What follows is a rough transcript drafted live at AASHE2011. A video of the keynote session during which this announcement was made will be available in the near future.

Presenter: Mark Orlowski - Sustainable Endowments Institute

Good morning everyone. Thank you AASHE.

What I'm about to show you is the product of 2 years of work. With our 14 partner organizations, we are pleased to announce the launch of the Billion Dollar Green Challenge. It challenges institution to invest a total of $1 billion in self-managed green revolving funds on energy efficiency upgrades.

The green revolving loan fund turns what are generally considered costs (energy bills) into highly profitable investments. They are called revolving funds because the projects are lent money and then the projects repay the loans through cost savings.

I'm pleased to announce that 32 institutions have already signed on. Please join me in welcoming the representatives from those institutions. (applause) These institutions have already commit to investing $65 million in energy efficiency revolving loan funds at their institutions. The institutions range widely in size and type.

We are creating a project library and best practices and other resources to support the initiative.

Now I'd like to invite our advisory council on stage. (applause) This group has been having monthly meetings since early 2010.

A special thanks to AASHE which has been tremendously supportive. And our foundation sponsors, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Kresge Foundation.

There will be a special lunch session about the challenge on Tuesday, Oct 11th. Come learn more.

This is a big challenge. We hope you'll join us.

Thanks to Alexa Bakker for transcribing this session! Join the AASHE 2011 Transcription Project and help spread the great ideas presented at the conference!

Presenters:
Peggy F. Barlett, Emory University
Anna Prizzia, University of Florida

(Peggy)
Research over past 3-4 years on 30 campuses of varying sizes. Direct marketing (farmers markets, CSA's). Education.

Research comes from academic debates.

Need intent and capacity. First step is rhetoric. What is your rhetoric?

What is your intent?
-Pesticide use, water pollution, etc.
-Social issues: local farm purchase, fair wages and labor, etc.
-Health Issues: Diet, antibiotic resistance, nutrition

1. Food Service Goals
   -Sustainability-related criteria vary
   -Farming practices, what is local

Campuses make claims but don't back up with proof. Need accountability and transparency

Tweak menu, make seasonal, healthier meal choices, meatless reduce costs

Kitchen Practices
-In-house preparation
-Food preservation
-Certifications of green practices
-Green foodservice alliance certifications
-Attention to composting and use of waste (i.e. biodiesel)

1. Academic Programs
   -Undergraduate Concentrations
   -Graduate
   -Courses

Co-curriculum

1. Direct Marketing
   -Farmers markets and CSA's
   -Shift awareness of consumer and producer

2. Experiential Learning
   -Mental worker as opposed to physical worker
   -Campus farms

(Anna)

We know this is a global issue. Over a quarter of land use is in agriculture, over a billion starving, etc.

At University of Florida (UF)…
-Over 4,000 customers served daily in two dining halls alone
-Over 40 location with 1,000+ employees (600+ students)

Contacts are Key
-Get sustainability goals put into contact
-Figure out how to incorporate language into the ITN/Bid Process
-Be a part of the negotiation committee if possible
-Don't forget the "outliers" - vending, beverages, concessions

At UF local sourcing was stressed in campuses partially because it was measurable

Where is UF Now?
-Vegan stations for every meal in Dining Hall
-Meatless Monday (though not completely meat-free) was student-initiated
-Locally-sourced milk
-25-30% of food budget goes to local sources
-Monterey Bay Seafood Watch
-Natural Selections Catering Menu

Telling the story
-Highlight farmers and miles to your cup on posters in dining hall
-Externally it has gone well, but internally less so

Not Just Food Sourcing
-Wages, Energy/carbon, tray less/reusable to-go, composting(new)/recycling, no styrofoam or bags (soon)
-Just because it's not easy, doesn't mean it's impossible!

Other Opportunities
-Vending - nutrition labeling, energy, waste, sustainable foods, local purchasing
-Concessions - waste, catering, bulk condiments, on-demand straws and paper straws

Reaching Beyond the Dining Hall
-CSA drop-off point with local farmers

Being a Land Grant
-Curriculum - teaching garden, plant sciences major, food systems class
-Campus gardens
-Research - community food systems, climate change, water
-Service, Outreach, & Extension - PREC, Sustainable Floridians, County Offices

Beyond the Campus
-Florida Food Summit - safe place for balanced communication, relationship building, another summit soon
-Farm to Restaurant - support through sponsorship and attend every year
-Community Forum - How do we talk about the fact that no one wants to go into farming anymore? How do we inspire farming? How do we talk about a recent incidence of slavery on a farm?
-Institutional Advancement

Moving Beyond Low Hanging Fruit (literally)
-Triple Bottom Line Thinking
-Building Awareness - student, staff, and faculty and the community at large; developing the right messages, reaching diverse audiences
-Increasing Academic Involvement - growing support
-Long-range planning

Q: How do you get contacted workers to care about sustainability
A: We hired a sustainability person. Also, I pay attention… I bought a meal plan and eat in the dining halls. I don't use the language in the contract, I just let them know that sustainability is important and that's not going away

Q: Does UF or Emory have a biodiesel program?
A: Yes, at Emory we used cooking oil to make all of our shuttles use a portion of biodiesel. 20% biodiesel buses at UF.

