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Tony Cortese
Executive Director of Second Nature

Just a year after AASHE was created, AASHE, EcoAmerica and Second Nature came together to ask college and university presidents to step up and not only commit their institution to become climate neutral, but also to educate their students about climate change. (link to the American College & University Presidents Climate Commitment website.)

We started with 12. Today, we have 676 institutions in all 50 states. And it includes every type of university and college in the US. From community colleges to big state universities to small private liberal arts colleges, tribal institutions and more. The diversity of the representation of this group is incredible.

Why did we do this? Because we thought the challenge of becoming sustainable as a society, not just in higher ed, required that higher education lead. And, that it not be just one institution leading but that all of them lead. We went to the Presidents because the challenges we face are so profound that only the Presidents could convene all the faculty, staff and students that we need to move society forward. We are 100% of the educational footprint. We educate all the K-12 teachers.

No one expects all the schools to be able to do this overnight. It is a flexible commitment, but it is accountable and tangible and allows a window into all of our progress. What's happened over the last 4 years. Innovation on so many campuses are happening as a result. The president of Chatham University said it was the ACUPCC that allowed the Board of Trustees to have the conversation that lead them to build the first sustainable campus on a 300 acre property outside of Pittsburgh. We have 400 climate action plans and 1,327 GHG inventories. It is the most significant database of what institutions are doing with regard to climate change.

(He shows a chart of Net Signatories, which shows that they have bounced some institutions out of the commitment as a result of their not fulfilling the commitment. So, the commitment does have accountability. But the retention rate is still 95%, which is incredible for a voluntary commitment during this economic downturn.)

The commitment requires that schools develop a Greenhouse Gas Emission and Climate Action Plan within a given timeframe. Accountability and Progress Reports are due in January 2012, which will record all kinds of new information about what schools are doing with regard to renewable energy and climate neutrality planning (they have to set a date).

Here's some examples of what is happening. On Ball State University, they are switching from coal to geothermal heating which will save money. At Butte College, they are the first institution to go grid positive on solar power. And they expect to save $50 million to $75 million over 15 years.

It's taken a lot of partners to make this happen (lot's of logos showing up on the screen). We don't do this in a vacuum. We could not have done it without all these partnerships.

The President's Climate Commitment is a presidential initiative. There is a committee of 26 presidents that provide the direction for the initiative. (Asks them to stand for round of applause.)

We have just started a Presidential Fellows Program in which recently retired presidents that are going to help current presidents implement the commitment. Why? Because they have walked in their shoes. We think the peer-to-peer work is one of the most important things we can do to advance this work. For example, we also have an Implementation Liaison Support Committee that supports the staff working to implement the technical parts of the commitment on their campus.

(Plays a video of President of Arizona State University, Michael Crowe.)

Before I close, I want to thank AASHE for being a partner all along. This year AASHE is playing a particularly critical role in the educational part of the commitment. How do we transform the education? We are delighted to have Cindy Thomashow, AASHE's Education Director, and AASHE, which has all the right connections, to help make that happen.

I'm delighted to see how far we have come in a relatively short time.

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

Establishing a Research Agenda for the Sustainability Field
Julie Newman, Ph.D., Yale University
Shana Weber, Ph.D., Princeton University
(Julie Speaking)
Julie comes from a policy background, Shana has an ecology background. Both arrived in a place in their career where they're trying to find a way to frame and grow the research agenda.

(Shana speaking)
The field of sustainability is still young. We still don't have a unified research agenda whereas many other fields do.

Our Assumptions
-A unified research agenda for our field is important
-Sustainability programs are natural partners with but not currently paired with academic research agendas
-This agenda exists where the nuts and bolts operational experience intersects with current academic research interests
-That pairing would provide local solutions to global challenges
-Higher education is the right place

(Julie)
PSU, too, is struggling with finding a research agenda. A friend from PSU said "You're one of those 'pracademics'" to Julie. The knowledge and framework are there, it's just a matter of tapping into them.

What we don't know: a possible framework
-Ecological Systems
-Apply to both urban and rural universities
-Social Systems
-Engagement of people in this work
(Shana)
-Physical Systems
-Built environment. Old vs. new. Learning how to apply sustainability to old buildings, not just building new ones.
-Technical Systems
-Infrastructure. How do we integrate new technologies into energy conservation? Renewable technology.
-Organizational Systems
-How do we look at this from a research perspective?
-Integrative Systems
-Idea that all fields work together toward decision making.

Are theses the right terms? Can some of them be paired?

(Julie)
Questions for Exploration
1. Why is it important to have a unified research agenda?
2. What should a research agenda achieve, in plain language?
3. What kind of expertise do we need in our field to advance a research agenda?

How are these questions manifesting?
-Princeton & Yale
-Linking campus-based sustainability
-Sustainability in the lab. People are finally catching up with this. It's not that people never believed in it before, we are just more capable now.

