Centre for Women’s and Gender Studies at UBC. Much of her work focuses on environmental (particularly water) issues as they intersect with gender or ethnicity, or connections to environmental justice, difference and inequality more generally. For example, part of Leila’s research has been focused in Turkey, where she examined how the changing water resource system along the Tigris Euphrates basin affected resource access, management and knowledge between men and women particularly, but also with respect to the Kurdish- and Arabic-speaking minority populations in the region.

To provide one example, the onset of access to irrigation water has changed not only the primary crop grown - from wheat, barley and other pulses to cotton - but also shifted divisions of labor between men and women. Where women were once the primary caretakers of wheat, as well as the herders of sheep and goats and animal products for household use, their roles have shifted with the tremendous labor needs for the cotton harvest. So while women now participate extensively in the cotton harvest, men have taken on new roles in cotton marketing and sales due to the crop shift, resulting in new narratives about the contributions of men and women to the household. With the more indirect contributions of women now to household needs, there is now the suggestion that women no longer work and just "sit" while men are providing for household needs, since they engage in market transactions and bring home cash from the sale of cotton.

The research of these two women are excellent examples of how environment and gender studies co-exist and complement each other, and why considering issues of gender is important for all students of environment or sustainability issues. It’s an issue that I hope gets further taken up, both in our studies and in our everyday life as students and professors, given that gender inequality is still a problem in academia, as elsewhere. Stay tuned for more!

In 2012, the STARS team continues its monthly blog post on facts, trends, and best practices in campus sustainability. Our first blog post of the year is based on data submitted by over 140 STARS Participants as of December 31, 2011. With a focus this month on a recap of STARS, we hope to recognize a job well done and share ideas and inspiration on advancing sustainability in higher education.

Did you know?
2011 was a significant year for STARS. 138 out of a total of 143 STARS-rated institutions submitted their report in 2011. August was the busiest month for STARS, with 40 institutions submitting during that month. This high-level of submissions can be attributed to an August 2010 deadline to register for STARS as a Charter Participant.

Below is an overview of STARS Ratings as of December 31, 2011:

Factoids:
Characteristics of institutions that earned a STARS Rating through December 2011:

• 53 percent received a Silver rating, with an average score of 50.3
• With a full-time equivalent enrollment of 400, the Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design is the smallest STARS-rated institution
• With a full-time equivalent enrollment of over 47,000, the University of Texas at Austin is the largest STARS-rated institution
• 95 percent are AASHE members
• 61 percent are signatories of the American College and University President’s Climate Commitment (ACUPCC)
• 9 percent are Canadian
• 13 percent are two-year institutions
• 36 percent are classified as research institutions according to the Carnegie classification system
• 39 percent are private colleges or universities
• More information can be found at the STARS Dashboard: https://stars.aashe.org/institutions/data-displays/dashboard/

With over 200 institutions pending submissions in 2012, AASHE is looking forward to another successful year for STARS. Please give us your feedback on future STARS data analysis updates by sending your ideas to stars@aashe.org.

The novice beekeeping adventures of a group of Graduate School of Design (GSD) students at Harvard University are featured in this installment of the AASHE Bulletin Sustainability Student Diary series. The following is republished from the university's Office for Sustainability website with excerpts from the students' Pollinators blog. The student pollinators are a subdivision of the GSD Green Group. AASHE welcomes questions and invites feedback on each Sustainability Student Diary entry. Submit diary entries of your own for consideration to bulletin@aashe.org.

The Buzz About Rooftop Beehives
By Hallie Chen and Connie Migliazzo

In the spring of 2011, we were involved in a conversation with Louisa Dennison of the Harvard Community Garden about bringing beehives to the rooftops of buildings on campus. As two design students with histories in farming and food systems, our interests intersected on the roof of Gund Hall. The more we learned about rooftop hives, the more we realized how feasible and ecological it would be to have a rooftop apiary. This hive would fit in nicely with the existing Green Roof of Gund Hall established in 2007.

Why keep bees?

While the honey is a nice byproduct and would be a great local food product, the real point of the bees fits into Harvard’s sustainability commitment. Bees are vital to the pollination of many of the crops that feed this country and with the recent collapse of so many colonies, healthy urban food systems are a viable alternative to industrialized food production. Urban beekeeping, like urban gardening, can be a small scale intervention that plugs into a larger network moving us towards healthier and more sustainable cities.