Q: How do you work around liability and mandate challenges?
A: UF has a million dollar liability policy which sounds big but really isn't. Had presentation on what food safety requirements mean so that producers and farmers wouldn't be so scared. Also, they talked to people in the state about cooperatives to work around funding problems. Pilot programs to fix "broken" models.

Q: Open partnership and contract is important so that you can grow the program. Have a university person representing the program and evolving the partnership. Don't let institutions hid behind contracts and make excuses. Form partnerships with people in the community who act as distributers/middlemen in getting food from small, local sources.
A: Yes, willingness of directors is important.

Q: Dining director was concerned about price of oil and ability to purchase foods. Engaged students in calculations. Who is doing long-range calculations and research on this topic?
A: Don't have an answer. We've done back-of-the envelope calculations as well.

Q: They first tell us it's impossible, but then when we push we find it really is possible even with national brands (styrofoam). National brands have to procure 20% sustainable food by 2020. Would like to hear more stories about success against road blocks in a central location.
A: Airmark highlights best practices at AASHE.

Comment: At Michigan State they are approaching 50% local/regional sources. Now have recycling plant. Has hired a company to look at best practices. Submitted top 100 food sources so it can be calculated.

Q: With the franchises, what challenges and successes have you had?
A: No success stories at Emory except for fair trade coffee at bagel company, but inconsistent. Only coffee composting and waste conversation at UF. Will probably take national conversation for change. Business services offices manage vendor/franchise relationships so get them on your side.

Q: Any examples of state system initiating negotiation and alliances.
A: Less of fresh product and more of napkins, etc. Extending contract opportunities to franchises.

Q: Did you have an issue licensing USDA certification and regulations if you used food from campus farms at dining.
A: At University of Illinois they've come close to selling produce to Whole Foods but were told that it was only ok as long as sold within campus boundaries.

Q: How to monitor student input?
A: Get students to fill out the survey. Need broad spectrum. Student advisory committee.

Q: Recently had a discussion future of the farm and relationship to local mental hospital. Bringing recently incarcerated people to the farm. Has there been any work like this at Emory or UF?
A: At Emory just starting academic connections to farming as well as nursing partnership. Starting to see a food systems network beginning to rise.

Q: Partnerships with student farms and cafes?
A: Partnership at Michigan State with student organic farm, getting composting, etc. UF doesn't have a student cafe on campus.

Q: To-go or buffet style dining?
A: UF has both.

Q: Have you done any work on reducing or eliminating the purchasing and selling of bottled water on campus?
A: Not much.

Emory spent a whole year compiling information sheets in a booklet entitled Eating Sustainably. Available for free use on website.

Thanks to the anonymous person that shared their notes from this session. Join the AASHE 2011 Transcription Project and help spread the great ideas presented at the conference!

Presenter: Ashwani Vasishth, Rampart College of New Jersey

The way we make decisions need to fundamentally change
The best way to do this is to reach into the general education (GE) system

In Ramapart college mission there are Four "pillars" for college
-International
-Intercultural
-Inderdisclipinary
-Experimental
-Sustainability - not official but seen as the 5 pillar

There is Plenty of "evidence" but no actual structure for sustainability on campus
New opportunities are presenting themselves to push for sustainability in General Education
- Sustainability education center
- MA in sustainability studies
- Center for sustainability studies
- President signed ACUPCC

Recent moves towards sustainability
- Trying to establish sustainability studies as a presence on campus
- Treating the move to sustainability as a complex system
- Gradually drawing out of resources through speaker funding and library acquisition
- Redesign the India study abroad program with a sustainability focus

General education curriculum work at Rampart
- Established a general education committee to assess and infuse sustainability
- Provided survey to faculty to gauge interest and awareness
- 52 faculty members have responded so far
- Applied for a FIPSE grant - grant funding fell through
- grant was to provide funding for events for sustainability on campus
- "dinky little pokes" towards system wide change
- once people are made aware of the problem they want to help
- but once you inform them of the problem, the vastness of it overwhelms them
- networking through departments and courses

Curricular interventions
- Recent emphasis on assessment
- Started professor swap program
- Sustainability living facilities
- Interdisciplinary course as one path to success
- Student learning outcomes

Curricular Potential
- First year seminar
- Five year masters program in sustainability
- Student groups
- Presentations to students and faculty

Encouraging student groups on campus to take the lead on student outreach helped Allegheny College (PA) reduce dorm energy consumption by 12 percent during its annual Energy Challenge last October. With the $5,739 saved in energy bills, the campus is installing a six-panel solar array, said Sustainability Coordinator Kelly Boulton, who presented alongside Environmental Science Professor Eric Pallant.