Sample Research Questions - Yale
-How much aught a campus use to be sustainable
-How to balance small issues like water bottles with big issues

(Shana)
Sample Research Questions - Princeton
-What is the most effective combination of communication strategies to encourage behavior change?
-What are the financial benefits associated with programs perceived to be "soft" (bikeshares, ecoreps, garden projects, etc.)?
-What are effective incentives within the design and construction industry to maximize for energy efficiency and innovation?
-What are viable solutions to the lack of public transportation for commuters?

Analytical tools for potential use in defining agenda
-We all use these tools on a daily basis but we have not yet applied them to the research agenda
-Life Cycle Analysis
-Systems thinking
-Synthesis
-Cost Benefit Analysis

(Julie)
WORKSHOP TIME

-Take a moment to think of your work on campus and discuss the challenges and solutions.

Questions:
-Q: Who is sitting in the room?
A: (Took survey of group) Wide spread of faculty, half-faculty, sustainability directors, librarians, graduates, undergraduates

-Q: Can we define our focus?
A: (Answers from group) How can we learn to live well in our place (whatever it may be) and be good citizens? Majora's quote "local solutions to global challenges. We are anchors in our communities… we're the biggest customers. Maybe we need to publish a research agenda. Need to discuss research grants. Practitioners need to research and faculty need to practice so we can work together.

-Q: Which faculty do we engage around research? (Business? Communication?)
A: (Shana) Connect with the faculty that already have an interest and have been collecting data. Ideal scenario has been that they've had funding that brought faculty out of the woodwork to do great research. Or find faculty that are teaching courses about topics that are of interest.
Q: Does one section of faculty have more credibility and promise?
A: (Shana) Engineering was first for Princeton

-Q: Shouldn't we look outside of campus
A: (Julie) Definitely! Look at broad scale and connections. (Shana) One of the outcomes of a better research agenda is more cumulative impact.

-Q: Where are most faculty members looking for grants? What are grants offering to fund?
A: (Not much response) NSF

-Q: What are universities uniquely qualified to do that is transferrable to hospitals, etc.? How do we tap the brainpower of faculty, students, etc.?
A: (Julie) Links back to first question

-Q: Come up with examples of initiatives
A: (Group member) Flood research, job creation, crop growth in Vermont.

-Q: What is driving the research agenda?
A: (Shana) Instead of being solely industry or academic interests, what is the optimal combination of interests? Could define by profit (industry approach). What is our end point? That's what today's discussion is about.

-Q: How are we sharing this information. It's all disciplinary and there are a lot of separate journal
A: (Group members) Proceedings of the National Academy of Science just started a sustainability focus. We need to constantly ask ourselves what the barriers to interdisciplinary research are.

Cloud of knowledge created… bring it to the next level where it comes together.

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Welcoming remarks from AASHE Executive Director, Paul Rowland

I want to particularly welcome the international participants. On the wall, there are flags that represent all of the countries from which you travelled. I'd also like to acknowledge the student summit participants and volunteers that participated in community service projects. And I'd like to recognize everyone for making the effort and finding the resources to get here. I'd also like to thank our sponsors who make the conference possible and reduce the registration cost of the conference.

My joy in seeing you all tonight is tempered by the recognition that we've lost to great sustainability leaders. Ray Anderson who has been an AASHE keynote twice. For nearly two decades, he was a leading advocate of the business case for sustainability. He didn't just see it as a business proposition, though. It was personal in that he saw it's importance for his family, his employees and his community.

Two weeks ago, we lost another world sustainability leader, Wangari Maathai. It is impossible to capture all that she meant not just to Africa but to all the world. She brilliantly wove together the many strains of sustainability. She showed that women's rights, environmental justice, human rights and peace were all connected. (He reads a quote from her most recent book and talks about the importance of reflection to our work.)

As an educator, I've spent some time thinking about what the purpose of education is and it's become clear to me that the fundamental thing is that we be more thoughtful. As agents of education, we have the opportunity to be thoughtful people. But, we can't just be thoughtful hermits. Thoughtfulness needs to be coupled with action. And I can't talk about taking action without acknowledging the young people around the world that have been taking action this year - from the Arab spring to the Occupy Wall St. These actions provoke thought and exploration. Let's not forget that interplay between actions and thoughtfulness.

I am thrilled to be here with you tonight. Let's begin.

Keynote by Majora Carter

(Majora is introduced by Sheri Tonn, conference co-chair, former AASHE board chair and a dean at Pacific Lutheran University. See Majora's speaker bio.)

It is deeply humbling to be here with you today because I know I'm standing in for the late great Wangaari Mathai. I'm not particularly spiritual, but I know that when people transition they become our ancestors and they are there to guide us. Both Ray and Wangari really did light the way for us to be better to each other. There work really was about peace. How do you start at the community level and make things so people can be their absolute best selves?

Just to let you know, I'm from South Bronx in NYC. It is now known as an environmental and economic trainwreck. It was a former walk-towork community with factories. It used to be known as "little pittsburgh" because of how much steel work was done there. These former manufacturing facilities became places where waste industries and power plants and energy industries.

Our community has a lot of people that won't graduate from high school, or go to the institutions you go to. But, those same people are huge wellsprings of knowledge if given the opportunity. We knew that these plants were having an intense impact on our lives and quality of life. We had asthma, diabetes and obesity epidemics. The landuse patterns absolutely have an impact on our quality of life.