In Cambridge, the bees have access to the ideal mix of weeds and wildflowers on the banks of the Charles River, as well as many local plantings such as the Harvard Community Garden. Bees generally forage for food within a two-mile range; with this city’s significant greenery, local beekeepers have noted that Cambridge is a great place to keep bees. The network of bees throughout the campus would serve to pollinate the Harvard Community Garden, as well as the numerous surrounding community gardens in Cambridge, while also serving as a symbol of the importance of bees to the sustainability of our larger food system.

Our Beehive!

After receiving a Student Sustainability Grant from the Office for Sustainability (OFS), we quickly discovered that there were already two beehives on the roof of the Northwest Labs. Bodo Stern, the Director of Research Affairs at the Harvard FAS Center for Systems Biology, took us to see his thriving colonies and introduced us to the necessary equipment and basic care strategies.

With this shared knowledge and an OFS grant we were able to purchase our own equipment and bees in early June 2011. The hive on Gund Hall is now heavy with honey and brood.

From the Pollinators blog...

May 27, 2011: I don't think we are going to get full suits.

We learned that starting this late is tough. Every place is sold out of “package bees”- these are the bee stock that you would buy and you would buy a queen. Normally, we’d have their box all set up, buy these bees and let the worker bees eat out the queen (tee hee) from this special box (heheh) that allows her pheromones to go out and is sealed by sugar coating or something.

After a lot of debate, Connie and I decided that we should go for a nuke. A nuke is a several frame nucleus of a hive complete with a queen bee so we wouldn’t have to worry about the queen and workers getting off to a good start. There will be a brood-a-brewing!

June 2, 2011: We were able to meet Bodo Stern- the coolest guy in the Northwest Labs Building! He and his pal Rachel put two beehives on the roof of the northwest labs. Some things we learned from Bodo:

• Change the Bottom Board from a Solid to Screened/Mesh in the summer- Keeps the hives cool and mites can’t crawl back up once they fall out.
• Make sure there are drown-guards for tiny bee feet in watering/feeding situations. An old sock has worked well for them. Bees like landing on that (gross and cool!)
• Wind doesn’t seem very ideal for them, but so far they haven’t had a problem. We are going to have a lower roof and a parapet so I think we might be okay.
• Buying a subscription to Science Magazine gets you a really really cool t-shirt.

Sept. 19, 2011: We attended a NOFA (Northeast Organic Farming Association) bee wintering workshop where we learned the ins and outs of beekeeping winter preparation:

• Feed in the fall to supplement their food for the winter.
• Water and moisture - not cold - are what kills bees in the winter. They cluster, detach their flapping muscles from their wings, and buzz enough to keep themselves at about 98 degrees. Therefore proper ventilation is critical! Screen bottom board!
• Starvation is not only from lack of food- their cluster contracts in extremely cold temperatures, and they could be 6 inches away from food and never make it there.
• Dry sugar or fondant are methods of emergency feeding in the winter.

There’s work to be done!

Oct. 29, 2011: We went up on Saturday for what will probably be one of our last visits to the hive this year. After temperatures drop below 50 degrees consistently, you are not advised to open the hive, unless to emergency feed in the winter. So, we removed our empty honey super and filled our feeder trough with some sugar syrup to give them one last treat before the winter sets in. Additionally, we added these “patties” of a combinations of vegetable shortening, sugar, agave syrup and wintergreen oil as a deterrent to the Varroa Mites that frequently infest hives. We have done all we can to prepare these girls for winter and now all we can do is hope!

Nov. 18, 2011: One of the biggest challenges for bees in the winter is moisture. They can survive the cold with a steady food source but it is the water that kills them. We decided to make sure that snow and rain had a tough time getting into the hive.

Success! Happy winter, bees.

See more pictures and keep up with Hallie and Connie's progress here.

In between cross country skiing and tasty meals, I hope to catch up on a backlog of reading. In case others are looking for some readings over the holidays I've compiled some recent publications (many that were publicized in the AASHE Bulletin). If readers have other publications from 2011 they would like to recommend please post a comment or email resources@aashe.org.

