Sustainable Campuses

1
Sustainable Campuses

• Rich Buchholz
• NRISC Conference
• 31 January 2007

2
What is a sustainable campus?

• It meets the needs of the present without
  compromising the ability of future generations to
  meet their own needs (from www.sustainablecampus.o
  rg)
• Characteristics
• Improves economic efficiency
• Protects and restores ecological systems
• Enhances the well-being of all peoples

3
Why Should Ole Miss Want One?

• Research
• Does sustainability make sense (and cents) ?
• How are these technologies transferred to
  society?
• Training Education
• Hands on experiences for students
• Demonstration sites for the general public
• Economic Societal Benefits
• Allow better allocation of University funds
• Attract green industries (and their employees)
• Improves our national/international image

4
What are other campuses doing?

• Many have an Office of Campus Sustainability
• Mostly a clearinghouse for information
• Assembles campus resource statistics
• Websites with catch phrases of sustainable
  development
• Student groups replace the role of OCS on some
  campuses, or work closely with them

5
Cornell University

• Promoting sustainable futures and advancing
  Cornells mission
• Relatively few accomplishments so far
• Recycling of waste
• Pollution monitoring and reduction goals
• Campus transportation system
• Green building guidelines
• Regular assessments

6
Michigan State University

• Public seminar series
• Course-based campus environmental assessment
• Ecological footprint assessment of university
  activities (e.g. football!)

7
UC-Santa Cruz

• Chancellors Committee on Sustainability and
  Student Environmental Center
• Sustainability Blueprint with short and long term
  goals
• The Education for Sustainable Living Program
• Annual Campus Earth Festival
• to appreciate the wonders of life at UC Santa
  Cruz and the many opportunities to live
  sustainably upon the planet.

8
University of Florida

• Pledging to make environmental education and
  research a central goal in this institution
• Current projects are mostly links to old
  assessment reports and media reports
• Sustainability duties are allocated to existing
  campus committees and operational departments

9
Steps to Sustainability _at_ Ole Miss

• Poll campus to find out what sustainability means
  to students, faculty and staff
• Convene expert panel to identify a sustainability
  ideal for the campus
• Identify steps (education, public relations,
  legislative, research, funding, etc) towards this
  ideal

10
Academic Setting is Unique

• Accepts risk taking as part of learning
• Flagship university has leadership role
• Multi-disciplinary and integrative

11
Campus People Power

• Student activism is an untapped resource at Ole
  Miss
• A Gallup poll revealed that over two-thirds of
  college-age youth believe the world was a better
  place when their parents were their age, and over
  half believe things are getting worse.
  (University of Florida)

12
Sustainable Innovations

• Lets not merely adopt the environmentalist
  platitudes of reduce, reuse, recycle
• Lets avoid knee-jerk reactions and
  naturalistic bandwagons
• Lets be cutting edge in our thinking and
  planning for sustainability

13
Seeing the Big Picture

• Plastic Pine Needles as Mulch
• Goal
• Save landscaping costs (financial sustainability)
• Controversy
• Not Biodegradable, made from petrochemicals, etc
• Big Picture
• Needs to consider effects of commercial pine
  needle harvesting on forest biodiversity and
  community economics

14
A New Way of Thinking About Sustainability

• Instead of merely trying to make our campus
  actions less harmful to the future
• Lets design products and procedures that will
  leave the environment better than before we
  screwed it up