Columbia University did a study that conclusively linked fossil fuel emissions with early childhood learning development. And, children from communities that do poorly in school statistically end up incarcerated at much higher rates. So, we see a direct pipeline from our environmental landuse through to the prison system.

We got mobilized because the city wanted to add insult to injury by building a huge waste plant on the waterfront of our community. So, what we did was we wanted to change it from fighting against bad land use and figure out what there could be on our waterfront that we could fight for. She shows a picture of a lot from 1998. They got a little grant and cleaned it up and started with a small area transforming it. We worked through clean-ups and trying to get our local officials to pay attention and grew that little seed grant into this. She shows a picture of a gorgeous park that was made possible by a $1 million grant they ultimately one from the city. It has become a vibrant space for the community. People come to it and spend time there and experience nature - and I even got married there.

It allowed us to see that so much of what we thought about our community, we dismissed that with this one little park. With that, we then started to think, what else can we do? About air quality? About connecting people together through parks in a greenway? So, I wrote a proposal that brought in 2.6 million to build a coastal greenway that connected up with another greenway. It has pedestrian infrastructure, storm water management and economic development. We $15 million from the stimulus package for the project and as far as I'm aware it is the only community initiated transportation project funded by the stimulus package.

But, when I first started my organization in the South Bronx, people couldn't understand what this "green job"thing was. And why should you link poverty alleviation and environmental change? But we knew that we need to combine the two - so we started one of the first green jobs training programs in the country. We looked at the fact that we were doing infrastructure projects on our waterfront and wanted to make sure those jobs were done by people in our community. So we got people training in wetland restoration and habitat creation. And many of the people we were training were people who had significant obstacles to employment. We had to teach people things beyond the technical job - life skills that many take for granted. And, we had to show people who had never felt like they could contribute to something that they could contribute something valuable.

We also wanted to make sure that people didn't think this was a treehugger thing - not that we don't like trees but because we knew it needed to be about economic development. It needed to make money. So we started a green roofing company. A green roof holds storm water, cleans the water and the air and lowers the ambient air temperature in the city and utility bills for our buildings. And these kinds of jobs are the kinds of jobs that cannot be outsourced. (She shows a beautiful picture of the green roof on her house and the installation of it.) There are many things you can do on a green roof, from growing food to providing habitat for wildlife. It's not that a green roof will get rid of the need for water treatment plants, but they do reduce the cost of running those plants. These are the types of things that can support the municipalities by lowering their costs, providing economic development

I have a little confession to make. That is that I have something in common with the Tea Party. I want a smaller government. I want a smaller government by providing jobs to the people with generational poverty, the most expensive citizens when it comes to government services. The people that are fighting our wars, going in and out of prison, on welfare, using drugs. There are so many reasons why work in green infrastructure is perfect for these kinds of citizens. And it saves money, taxpayer dollars, and lives in the process. These kind of local solutions that allow dollars to circulate in a local economy is what does allow communities to contribute to their own communities uplift. It's what I like to call "home(town) security".

(She transitions to talking about people with similar projects around the country.)

Andy Lipkis
Open Charter School Demonstration Project
Los Angeles, CA

He found out that school district was about to spend millions on new facilities with a huge percentage of the cost going to pavement and air conditioning systems. He knew that if they reduced the asphalt and invested in green space, they could reduce their air conditioning load. It saved money. (She shows a picture of tree-filled landscape near a school.)

Brenda Palms-Barber
Sweet Beginnings
Chicago, IL

She was trying to figure out how to get jobs for ex-offenders. If you think about how much it costs to keep someone in jail ($60k) it is more than a Harvard education! And the recidivism rate is 65%. So, she created a business training them in how to care for bees and create value-added products that are now sold at Whole Foods and by mail-order. The recidivism rate in her program is 4%.

Judy Bonds
Coal River Mountain Watch
West Virginia

Judy was a coal miner's daughter. You'd think she would have believed in coal being king forever, but she understood that this wasn't her father's coal mining. They are blowing up a whole mountain for a couple dozen jobs. Those mountains never, ever grow back. Her idea then was to build wind farms on the mountains. Unfortunately, Judy's was another one of the lives we lost this year. She was a victim of the environment she was living in. She died of lung cancer earlier this year. But, Judy's dream is going to live on, because her dream was a business plan and it's going to happen.

So, the question here is about land use. How do we use land? And I've been thinking a lot about real estate, and how we can use it to create a better environment. (She shows a picture of a juvenile detention center that she grew up near.) Since it opened, people have been trying to close it down. It was notorious. My dad was a janitor there and I remember him saying that he wished our house was bigger because the kids there were just being broken down, not rehabilitated. It's been a huge presence in our community. Last year, they closed it down finally.