Educational Reforms for the 21st Century: How to Introduce Ecologically Sustainable Reforms in Teacher Education and Curriculum Studies
Bowers, C. A., Eco-Justice Press, 2011.
This book introduces pedagogical strategies for addressing the linguistic colonization of the present by the past; the teacher’s role as a cultural mediator between the cultural commons and consumer-dependent experiences; and how computers contribute to the enclosure of the cultural commons.

Also from Bowers and Eco-Justice Press is University Reform in an Era of Global Warming which addresses a number of issues ranging from language, cultural commons, academic freedom, patterns of cultural reproduction and the need for administrative leadership that addresses the cultural roots of the ecological crisis. Bowers argues that replacing inefficient campus infrastructures is easy compared to the challenges of engaging faculty in discussions of how the content of their courses continue to reinforce the deep cultural assumptions that give conceptual direction to the individualistic/consumer-dependent lifestyle that that is now widely recognized as unsustainable.

Education for Sustainability: Guides for Teaching and Learning
In an effort to provide a framework for enhancing teaching and learning in sustainability, the Sustainability Team at the University of Gloucestershire (UK) released two installments of its Education for Sustainability (EfS): Guides for Teaching and Learning series. A Guide for University Managers on Needs and Opportunities explores strategic needs, benefits and the potential for EfS in the curriculum and in partnership with external organizations. A Guide for Educators on Teaching and Learning Approaches provides orientation on the aims and principles of EfS to inform curriculum development work.

GUNi Report: Higher Education's Commitment to Sustainability
The Global University Network for Innovation (GUNi) released the fourth report in its Higher Education in the World series: "Higher Education's Commitment to Sustainability: from Understanding to Action." Analyzing the link between sustainability and higher education, the publication includes trending topics, good practices and a map of how regions around the world are advancing sustainability. The publication also explores the main barriers that prevent the transformation of higher education institutions towards contributing to the sustainability paradigm, and highlights possible solutions.

Department of Ed Sustainability Education Summit Report
The U.S. Department of Education released a Proceedings Report that provides an overview of its September 2010 "Sustainability Education Summit: Citizenship and Pathways for a Green Economy." Including industry, academic and government representatives' comments from the summit’s four panel sessions, the report recommends ways to advance sustainability education throughout the country.

Higher Ed's Role in Adapting to a Changing Climate
Supported by Second Nature and Clean Air-Cool Planet, this report evaluates how colleges and universities are preparing society for a changing climate through their education, research, operations and community engagement activities. The report was developed by the Higher Education Climate Adaptation Committee, a group of 13 leaders in higher education and experts in climate adaptation convened by the American College & University Presidents' Climate Commitment (ACUPCC) in March 2011.

UNECE Education for Sustainable Development Report
The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) Steering Committee on Education for Sustainable Development released the report, “Learning for the Future: Competences in Education for Sustainable Development.” A result of 18 months of discussions and negotiations among academics, government officials and experts from international and non-governmental organizations, the paper makes recommendations for the development of education for sustainable development across all sectors of education including guidelines and tools for integration.

In addition to the above, I would also recommend the AASHE publications that were released in 2011, including our partnered publications. These include the 2010 Campus Sustainability Review, the 2010 Higher Education Sustainability Staffing Survey, Greening the Bottom Line: The Trend toward Green Revolving Funds on Campus, Sustainability and Catholic Higher Education Toolkit, and Starting from Scratch: Greening Your Game Day.

Delegates and representatives have flown home allowing the dust to settle around the COP-17 talks in Durban, but the substance and outcomes of the two week long talks remain a bit hazy. Overall, our world's leading environmental envoys and ministers spent 14 days (after an unusual extension) debating the best approach to addressing global climate change, and came up with:

1) creating a Global Climate Fund to assist developing countries with climate adaptation

2) developing a new global treaty some time in the future to supplant Kyoto and require developing countries to also reduce emissions

Much like previous years, the passive nature of the resolutions is disappointing though not surprising; the fundamental economic disparities between developed and developing countries continue to yield discussions around accountability for emissions as opposed to strategic reductions of emissions.

Still, college students made an impression and conveyed the message that real action is needed, and it's needed fast. Most notably, Middlebury College student Abigail Borah interrupted Todd Stern, the US Special Envoy for Climate Change (see video below): "I am scared for my future. 2020 is too late to wait," she said. "We need an urgent path to a fair ambitious and legally binding treaty."

