At the University of Wisconsin Madison, Slow Food UW opens a cafe once per week, offering fresh, local, homemade lunch options. Image credit Amy Verhey.

The 2012 additions to the database come at a time when 661 college and university presidents have signed the Climate Commitment, and 476 of those institutions have Climate Action Plans, committing to reducing carbon emissions and addressing sustainability at all levels of campus operations. This year’s case studies represent institutions that have been practicing campus greening for a substantial amount of time, as well as campuses that are just getting started; thus the projects described span the spectrum, from the installation of solar arrays to the distribution of travel mugs to freshmen. The case study database, searchable by year, state, topic or institution, allows visitors to learn from their peers and colleagues–to gain perspective and fresh ideas for campus sustainability, and to promote solutions to common obstacles along the road to green.

University of New England studied the feasibility of providing a river ferry service for commuters to the Biddeford Campus of UNE across the Saco River. Image credit Dick Buhr.

View the list of campuses that submitted case studies

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be highlighting select campus sustainability projects on the blog, so keep checking back!

Have you found inspiration from our case study database? What is your favorite project, and why? 

Like Campus Ecology on Facebook and follow @CampusEcology and @YouthforClimate on Twitter.

The most common way to gain support for these energy projects is to prove a significant return on investment, and are therefore worthy of being included in the college's master plan. So, articles on campus greening initiatives usually include a summary like this one: an initial investment of $X is expected to pay for itself in Y years, and generate an extra $Z. The numbers often speak for themselves, as in the case of the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, which saves 2.26 tons of CO2 emissions per vending machine per year using small devices that turn off the machines when idle. The Vending Misers, which cost $175, pay for themselves in one year by saving about $200 on electricity bills.

It seems like a no-brainer. One of our latest articles, Master Planning for Sustainability, quotes Terry Calhoun of the Society of College and University Planners, who says, "If you did good integrated planning, you would end up with sustainability. Why would you build a building that uses six times as much energy as it has to?"

Unfortunately, this picture is incomplete. The reality of a university’s bureaucracy can often mean that even projects with large and easy paybacks may be ignored, because complex budgeting structures are not designed to reward electricity savings in the facilities department. This may be true even if a comprehensive master plan puts environmental sustainability as an organizational priority. Leith Sharp, writing for Sustainability: Science, Practice and Policy, notes that, “Even if operating managers do manage to fund efficiency improvements to produce operational savings, they are rarely allowed to capture and reinvest these savings for further improvements. Instead, they will often see next year’s operating funds reduced to reflect this operating cost reduction, hardly a reward for a job well done.”

Sharp, former director of Harvard’s Green Campus Initiative, adds:

"Our institutions freely use the mantra of the “business case” to challenge and scrutinize the viability of anything new without addressing the fact that in many cases the business case is being sabotaged by poorly designed finance and accounting structures. Colleges and universities are incurring enormous additional costs by failing to reform these practices to enable good business practice to flourish … It is not clear how this has evolved, but it occurs in almost all large organizations. This division results in capital budget managers resisting the expenditure of any extra money, even when the operation savings are extraordinary. At the same time, the operating budget managers commonly do not have enough access to funds for ongoing efficiency improvements."

For a problem this complex, master planning is only part of the solution. Sharp goes on to describe the "complex, irrational, and unconscious life of the institution," which sabotages the work of campus sustainability officers and their efforts to bring the campus towards climate neutrality. As examples, she points out energy-purchasing contracts based on volume consumptions (where the unit price of energy goes up when consumption goes down) or steam return-metering. Both systems encourage individual waste, which saves money to a particular building or department, but results in overall system inefficiency.

Harvard was able to make significant progress using a revolving loan model, which funded projects with paybacks of less than five years, and reinvested that money in ongoing upgrades, efficiency projects, metering and behavioral change programs.