I've been walking by it and thinking I'd really like to do something with that site. And what I'd really like to do is turn it into a mixed-use affordable housing complex with retail and housing and office space. I thought "that's crazy" but then I realized that there are only two kinds of real estate development in poor communities. There's a kind that looks to exploit gentrification and then there's the kind that assumes that a community is going to be poor forever and so you'll see lots of applications for liquor joints and strip clubs. And, I started thinking, what are some of the unintended consequences of integration. We may have had racially segregated communities before integration, but we had economically integrated ones. It wasn't uncommon for a poor family to live next to a doctor. But, the moment houses started getting torched in the 60s, anyone with any economic resources left. The only reason my family stayed was because we couldn't sell our house for anything. So, let's bring a new kind of development to poor communities.

(She shows a map of the community with overlays of population density and thoroughfares and retail space. There isn't much retail within the south bronx which is sort of cut off by a highway.)

Right now, there isn't much retail in the South Bronx, but we want to change that. Because there are so few shops (grocery, shoe shop, etc) I realized that even I spend very little money in our community. We want it to be mixed income and inclusionary. We also want to revitalize the manufacturing area. We want to do urban farming and green furniture manufacturing. We want to create a lot of public space that everyone benefits from. A farmers market is coming soon. We also want to include vocational training - like a "fab lab". We had some community members realize that there were lots of pallettes coming through our community that were just going to the landfill and so they started making really nice furniture out of it. We want to bring people to areas that are currently so vacant that bad things happen there. By activating those areas, we can discourage that kind of activity. We know that this development will raise the bar for everything around it. And it will spread. I want this to spread everywhere - not just in the Bronx but all across the country!

(She reads a quote from MLK Jr's Letter from a Birmingham jail about there not being time for patience and talks about urgency.)

So many of our bad environmental management decisions are due to our ability to disregard the impacts on poor communities. If we located all of our conventional agricultural and manufacturing in wealthy communities, we would have had a clean and green economy a long time ago. But it comes back to land use. How do we use our land? It has this ripple effect that touches everything.

It's always about the economy. We're here in PA and I have to mention that we have farmers in this state that have farmed their land for 7 generations who are signing drilling rights for natural gas franking because they need the money!

And I want to give a shout-out to the students and folks that are planning a peaceful protest about the oil tar sands for when Obama comes to town.

It's always about the economy and our education contributes to that. Our education system has failed a huge portion of our population. Our land use and job creation needs to create accessible jobs, not as a cost, but as a benefit. We are leading when we are building a green economy, not when we are leading in incarceration rates. And your institutions have a role to play in this. By participating in the communities they are working in - not in some kind of go out in the community volunteer thing - but by putting poor people to work making our communities better. That is your job. Those are your marching orders. And I want to help you go there.

This is not an impossible task for us. This is a hopeful time. I look forward to hearing more from you. Thank you so much.

(Standing ovation)

Questions & Answers

I would like to know what you think are the most effective financing models you are finding?

That was a huge question for me too with this South Bronx project. The wonderful thing is there are people looking to develop public private partnerships. But also, businesses are interested because they see this as the future.

As you make the South Bronx more desirable, how do you avoid the original residents getting displaced?

You get them jobs! We have to get the people living there now up to speed to do the jobs for the industries we attract.

What is your model of change? How do you se change happening?

I see change happening when people who have been shut out of discussions start seeing themselves as part of it. People who are economically disemplowered act that way in every other part of their lives. The deficits extend to how they think about their health. People will operate out of their own self interest, and I see no problem trying to figure out how to work with that.

Have you seen any potential for improving air quality by requiring diesel trucks in your area to achieve a better standard than the average?

There are waste management companies out there that are operating independently that see the value in that. Maybe they see regulations coming down the line. An example of that is some companies in Washington state that are recycling everything, including running everything on biodiesel. Clearly, some have done the cost benefit analysis and have seen that it does save them money. And i would like to see more of that happening in communities that have not been protected by standards. But I'm really inspired by what people are doing because of the cost benefit analysis.

We are a university town, but 50% of the kids in our community are on the federal school lunch program and in some areas it's up to 80%. I'd like us to do something about it. Do you know of a good model for that?

I know of some models, and could go on about it, but it isn't rocket science. It's developing those partnerships and doing that cost benefit analsysis to measure what it is actually costing you to be disengaged from the community. Contact me at http://www.majoracartergroup.com.

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

Creating Sustainable Social Change: Student Engagement on Environmental Justice on Campuses
AASHE2011, 1:15 PM, Room 317 Sunday, October 9

Susan Beckett, CU Environmental Center
Sarah Dawn Haynes, CU Environmental Center
Erika Kociolek, AASHE/Duke University
Andrea Zaragoza-Ballesteros, AASHE/ University of Colorado at Boulder/ CU Environmental Center

Susan
Introductions
A series of panelists sharing the ways in which Environmental Justice is addressed on campuses as an opportunity for education, engagement and sustainable change in both the campus community and the surrounding areas. This panel will focus on the importance of student engagement on the matter, which offers the opportunity for a better relationship between the academic institution and the greater community by creating leaders and meaningful relationships for sustainable social change.

The panelists focused on "What Worked?" and "Lessons Learned," using the Environmental Center at Colorado University (Boulder) as a living example.