The college formed a student sustainability coordinating committee as a way to bring together all student groups at once instead of having "17 different conversations," said Boulton. Some of the student group approaches to student outreach that came out of this committee include:

• Stargazing hosted by the Astronomy Club as alternative to watching TV

• Bicycle-powered smoothies

• Glow-in-the-dark condoms passed out as part of a "Do it in the Dark" campaign

• Dinner in the Dark

• Acoustic open mic night

Pallant also pointed out that the challenge takes a "fun fury" approach to entice and incentivize the campus to reduce its energy consumption. "We were not going to make people feel guilty. There was no finger wagging," he said. In addition to mock bills and challenge progress updates, the college hosted a vampire movie screening that gave away free popcorn to those students that unplugged the "vampires" in their dorm room and showed up with dirty jeans, proving that they stayed away from a washing machine.

For this year's challenge, taking place this month, challenge organizers reached beyond the "usual suspects" who are eager to help out each year and focused on building relationships with new student groups to enlarge the outreach circle.

Thanks to Katherine Fink for transcribing this session! Join the AASHE 2011 Transcription Project and help spread the great ideas presented at the conference!

Presented by Susan Powers

Vision for year-round sustainable food

• Aeroponic system
• heating and electricity from renewable resources
• anaerobic digester

Achieving this vision

• lab testing
• pilot scale facility
• business established
• larger pilot
• full scale implementation

Aeroponic

• less total mass
• water sprayed on roots

Efficient Lighting system

• maximizing day lighting
• need supplemental lighting
• no over lighting

Food waste digester

• energy cabin
• wood pellet boiler
• solar thermal supplemental hot air heating

Integrated system
cheel->foodwaste-->anaerobic digester-->effluent/nutrients-->greenhouse-->food

Key points

• need new ideas for feeding our world
• high tech solutions
• enabling students to do projects

Thanks to Katherine Fink for transcribing this session! Join the AASHE 2011 Transcription Project and help spread the great ideas presented at the conference!

Campus Greenhouse Provides Local Food and Research on Vegetable Production in Cold Climates
Presented by Susan Powers
AASHE 2011

Vision for year-round sustainable food

• Aeroponic system
• heating and electricity from renewable resources
• anaerobic digester

Achieving this vision

• lab testing
• pilot scale facility
• business established
• larger pilot
• full scale implementation

Aeroponic

• less total mass
• water sprayed on roots

Efficient Lighting system

• maximizing day lighting
• need supplemental lighting
• no over lighting

Food waste digester

• energy cabin
• wood pellet boiler
• solar thermal supplemental hot air heating

Integrated system
cheel->foodwaste-->anaerobic digester-->effluent/nutrients-->greenhouse-->food

Key points

• need new ideas for feeding our world
• high tech solutions
• enabling students to do projects

Thanks to Katherine Fink for transcribing this session! Join the AASHE 2011 Transcription Project and help spread the great ideas presented at the conference!

Presented by John Edmund Peterson and Andrew deCoriolis

Overview of Campus Conservation Nationals 2010

• resource use reduction
• engage, educate, motivate, and empower
• 3 weeks
• common web platform
• dorm v. dorm
• school v. school
• manual data entry v. real-time
• common baseline

Key features of technology

• intra campus
• inter campus
• commitments on facebook
• twitter feed
• Unite equivalents
• more accessible to all students

Summary

• total savings
• dorm statistics
• best performing schools

Evaluation process

• recorded energy and water consumption in competing dorms
• percent change between periods
• tracked use of the website
• post competition participant survey
• post competition organizer survey

Participant survey response statistics

• diversity of institutions that responded
• mostly freshmen and sophomores
• mostly female

Resource use consciousness

• generally people were very aware of their resource use
• making decisions to minimize
• they believe their resource use has impacts
• feel they have limited control over dorm wide consumption

What concerns motivate conservation?

• future generations
• my own well being
• concern for people
• concern for animals
• concern for country
• well being of others
• financial well being of my college

Competition: awareness and participation

• students who knew their dorm wast participating
• students who felt their hall mates knew about the competition

Empower and motivate?