But Sharp is aware that this wouldn’t be possible everywhere: Harvard is blessed with more resources than most schools, and a sustainability staff of dozens of people. “The deeper lesson,” she says, “is that we should stop creating the ongoing need for revolving loan funds—by structurally connecting capital and operating budgets and institutionalizing life-cycle costing, a well-established methodology for calculating upfront and future operating costs relating to different decision-making options. I also believe that our organizations should capture and reinvest savings that result from successful resource conservation and waste-reduction efforts as routine practice to fund dedicated annual innovation budgets for financing pilot projects and ongoing efficiency upgrades.”

It’s not exactly a small request. Such redesigning of the university’s essential infrastructure might take years, and it’s a lot harder than installing add-ons to a couple vending machines, or even retrofitting an HVAC system. This doesn’t discourage Sharp. She says, “Over many years, I have observed that the common belief that people are innately adverse to change is not generally true. People are not resistant to change, they are opposed to instability, and they simply assume that change equals instability.”

To achieve this stability, Sharp argues that the sustainability staff need to act as the rudder-on-the-rudder, going beyond simple equations of return-on-investment and discussing the real risks and barriers in play. Only then, she says, can universities bring their carbon footprints “down to an equitable share of what the planet’s life-support systems can support.”

Speaking to the 250 conference attendees here in Oroville, California, Dr. Ploeg described her work at Butte, managing a 928-acre campus (80 acres is reserved for farm use, and there is also a wildlife refuge) and serving approximately 20,000 students a year. The college, located on a wildlife refuge, is committed to sustainability – it uses LEED metrics in all building projects, is powered by 50 percent renewable energy, and incorporates sustainable practices into many other areas of the campus. Dr. Ploeg drives a Prius to the office every day.

Dr. Ken Meier, Butte’s Vice President of Student Learning and Economic Development, also presented, and touched on Butte’s culture of change that focuses on three primary aspects: social equity, environmental stewardship, and economic development. He says a fourth needs to be added – community. He says the role of the American community college is to work with and engage the community, and to serve as an example. “Sustainability it not possible without community involvement,” he said.

The first day of the conference featured speakers from Ohlone College, the Los Angeles Community College District, San Mateo Community College, Bakersfield College, and Co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Price Dr. Woodrow W. Clark II was the afternoon keynote speaker, presenting “On Climate Change and the Future.”

One of the favorite presentations came from an Ohlone graduate, currently a student at UC Berkeley, on eco-behavior, hoping to answer the question – what does it take to change people’s behavior? Maria Javier surveyed several groups of students, finding that:

The environment in which a person grows up seems to have a huge impact on how a person lives as an adult. For example, a student surveyed that grew up in Ohio, in a community that had a strong conservation ethic, was a better steward of the environment as an adult than other students surveyed that grew up in communities without a strong conservation ethic.

Maria also highlighted a site on eco-behavior, Fostering Sustainable Behavior – Community-based Social Marketing, which consists of five resources for those working to foster sustainable behaviors in conservation, energy efficiency, transportation, waste reduction, and water efficiency.

After a day packed full of presentations, attendees had the opportunity to tour the sustainable fields at Lundberg Family Farms.

Kristy Jones is reporting from the 3rd Annual Butte College Sustainability Conference, in Oroville, California.

Like many institutional leaders, Matthews could have opted to design and operate the campus’ two LEED gold rated buildings, O’Brien and Rubloff Hall, largely behind the scenes, with little connection to the students. Instead, Matthews made the student educational experience a core facet of the green building projects, providing training and experience that will give Saint Xavier graduates an edge in the emerging green jobs market. Graduate level interns are trained by Matthews to design educational displays, give tours of the building, help inventory campus greenhouse gas emissions and design the campus’ climate action plan.

It’s not mere busy work, says Matthews. The tasks completed by the students also help move the university towards meeting the targets and timetables of the American College and University President’s Climate Commitment (ACUPCC), a complex and difficult task that always needs more hands. 

Julian Keniry is reporting from the Climate Leadership summit, a three-day conference focused on implementing ACUPCC commitments, organized by Second Nature along with the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) and eco-America.

The first issue, released yesterday, covers such topics as green building awards in Dubai and Ho Chi Minh City, as well as student projects in Sydney and biodiesel parks in India.