Sarah Dawn Haynes
Environmental Center History
• Flagship campus: Boulder
• Founded by students 42 years ago
• 9 FT staff, over 100 student employees, 409 student volunteers

Definition of "Environmental Justice:"
"No community should be saddled with more environmental burdens and less environmental benefits than any other." -Majora Carter

Federal definition:
No population, especially the elderly and children, should be forced to shoulder a disproportionate environmental burden.

CU's Progress Points:
• Grad students host environmental justice lectures
• Hired 2 student coordinators, formed after school program
• Student government leaders submitted monthly editorials on environmental justice
• Steering Committee formed (and then later restructured)
• Diversity outreach focused on creating campus alliances
• Community energy connections
• Food and environmental justice week

Andrea Zaragoza-Ballesteros
Steering Committee: What worked?
• Set solid foundation
• Student government representatives shed light on e student government bureaucracy
• Raised awareness among participating students
• Provided a "sounding board" for EJ coordinators with regard to what CU and the greater community need?
• Gave students a voice

Steering Committee: Lessons Learned
• Most members not actively engaged
• Students already overcommitted
• Students from all level needed, new students intimidated
• High turnover and lack of continuation and documentation

After-School Programs: What Worked?
• Legitimized environmental justice through approval from Denver Public Schools
• Working with a recognized organization = good community access
• Developed relationships with students
• Sustainability, justice-centered curricula
• Helped identify students for a "Computers to Youth" project

After-School Programs: Lessons Learned
• Not enough documentation
• Mixed results, some saw it as babysitting
• Difficult to find students that wanted to learn instead of just seeing the program as a "giveaway" with little value.
• No evaluation
• The loss of a key leader with the partner organization meant a loss of credibility in the community.
• School bureaucracy changed, which created new roadblocks.

Community Energy Connections (did Tier 1 Audits): What Worked
• Successful outreach to hundreds of home
• Bilingual student employees and Spanish-speaking population
• Longmont, close proximity to CU
• Credibility through association
• Service learning and skill building opportunity for student employees

Community Energy Connections: Lessons Learned
• Change in staffing, subsequent change in support
• Tiered auditing program changed
• Program often viewed as a handout
• Success was largely dependent on the auditors
• Cultural barriers

Susan

Food and Environmental Justice Week: What Worked
• Spread awareness among students
• Increased interest on topic
• Built community connections with speakers and organizations
• Service projects
• Partnerships on campus

Food and Environmental Justice Week: Lessons Learned
• Students overexposed to events
• Preaching to the choir
• Follow through. The hope had been to create long-term relationships with organizations, but it only happened in a couple of places.
• Only one day of service learning

Big Lessons Learned:
• Training and development is imperative
• From the community, for the community. Better to have the community tell us what they need, rather than other way around.
• Avoid "Band-Aid" projects and "Hero Complex."
• Documentation and continuity

What's Next at CU?
Increase in campus collaborations
• Dennis Small Cultural Center
• Center for Multicultural Affairs
• Volunteer Resource Center
• Institute for Ethical and Civil Engagement
Discussion series and fact campaign
Presentation of CU Diversity Summit
Environmental Justice 101 Training Sessions
Food and Environmental Justice week

Andrea
The CU case is a model of what works, what doesn't.
Stress on continuity.
Project mentality vs change mentality.
Training: train yourself, staff and volunteers
Identify groups you can partner with, both on and off campus

Erika
WORKSHEET
Posted at http://ecenter.Colorado.edu/environmental~justice/links

Q&A
Funding: at CU, funds come from student fees, utility, city, EPA, state agencies
Diversity: there is little diversity at CU
Continuity: now managed by a permanent staff member, mindful of transition, staff accordingly. Introduce old, new people
Evaluation: do a self-evaluation each term

Look for links, additional information on website: http://ecenter.Colorado.edu/environmental~justice/links

Thanks to Zachary Davidson, Program Assistant of NYU Sustainable Initiatives, for transcribing this session! Join the AASHE 2011 Transcription Project and help spread the great ideas presented at the conference!

Break-out Session Presenters:
Rebecca Schroeder, University of Pittsburgh
Eva Resnick-Day, University of Pittsburgh:

Rebecca: Sr. at U Pitt

Eva: A green fund is…

• a set of $ set aside for Sustainable projects on campus
• comes from students
• projects are proposed by students

Rebecca: Importance:

• increase a campus’ sustainability
• provides savings
• provides for communication and collaboration btw students and admin

Rebecca discusses student’s role in understanding sustainability on campus

• 24 hr existence there gives them an advantage

Eva: Green Funds empowers students to make change, and gives tangible skills post-graduation

Rebecca: Where the $ comes from?