• felt motivated to compete, but less empowered by it

what aspects were motivational

• dorm v. dorm is most important
• a multi-school event made me feel part of something larger
• floor v. floor but this is hard to do
• schools in athletic conference
• peer institutions
• it is demotivating to be a loser

Conservation strategies

• turning off lights
• turn off faucets
• shorter showers
• use power strip
• talked to hall mates about conserving resource
• got engaged in environmental activism
• swapped out an incandescent light bulb for cfl
• got ride of mini-fridge
• electricity reduction in dorms significantly related to residents who turned off lights
• water reduction in dorms significantly related to residents who took shorter showers

web interface

• page views
• unique visitors
• viewing time
• all increased during competition
• reduction commitments

performance of dorms
has to do with organization effort

Are reductions sustained?

• was not measured for the last CCN
• but their was intent to continue to conserve

Connectedness with nature

• positively correlated with many measures
• strong predictor of behavior
• highest connectedness
• significantly lower baseline use
• significantly lower electricity reduction
• less page views

Barrier and benefit research

• what makes it difficult to conserve electricity
• what makes it difficult to conserve water
• what are the benefits of reducing your water and electricity use
• needs v. desire
• apathy
• things outside of personal control
• scale of impact

organizers

• posters
• social networking sites
• email
• articles in college newspaper
• tabling
• ads on college website
• events during competition
• guerilla marketing
• articles online
• kick-off event

take home points

• environmental motivation skewed toward global and future concerns
• social motivations are more local
• competition links local and global motivations
• students feel more motivation than empowerment
• competition has potential to reach beyond the choir
• social diffusion
• best at engaging those that are least connected with nature

Campus conservation nationals 2012
race to a gigawatt

Thanks to Katherine Fink for transcribing this session! Join the AASHE 2011 Transcription Project and help spread the great ideas presented at the conference!

Campus Conservation Nationals: Lessons Learned by Competing to reduce Dormitory Water and Electricity Use
Presented by John Edmund Peterson and Andrew deCoriolis
AASHE 2011

Overview of CCN 2010

• resource use reduction
• engage, educate, motivate, and empower
• 3 weeks
• common web platform
• dorm v. dorm
• school v. school
• manual data entry v. real-time
• common baseline

Key features of technology

• intra campus
• inter campus
• commitments on facebook
• twitter feed
• Unite equivalents
• more accessible to all students

Summary

• total savings
• dorm statistics
• best performing schools

Evaluation process

• recorded energy and water consumption in competing dorms
• percent change between periods
• tracked use of the website
• post competition participant survey
• post competition organizer survey

Participant survey response statistics

• diversity of institutions that responded
• mostly freshmen and sophomores
• mostly female

Resource use consciousness

• generally people were very aware of their resource use
• making decisions to minimize
• they believe their resource use has impacts
• feel they have limited control over dorm wide consumption

What concerns motivate conservation?

• future generations
• my own well being
• concern for people
• concern for animals
• concern for country
• well being of others
• financial well being of my college

Competition: awareness and participation

• students who knew their dorm wast participating
• students who felt their hall mates knew about the competition

Empower and motivate?

• felt motivated to compete, but less empowered by it

what aspects were motivational

• dorm v. dorm is most important
• a multi-school event made me feel part of something larger
• floor v. floor but this is hard to do
• schools in athletic conference
• peer institutions
• it is demotivating to be a loser

Conservation strategies

• turning off lights
• turn off faucets
• shorter showers
• use power strip
• talked to hall mates about conserving resource
• got engaged in environmental activism
• swapped out an incandescent light bulb for cfl
• got ride of mini-fridge
• electricity reduction in dorms significantly related to residents who turned off lights
• water reduction in dorms significantly related to residents who took shorter showers

web interface

• page views
• unique visitors
• viewing time
• all increased during competition
• reduction commitments

performance of dorms
has to do with organization effort

Are reductions sustained?

• was not measured for the last CCN
• but their was intent to continue to conserve

Connectedness with nature

• positively correlated with many measures
• strong predictor of behavior
• highest connectedness
• significantly lower baseline use
• significantly lower electricity reduction
• less page views

Barrier and benefit research

• what makes it difficult to conserve electricity
• what makes it difficult to conserve water
• what are the benefits of reducing your water and electricity use
• needs v. desire
• apathy
• things outside of personal control
• scale of impact

organizers

• posters
• social networking sites
• email
• articles in college newspaper
• tabling
• ads on college website
• events during competition
• guerilla marketing
• articles online
• kick-off event

take home points

• environmental motivation skewed toward global and future concerns
• social motivations are more local
• competition links local and global motivations
• students feel more motivation than empowerment
• competition has potential to reach beyond the choir
• social diffusion
• best at engaging those that are least connected with nature

Campus conservation nationals 2012
race to a gigawatt