See More:

Shanghai Calling: International Collaboration for Sustainability

Youth Activists Vocal at Climate Talks in Poznan, Poland

Scott Carlson reports that "about 25 percent of the colleges that should have turned in their
greenhouse-gas reports in September are still delinquent. Of the
colleges that had a deadline in January, nearly half have yet to file."

The American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment, which has more than 600 signatories, commits schools to working towards climate neutrality, and the first step in that process is creating a public greenhouse gas inventory. As Carlson points out, it is a difficult requirement, but an easier one than those following, which include creating an emissions reduction plan, carrying it out, and integrating sustainability education into the university's curriculum.

However, between budget shortfalls and shifting priorities, many schools have failed to create or publish their emissions report, and some, like the College of Alameda in California, seem to have forgotten entirely. Many of the delinquent schools are small institutions with fewer resources or shrinking enrollments, for whom large investments in sustainability were always a stretch:

"Mr. King says Cabrillo [College] may have to
postpone plans for some renewable-energy projects, like solar panels,
that require upfront investment. The college has plans for a new
building that would be certified platinum in the Leadership in Energy
and Environmental Design program, but budget concerns may require the
college to shoot for a lower certification instead."

Many of the schools that have yet to create an inventory report that their philosophy remains unchanged, and that sustainability remains an important part of the agenda, even in difficult times. The article also notes that supporting organizations, such as Clean Air — Cool Planet and AASHE, are continuing to reach out to schools that are lagging and provide resources.

But what of the other 75%, who have reported their emissions and are now (presumably) writing their climate action plans? The Chronicle notes in a different story that Butte College, a small, two-year institution in Northern California, has just added three new solar arrays to its existing panels from 2005. The beefed-up system will generate 2.7 million kilowatt-hours of electricity annually, and is expected to save the school $32.6 million on utility bills in the next 20 years.

To sustain this momentum in the coming years and achieve real reductions in pollution on campus, however, we will need more support for faculty and stronger state and federal leadership. Here are our best picks for 2008, and where we have room to grow in 2009.

Best:

Presidents Stepped Up

By December 2008, six hundred and five college and university presidents in every state of the U.S. had signed the American College and University President’s Climate Commitment (ACUPCC). These courageous leaders committed their institutions to doing what the world’s scientists urge is necessary: achieving climate neutrality by or before 2050. Although most of these commitments were secured in 2007, the real push to implement the commitment began in 2008 with most of the signatories submitting greenhouse gas inventories and taking immediate steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Many have also begun to develop climate action plans, setting target dates and interim milestones for becoming climate neutral. In the future, the signatories have agreed to integrate sustainability into the curriculum and to make their action plans, inventories and progress reports publicly available. Credit for this outstanding leadership is due to Dr. Anthony Cortese and his group, Second Nature, as well as to AASHE and Eco-America, and of course, first and foremost, to the presidents themselves.

Butte Threw Down the Gauntlet

As she accepted Butte College’s grand prize in the 2008 National Chill Out Competition, President Diana Van Der Ploeg explained, “Our goal is to be climate neutral by 2010 and I know that is ambitious, but I think we can do it.” The two-year community college in Oroville, CA announced in 2008 that it had devised a plan to reduce its direct emissions of carbon dioxide by 100% by 2015 without relying on carbon credits. Photovoltaic (solar electric) panels, which currently generate about 28% percent of the campus’ electricity needs, will be expanded to meet all campus electricity needs within the next several years. Butte is also successfully moving more than a thousand commuters out of their cars into the largest community college transportation system in California while integrating sustainability into its curriculum.

Students Voted for Clean Energy

More Millennials (youth, ages 18-29) turned out to vote this year than anytime since 1972 and it appears that the prospect of clean energy and green jobs were part of the draw. By election day, the Energy Action Coalition’s Power Vote campaign had generated almost 350,000 pledges from students and other youth who promised to vote and to hold decision makers at all levels of government accountable for shifting to clean energy and creating millions of new green jobs. The number of pledges collected equals about 1/10 of the total increase in the youth voter turnout in 2008, providing a signal that youth enthusiasm for clean energy not only translated to votes, but helped determine the outcome in most of the swing states in the presidential election.