• Student activities fee, additional fee on tuition (automatic, opt-in, opt-out)
• Automatic pros: you know what you’re giving
• Opt-in: Advantage is that it’s a choice

Eva: Other Sources: relevant academic depts.. FM & housing

Rebecca: donations, fundraising (not best for all $) but good enough, outside grants (seed funding but not good for sole source)

Eva: Turning your green fund into a revolving loan fund

• $ not used can be saved year to year
• Pay-back from projects can’t be correlated just to your investment

Rebecca: Benefits of Green Fund

Real World Project Management experience

Compliment to the academic curriculum

Gives legitimacy to demands of student greeners b/c shows viability of their ideas

Eva: Public recognition to the university

Rebecca: Example of Community Benefit

• Purchased a composter for an urban garden which was used not only by the school but also by the university

Rebecca: Starting a Green Fund

• Beneficial Steps:
  1. Research: Talk to other schools www.pittgreenfund.com
  2. Create a Coalition: Identify allies (talk to relevant departments, students, faculty, staff)
  3. Create an official structure of the fund (how will you get and give your fund) – Use resources from other institutions with established funds
  4. Develop a campaign strategy and pitch your structure
  • go to the top and the bottom
  • get not only student but also administration buy in
    1. Implement Your Program
  • run a pilot program – you can workout the kinks – add this to your frame work – this allows you to evaluate

Eva: Campaign at Pitt

• From a vision and a coalition they went to student government board, who had institutional knowledge
• They didn’t want to go to the Media until they talked to their university administration

Rebecca: After a massive support base

Student Govt. passed a resolution

Rebecca: Student Sustainable Projects Committee:

• Solicit project proposals from students
• These students then decide which projects are the most sustainable
• Committee connects the projects with relevant facets of government

Eva: Progress of the Pitt Green Fund

Created a Handbook (which was institutionalized by Office of Experiential Education)

Go Green Signs (awareness of impact of small personal decisions)

Lo-Flow Aerator Pilot for sinks (reduces water use by 77%) and then was institutionalized for all dorms

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It's really easy!

1. Sit at the table with the "Transcription Project" sign at the front of any session room.
• Sitting at this table isn’t a requirement of participating, but in cases where multiple people arrive ready to transcribe a session it allows them to coordinate who will take and submit the transcription for that session.

2. In a blank email message or Word document, type what the presenters say!
• It does NOT have to be word for word! Try to capture their ideas faithfully, using their own terminology.
• When speakers change, indicate who the new speaker is by preceding their words with their name. For example, “John Doe: Our data shows that volunteers are awesome!“
• Here's an example transcription.

3. When the session is over, prepare your transcription for posting.
• Type the session name and the name of the presenters and their affiliation at top of the transcription.
• Include hyperlinks to any online information mentioned in the presentation, if you can.

4. Email your transcription to: transcriptions@aashe.org
• We’ll try to get it posted on the AASHE blog within 1 hour (www.aashe.org/blog)
• Tweet it and Facebook it when it goes live!

Does participating cut into the time I have to attend sessions?

No. In our experience, transcribing doesn't take away any time from attending sessions. During the session you write what you hear. After the session, perhaps while you are waiting for the next session to start, you check it over quickly and send it via email to transcriptions@aashe.org.

What if I'm not the fastest typer in the world? I'm afraid I won't do a good enough job.

Don't sweat it! You can summarize key ideas, like in this transcript from last year. Remember, a brief transcription is better than no transcription at all!

I don't think I can transcribe, but I want to help out with this great project. How else can I help?

Help us recruit more transcribers! Tweet or Facebook this page with the #aashe2011 tag. Encourage someone to transcribe a session if it looks like it's going to start without anyone transcribing it.

Help us spread the word when new transcriptions are posted by retweeting our announcements. We'll be tweeting with the #aashe2011 tag.

What's my reward for participating in the Transcription Project?

Besides the warm feeling that comes from knowing you helped share and preserve the great ideas presented at AASHE 2011, you'll get a shout-out when we post your transcription and tweet it out. You will also be entitled to a free AASHE volunteer t-shirt. Make sure you let us know your name when you send in your transcription.

Do you need transcribers for the keynotes and workshops?"

YES! If you would like to transcribe a keynote or workshop, please do! You can tweet out that you intend to transcribe one of these sessions so others know it is covered, or you can check with us at transcriptions@aashe.org

For those at the conference, and for those who are not able to attend, we hope the below social media tools will foster a stronger connection with what is happening on the ground! Please join us in tweeting, blogging, facebooking, and transcribing.

AASHE Blog
Here you'll find live updates from the conference, including coverage of keynote speakers, transcriptions of conference sessions*, photos and much more.

We still need volunteers for the AASHE2011 Transcription Project. Help us spread the great ideas being shared at the conference far and wide!

Twitter
Follow @AASHENews for AASHE announcements during the conference.
Use the #AASHE2011 hashtag to post your own thoughts and see what others are saying. (Saw something fabulous at the Expo Hall? Tweet it so others can check it out! Are you presenting? Send out a tweet about your room and your session.)

Facebook
Open to all interested in campus sustainability. Let folks know what you have liked and learned during your time in Pittsburgh.

LinkedIn
An online networking platform for all involved in campus sustainability to discuss common issues and identify possible collaborators.

Flickr
Check out AASHE's online repository of photos from the conference and campuses.
Upload and share your photos! Tag them with "aashe2011" so we can include them in the conference photo stream.

(AASHE YouTube Channel)
Look for videos of keynotes and plenaries in the weeks after the conference.