Photos

Japanese youth at COP-17

Indigenous group protests tar sands

For more photos from Durban, see Sustain Us's Flickr stream

Videos

Middlebury College Student Speaks Up:

US Youth say "2020: It's too late to wait"

The Phase II National Policy Forum, organized by the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE), took place a few days ago in the Cannon Office of the House of Representatives, just opposite the Library of Congress, in Washington, DC. Apt the venue was, I’d later find, as the schedule for the Forum was packed with speeches from our nation’s congressmen.

The morning keynotes, back-to-back speeches given by Charlie Bass (R-NH) and Earl Blumenhauer (D-OR), set the tone for the rest of the conference. It was clear that the purpose of the Forum was a chance for experts to convene and talk policy, to talk "America," and to talk renewable energy policy in America with respect to the time period of 2000-2025 (“Phase I, as defined by ACORE, was 1975-2000).

Rep. Blumenhauer gave a galvanizing speech around the importance of renewing Section 1603 Treasury Program, which is best-known (or notorious) for funding Solyndra, but is also responsible for leveraging $22 billion from the private sector to support 22,000+ projects that utilize renewable energy technology. Since Solyndra filed for bankruptcy, the negative press radiated from the company’s downfall to 1603, the source of its funding. Blumenhauer (and the other Representatives that would speak throughout the day) echoed and emphasized the points made by the 1603 Coalition, a group of over 750 companies and associations, urging politicians to vote for the renewal of 1603 on Dec 31, 2011 – less than 20 days from now.

Following the morning keynotes, the conference featured four panels covering (broadly): the financing of renewable energy in the States; the role of renewables in the power market; weening ourselves off of oil; and making renewables more competitive and palatable. Afternoon keynote speakers were Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), and Peter Welch (D-VT). The Forum undoubtedly featured an impressive array of thought leaders in renewable energy -- from Michel da Capua of Bloomberg’s New Energy Finance to Dorothy Robyn, Deputy Under Secretary for Installations & Environment at the Department of Defense -- who shared insights that in some cases are just too costly to access, and in others, just too esoteric for those without a profound knowledge of the field to understand.

However, there was little mention of higher education writ large, let alone higher education sustainability. I wasn’t too surprised by this, given ACORE’s primary focus on the financial, policy, and technical aspects of renewables, but the Forum did make me realize that higher ed sustainability leaders have a lot to gain and not much to lose by being an active participant or observer of national and local governmental proceedings on energy policy.

For example, it was “green jobs” -- a common refrain from the current administration since President Obama’s campaign trail -- that was intended to be given weight with the creation of Section 1603. For students looking to break into (and for professionals already) in the renewable sector, any funding money is worthwhile, and the 1603 program, if not renewed, could be a big loss of potential funding. So, getting 1603 renewed mostly likely means an added opportunity to get your idea funded.

But another point I want to make here is that though the word "sustainability" wasn’t used as much as expected in the Forum, the so-called renewable energy or clean tech policies being drafted, voted upon, and rejected or accepted are potential sustainability policies because they have impacts on different industries and institutions. An example is the Farm Bill, which demonstrates the emergence of unanticipated effects from a piece of legislation with good intentions but far-reaching (and long-standing) adverse effects on other industries. At the Forum, the realization that the same holds true for policies that are clearly pro-renewable and nay-oil came to me while listening to John Hofmeister, former President of Royal Dutch Shell Oil North America.

Mr. Hofmeister started off his talk with a stentorian remark and a dramatic pause: “The gas lines will hit.” Gas lines? As in pipelines? Not quite; the gas lines Hofmeister was alluding to were not-so-fond memories of living through the Oil Embargo and waiting for hours at the gas stations to fill the tank. He added a caveat: “This time, it won’t be an oil embargo but a simple supply pinch.”

This was a striking reminder that, especially for those of us working in sustainability, we do have to acknowledge that allies can come in all shapes and sizes; in this case, Hofmeister comes more from a place of anti-oil or perhaps American nationalism, but not so much environmental justice, for instance.