We Engaged at Record Levels

The higher education community engaged at record levels in national sustainability initiatives in 2008. According to event organizers’ tallies, 1,365,250 students, faculty and staff at approximately 2,100 college and universities (that’s more than half of all colleges and universities in the country) participated in a range of events focused on advancing sustainability and climate action. The largest event by far (and the largest ever of its kind that we know of in the US on sustainability and climate action) was the Focus the Nation teach-in (now known as the National Teach-In) held on January 30, 2008 with an estimated one million participants at 1,900 campuses. Other record-breakers included the National Campus Chill Out Competition Earth Day Awards Broadcast (13,550 participants at 330 campuses made it the largest campus sustainability and climate action awards program in the U.S.) and the AASHE conference (1,700 participants from 400 campuses made it the largest higher education sustainability conference held to date and one of the largest campus environmental conferences held in two decades). If you add the 350,000 pledges collected by the Energy Action Coalition during Power Vote, involvement levels in 2008 swell to more than 1.7 million.

Worst:

Faculty Not Keeping Pace

While many college presidents have committed their institutions to bold action to address climate change, few faculty have caught up with the vision and management of their campuses. A national study, Campus Environment 2008, conducted by Princeton Survey  Research Associates International for the National Wildlife Federation at 1,068 campuses concluded that little if any progress has been made in educating students for sustainability since the study was first conducted in 2001. At only a minority of schools, for example, have fifty percent or more of the students taken a course on the basic functions of the earth’s natural systems and even fewer have taken courses on the connection between human activity and environmental health. Areas such as business, engineering and teacher education still lag far behind the natural and physical sciences in offering environmental or sustainability courses within their disciplines. Part of the reason for this may be that only a minority of campuses have program to support faculty professional development on environmental or sustainability topics and an even smaller minority formally evaluate or recognize how faculty have integrated sustainability topics into their curriculum. Dr. Jean MacGregor’s Curriculum for the Bioregion Initiative -based at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington-is one of the leaders in bringing faculty from multiple institutions together to develop best practices for educating for sustainability within and among diverse disciplines.

States Slowed Innovation

While it is important to work towards effective federal legislation to curb GHG emissions in the U.S., there is much that can be done at the state level to boost innovation. Unfortunately, many states are missing these opportunities. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, as of 2008, only 24 states and the District of Columbia have renewable portfolio standards (RPS) in place that require power generators to generate a specific percentage of renewable energy by specific dates. Campus renewable energy programs in states with strong REPS thrived this year, but their counterparts in other states were at a comparative disadvantage, including campuses in states with non-binding standards (Illinois, Virginia, Vermont and Missouri) and in states with no renewable portfolio standards at all (Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, West Virginia and Wyoming).

Communities Remained Gridlocked

A handful of campuses all across the U.S., including Colorado University, the University of Montana, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Washington have begun to demonstrate ways to effectively move students, faculty and staff out of single-occupant vehicles into more sustainable transit options. The vast majority of campuses, however, remained gridlocked in 2008. The Campus Environment 2008 study revealed that a select few schools offered free or discounted bus or public transit passes, carpooling or vanpooling programs, or other incentives not to drive alone in 2008.As we seek solutions in 2009 and beyond, Will Toor and Spenser W. Havlick’s book, Transportation and Sustainable Campus Communities (Island Press, 2004) provides an excellent blueprint for developing greener transportation plans, transit systems, fleets and more and Toor’s article, “The Road Less Traveled,” in Walter’s Simpson’s new book, The Green Campus: Meeting the Challenge of Sustainability (APPA, 2008) provides additional insights.