I recently attended the fourth annual Renewable Energy Technology (RETECH) conference in Washington, D.C., from September 19-20, hosted by the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE).

A non-profit with a vast array of contacts in the utilities, finance, and policy sectors of the industry, ACORE is producing notable research, including the US-China Quarterly Market Review and the Renewable Energy in America interactive report,

So where does higher education sustainability fit into all this?

It seems intuitive to consider renewables as part of the equation for lowering the climate impact of a college or university, but there are challenges (e.g. financing, leadership approval) with which higher education institutions continue to grapple. This workshop helped to bring to light the ongoing challenges, but also the opportunities and benefits of renewable energy in higher education institutions.

ACORE has had a Higher Education Committee for a few years now, but this year marks the first time ACORE has held a Higher Education Workshop during the RETECH conference. Though the focus was on renewable energy, the workshop allowed for discussion across a range of topics–from curriculum development to campus research to strategies to achieve carbon neutrality.

With a group of about 20 participants, the workshop ran for four hours, and included three different sessions:

• Integrating Renewable Energy into Curricula
• The Role of Research: Opportunities and Respective Roles
• Achieving Zero Carbon Campuses by 2050.

In the third session I presented on AASHE’s initiatives to promote campus climate neutrality and renewable energy, alongside Blain Collison of the EPA’s Green Power Partnership Program, as well as engineer Doug Maust who worked on the construction of the University of Minnesota’s wind turbine.

Three, key themes that came out of the workshop discussions and the following day’s full member meeting were:
1) Renewable energy plays an essential role in the growing movement towards sustainability and climate neutrality in higher education.
2) Partnerships between campuses and higher education associations as well as other sustainability organizations can further understanding of how renewable energy can play a role at higher education institutions.
3) Renewable energy initiatives on campus can pose valuable benefits beyond lowering the ecological footprint of the campus.

As an example of the last, Angela Halfacre, professor and Director of the Shi Center for Sustainability at Furman University, discussed the ways in which renewable energy initiatives were integrated into Furman’s curriculum. One of the eight solar arrays on this small liberal arts campus in North Carolina was installed completely by students. Dr. Halfacre also led a course for twelve students, “Conservation and Renewable Energy May Experience,” structured to challenge students to conduct research and present their findings in a month-long capstone format.

As hubs of innovation and research, higher education institutions have students, faculty, and staff with the ability to test, teach, and talk about renewable energy technologies. The sharing of knowledge, challenges, successes, is intrinsically built into the culture of research and education. This highlights the unique opportunity that higher education institutions have to develop and advance renewable energy technologies, with ripple effects that can far surpass the boundaries of a campus and direct reduction in resource consumption.

Related AASHE Blog Articles

• US Higher Education Solar capacity leaps 450 percent in 3 years

• Appalachian State: People's Choice Award for 2011 Solar Decathalon

• All AASHE blog posts related to energy

Related AASHE Resources

• Campus Solar PV Installations Database

• Energy Resources

We are pleased to announce that today AASHE has launched a new Campus Solar Photovoltaic Installations Database that provides technical details on hundreds of on-campus solar pv projects, giving a clearer picture of higher education's adoption of solar pv technology than has previously been possible. The database reveals dramatically accelerating deployment of on-campus solar pv in recent years, including dozens of megawatt scale arrays installed as part of institutions' overall strategy to insulate themselves from ever-increasing utility rates while simultaneously reducing their greenhouse gas emissions.

In this Article

1. Findings and Charts
2. Design and Goals of the Database
3. How to Contribute to the Project
4. Appreciations

Findings and Charts

A key finding revealed by the database is that installed solar capacity has grown 450 percent over the last three years in the higher education sector, as institutions have taken advantage of dropping solar prices, state and federal incentives and innovative financing mechanisms:

The median project size has soared six fold since 2009 as institutions have increasingly been deploying solar pv arrays that are large enough to provide a significant portion of their overall electricity needs:

Two examples of this trend are University of San Diego and Butte College. In its first on-campus solar deployment, USD took advantage in 2010 of federal and state incentives through a Solar Power Purchase Agreement to install 5,000 panels on 11 campus buildings, providing up to 15 percent of the campus’ electricity at below market rates and with little upfront cost. Butte College completed its third and largest solar array in 2011, making it the first institution in the US to generate more electricity from solar than it uses. Butte's President, Diane Van Der Ploeg, explained in a June 2011 AASHE blog article how Butte got to "grid positive" and why it was a wise investment for the institution, generating an estimated $50-$75 million for academic programming while establishing Butte as a leader and model for others.

The addition of larger projects to the higher education solar base has produced significant annual additions to higher education's installed capacity, with more growth on the horizon:

As one might expect, the increasing economies of scale and falling price of solar pv modules in recent years have brought down the median cost per Watt of higher ed installations. The magnitude of the decline, however, is a breathtaking 35% since 2009. Any institution that might have ruled out a solar system in 2009 because it didn't "pencil out" might want to sharpen their pencils and reexamine the business case in light of today's pv prices.