Recognizing where our values and motives align -- and don't align -- could make us more effective at being sustainability leaders. For instance, Hofmeister and his colleagues in the US Energy Security Council are busy working the Hill to “drive home urgency and consistency” to politicians, and “come completely off OPEC oil.” Sounds good, right?

Sure, except that OPEC does not include all of the countries from which the US imports oil (two of the top sources of oil for the US are Canada and Mexico, neither of which are OPEC members), so coming 100% off OPEC oil doesn’t mean we’re getting 100% off oil. Furthermore, the bill that they propose would have strategies such as using 100% flex fuel engines to take advantage of domestic fuel sources, which might mean more corn-based ethanol. And how would this impact other industries that are adversely affected by the far-reaching tentacles of corn at present? And here we are, at that point of confluence between agriculture and renewables, between local farmers and renewables, between Big Corn and OPEC, and so forth, with which the powerful people in the USESC are not necessarily too concerned because, alas, their focus is on getting America energy-independent.

Enter sustainability professionals. With the sharply trained eye to identify and analyze the gaps and omissions that exist in policies that are being developed within silos, and propose ways to fill these gaps, the importance of an education in sustainability can’t be overstated. We all know that higher education institutions are indisputably hubs for innovation, dialogue, and discourse. But there is also this notable opportunity to apply the core concepts that so many are using to integrate sustainability into curriculum and foster cross-discipline dialogue, to the municipal, state, or national governmental level to convey that securing an energy future is a crucial part to sustainability, but not the whole.

Related Resources:
Campus Solar Installations Database
Wind Turbine Installations on Campus
"Energizing the Higher Ed Sustainability Movement -- with Renewables"
Related Blog Posts on Energy

The 2011 AASHE Conference Moves Toward One Bag with the Help of the Glad Products Company:

In October, the 2011 AASHE Conference wrapped a successful four days of sessions and meetings on how to achieve sustainability in higher education, while also achieving a sustainability success of its own. With the support of its official waste diversion sponsor The Glad Products Company, they met a 97.63% percent diversion rate, meaning less than 3% of the total conference’s accumulated waste was sent to the landfill!

The conference was one of the first events to participate in Glad’s new One Bag campaign. The effort encourages and facilitates events, venues and consumers to host One Bag events, where only one bag of waste is sent to landfill, with the remainder being diverted to compost and recycling.

So what did this take? Not only did it require recycling and composting waste diversion capabilities at the venue, but the AASHE and Glad teams worked with the event planners to ensure they were wasting less at every step along the way. This included removing “waste drivers” from the event’s menu (nixing wrapped candy and chips from lunch boxes), using compostable or reusable silverware, donating leftover boxed lunches to a local non-profit and displaying informational signage by waste receptacles.

The GLAD® “One Bag" grant program will award up to 10 - $3,500 grants to colleges that are active members of AASHE looking to further their waste reduction efforts. The Glad to Waste Less campaign and “One Bag” grant program is intended help move more football programs towards less waste, supporting AASHE's campus sustainability goals. For Official Rules and complete details, visit http://clorox.promo.eprize.com/gladonebagcollegegrant/public/fulfillment/rules.pdf.

To learn how you can host a One Bag event at www.GladtoWasteLess.com

This December, the STARS team continues its monthly blog post on facts, trends, and best practices in campus sustainability, based on data submitted by over 130 STARS Participants as of November 2011. With a focus this month on resource conservation and outreach, we hope to recognize a job well done and share ideas and inspiration on advancing sustainability in higher education. This month’s blog will highlight ER Credit 2: Student Sustainability Outreach Campaigns.

Student Sustainability Outreach
ER Credit 2 recognizes institutions that hold sustainability outreach campaigns that yield measurable, positive results in advancing sustainability performance.

Did you know?
88 percent of all STARS-rated institutions participate in at least one sustainability-related outreach campaign directed at students. Of these, 41 institutions reported outreach campaigns for the national Recyclemania competition, the most popular campaign mentioned for this credit.

*Two institutions participated in a single outreach initiative for water & energy conservation and are included in both categories
** “Other” includes campaigns for pledges, web/social media, affordability, investment, public engagement, and sustainability overall

Factoids

• The most popular categories for student sustainability outreach are waste reduction (59 campaigns) and energy conservation (52 campaigns).