Fossil Fuels Reigned

Although the anecdotal evidence of campuses generating clean power on site or purchasing carbon credits or renewable energy certificates is mounting, fossil fuels remained by far the dominant source of energy in 2008. Eighty-six percent of schools generated no renewable energy on-site in 2008 at all for heating or cooling; less than 8% purchased renewable energy certificates or carbon credits to promote cleaner energy from off-site sources; and less than 12% used wind, solar electricity, biomass or other clean sources on site to generate electricity. At carma.org, where it is possible to look up college and university power plants, it is surprising how many campuses, even with robust and visible sustainability programs, are running plants that emit comparatively large amounts of greenhouse gases, using coal and other relatively polluting fuel mixes.  Many of these campus plants are listed as planning to produce similar or greater CO2 output in the future and none indicated a planned reduction.

To Conclude:

Ultimately, a dramatic collective reduction in campus global warming pollution was not the headline this year, but we made considerable progress. Between hundreds of thousands of student pledges to hold elected officials accountable for clean energy and green jobs, a massive teach-in on global warming solutions, and hundreds of presidents’ climate commitments, 2008 signaled a wide-spread understanding that global warming is a real problem, requiring a willingness to set what seem like nearly impossible goals in order to quickly cap and begin to reduce concentrations of greenhouse gases in the earth’s atmosphere.

Confucius said, “When it is obvious the goals cannot be reached, don’t adjust the goals, adjust the action steps.” President Diana Van Der Ploeg of Butte College and hundreds of other college and university presidents all across the country have signaled a willingness to do just that, aiming towards climate neutrality with the hard work ethic and inventive spirit that represents the best of what we have been and can be as a nation.

The report is designed to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions
quickly and cost effectively, by analyzing the steps needed to create a comprehensive strategy for reducing the climate footprint of an institution. It shows how other schools have brought together a wide range of staff, faculty, administrators, and students to analyze
and prioritize low-carbon plans, eventually providing a complete policy with timelines for GHG reduction. 

We hope you’ll find it useful to efforts at your own school. Download the PDF here. 

In the same spirit, The Climate Registry was established to measure and publicly report
greenhouse gas emissions in an accurate and transparent manner
consistent across industry sectors. The Manoa campus of the University of Hawai’i recently became the first university in the country to become a member of the non-profit organization, and will soon submit reports of its emissions. The 20,000 student campus has committed to slashing its energy usage 30 percent by 2012, and by 2020 will power about a quarter of the campus on renewable energy sources. The effort is spurred by the university’s Manoa Climate Change Commission, which seeks a greener UHM and a more sustainable Hawai’i.

U. Hawai’i at Manoa joins six other schools (Cornell University, Syracuse University, Davidson College, Vermont Technical College, Saint Olaf College and Northland College) as well as more than 75 corporations, non-profits, cities, counties and tribes as a founding member of the Climate Registry. The measurement system is based on the standards set by the World Resource Institute and the World Bank Council for Sustainable Development. First reports are expected to be live summer 2008.

Image: UHM Chancellor Virginia Hinshaw and students planting a dozen trees on campus as part of GHG emissions reduction efforts.

As a charter signatory, Oberlin becomes one of four schools in the United States and the first in its peer group to sign the ACUPCC, developed to address what is considered by many to be the defining challenge of our century.

As a first signer, Dye also has opted to become a member of ACUPCC’s Presidents Leadership Group, a cadre of 10 to 20 presidents and chancellors representing institutions currently at the forefront of sustainability in higher education pledging to build support among college and university administrations across America.

Other members currently include Duke University, University of Florida, and College of the Atlantic. The Presidents Commitment project has set as its goal the participation pledge of at least 200 college and university presidents by June 2007.

The commitment document lists the actions needed to achieve climate neutrality, a number of which Oberlin College has already taken, such as the completion of a comprehensive greenhouse gas inventory in 2002 and an agreement with Oberlin Municipal Light and Power in 2004 to purchase approximately 50 percent of its electricity from green energy sources.

David Orr, Paul Sears Professor of Environmental Studies at Oberlin, pointed out the colleges and universities "are in a powerful position to lead on this issue. In addition to educating our students, faculty, and administrators, we can influence changes far beyond."

"We now know that human survival depends on achieving a rapid worldwide transition from fossil fuels to an era of energy efficiency and solar energy. Oberlin College has a unique opportunity to play a leading role in developing a model of climate neutrality and equip a generation of students for the great work ahead."