• More institutions mentioned campaigns for water bottle reduction initiatives (five campaigns) than for water conservation initiatives (three campaigns).

• Only six dining campaigns were mentioned.

• Only four transportation campaigns were mentioned.

Highlighted Institutions

• University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (STARS Silver, January 2011) competed with rival NC State to conserve water, beginning with the schools' football game in November, and lasting until the basketball matchup in February. Students at UNC trimmed their daily water use by 24 percent during the challenge.
• At Carnegie Mellon University (STARS Reporter, August 2011), StepGreen is a student outreach campaign designed to track environmental impacts of students’ behaviors and actions. Students record their daily actions throughout the semester on a website, and these actions are then evaluated to present improvements to lessen students’ environmental impacts.
• At Moraine Valley Community College (STARS Bronze, January 2011) in Illinois, Cy-Rides is a free, internet based, carpool matching and tracking program open to students, staff, and faculty. The Cy-Rides campaign involves email communication, student outreach, and event displays. Based on user surveys, the 2010 campaign is estimated to have reduced CO2 emissions by over 45,000 pounds.
• Macalester College (STARS Silver, July 2011) founded and annually participates in the Minnesota Campus Energy Challenge, a statewide energy reduction competition that compares individual schools' results with previous records for each institution. In February 2010, Macalester College achieved a 6% overall energy reduction in comparison to the year before.

Please give us your feedback on future STARS data analysis updates by sending your ideas to stars@aashe.org.

The below article is by Alison Richardson who works in the Office of Waste Reduction and Recycling at the University of Michigan. Last summer, the office worked to compile recycling best practices among top recycling buildings on campus. These best practices were condensed into a guide to help lower performing buildings boost their recycling rates. The full report is available here. The below article is a summary of the key take-aways and findings.

Across the University of Michigan campus, and campuses in general, recycling rates vary widely by building. The U-M Office of Waste Reduction and Recycling sought to document the waste practices of top performing buildings with the goal of assisting facilities with lower recycling rates. The project began with identifying recycling rates, averaged over a three year period, fiscal years 2008-2010, for U-M buildings. Buildings were placed in one of six usage categories; administrative, athletic/recreational, classroom, residence, research and unions, to ensure buildings with similar functions were compared. Current practices were compiled into a best practices report largely applicable to any campus building.

Facility managers in these buildings were interviewed about their perception of recycling in their facility, building culture, custodial involvement and training, special recycling/green groups and any environmental champions within the building. Surveys with similar questions were provided to both building occupants and custodians. These interviews were in conjunction with a facility tour to view bin quantities and placement.
From this research, four “C’s” to recycling success emerged: communication, convenience, culture and custodial habits.

Communication
Establish a communication strategy for distributing recycling information, including making recycling information accessible (via email or postings near bins) and ensuring that staff are aware of any changes. Successful buildings had also identified environmental champions within the building and utilized them to help disseminate recycling information. Communication should also flow both ways, so building occupants should have access a point person(s) to go to with recycling questions.

Convenience
In common areas, place trash bins and recycling bins together in convenient areas (e.g. near entrances/exits, bathrooms, newspaper stands) so that recycling and trash are placed in the proper containers. If containers are located conveniently and close to each other, both types of waste are more likely to end up in the proper container. It is also essential to locate bins at points where people most need recycling.

Culture
While a recycling-friendly culture may seem difficult to cultivate, it is important to the success of recycling within an individual facility. Faculty, staff, and students should feel comfortable discussing recycling with co-workers, exchanging information, and pointing out recycling “mistakes” when an item lands in the wrong bin. The goal is to make placing recyclables in the recycling bin the norm. It is also important to let the building occupants know when their actions are leading to recycling success and motivate them to continue creating a building culture that has a positive recycling impact.

Custodians
For custodians to be fully dedicated to recycling at the facilities they maintain, recycling must be emphasized during training sessions and staff updates as necessary. Custodians should also be encouraged to pass recycling information along to building occupants.

While these key best practices may appear simple, it seems it is the easy practices that are most often overlooked. However, it is encouraging that these best practices are, in theory, uncomplicated. Strategies incorporating recycling communication, convenience, culture and custodial actions can be tailored and utilized at every campus facility and improve recycling rates campus-wide.