Institutions have been taking advantage of the dropping cost per Watt by installing larger systems. That means higher education's contribution to the green economy and green jobs creation via solar purchases is on the rise:

Other interesting revelations made possible by the database include:

• The 137 megawatts (MW) of solar capacity installed on higher education campuses to date is equivalent to the power used by 40,000 homes in the U.S.

• Higher education solar installations in 2010 made up 5.4 percent of the total 956 MW installed that year in the U.S.

• Only five states installed more solar in 2010 than the 52 MW installed on U.S. campuses in 2010. (It could be fewer states if the higher ed installations in those 5 states were backed out of their state's totals.)
• 30 out of the 45 largest higher education installations are on AASHE Member campuses
• 64% of the campuses with solar installations are AASHE members

Design and Goals of the Database

AASHE's goal in creating this database is to drive further solar development on higher education campuses. In order to do that, we examined common barriers to the successful implementation of solar pv projects on campuses and designed the database to address them. In order to address several significant barriers, AASHE recruited the sponsorship and participation of AMSOLAR, a San Diego-based developer of solar projects that specializes in solar projects at educational institutions nationwide.

• Belief Barrier - The dynamically generated Top Ten Lists that show the largest projects in a number of categories are designed to raise expectations for what is possible in a variety of settings.
• Availability of Information - AMSOLAR's sponsorship of the database has allowed us to make the treasure-trove of data contained in it free and available to everyone, not just AASHE members.
• Identifying Peer Models - Many institutional decision-makers want to see that one or more peer institutions have experienced success deploying solar before green-lighting a solar RFP for their own campus. The database makes it easy for campus solar advocates to browse or search for institutions in their region or of similar type.
• Early Technical Guidance - Evaluating the solar potential of a campus can be a complex process of weighing sites and technologies. As part of its sponsorship, AMSOLAR has agreed to serve as a technical resource, fielding questions from the campus sustainability community.
• Making the Business Case - The database contains specific details about the cost, financing mechanisms and annual savings associated with a given project. While this can be helpful in understanding recent and more distant market conditions and trends, evaluating current market trends in a given region, identifying state and federal incentives and understanding the various financing mechanisms commonly used for solar projects in higher education can be tricky. As part of its sponsorship, AMSOLAR has agreed to serve as a resource on these types of questions as well.

We hope that our careful planning to address common barriers to the implementation of solar projects will result in this database being a tool for action as well as analysis and that no viable solar project will die on the vine for lack of information.

How to Contribute to the Project

Check Your Institution's Database Records
If your institution has one or more solar arrays, check to see that they are correctly listed with complete information. Anyone can submit an update for a listing by clicking the "Update this Information" link on an installation's detail page in the database. If you know of an installation that is missing from the database altogether, please submit it via our Add a Solar Installation form. All submissions are reviewed by AASHE staff before going live.

Conduct Additional Analysis
There are more additional ways to analyze the data in the Campus Solar Photovoltaic Installations Database than we had the capacity to do here. We are interested in finding a partner in higher education that would like to take the analysis closer to the level of sophistication found in the Tracking the Sun reports produced by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. If you are a student and would like to make it your senior thesis or a graduate school project, or you are a faculty member and would like to make it a class project, please contact us at resources@aashe.org.

If you conduct and publish any analysis based on data drawn from the database, please let us know about it. We may link to it from the database or tweet it.

Help Document Higher Ed Installations Outside the US

Users of the database today will notice that there are only a handful of installations documented outside of the US. We would like the database to better reflect solar installations at higher institutions around the world. We will be putting out a call for participation in the Global Edition of the AASHE Bulletin, but we would appreciate your assistance spreading the word as well.

Appreciations

This database would not have been possible without the hard work and contributions of a number of people outside of AASHE. First, we'd like to thank the hundreds of campus and solar industry contacts that responded to our request for detailed information about their on-campus projects. AASHE would like to thank John Whitney of the Clean Energy Action Project for his help compiling the data. (And we'd like to wish him a happy birthday!) Finally, thanks to AMSOLAR for enabling the database to be made available to all for free and for their on-going support as a technical resource to the campus sustainability community.

With the arrival of two new staff members this summer, the STARS team has taken on the task of identifying new ways to utilize data submitted by over 125 STARS Participants to date. Beginning in October, we’re excited to share our findings through regular blog posts and updates on facts, trends, best practices, and areas for improvement. By sharing this information, we hope to recognize a job well done and also share ideas and inspiration on areas of sustainability that may be more difficult to attain.

October’s factoids and best practices focus on two topics within the Operations and Planning, Administration, & Engagement categories: OP Credit 5: Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction, and PAE Credit 11: Sustainable Compensation.

Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction
Did you know?
Out of all institutions that submitted for a STARS rating, over 82 percent have reduced their net greenhouse gas emissions per weighted campus user compared to a 2005 base year. However, there is still plenty of room for improvement. Only seven institutions have reported cutting greenhouse emissions by at least 50 percent.

• The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities (STARS Silver, August 2011) reduced Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions by 12.6 percent between 2005 and 2010. The reduction results from many efforts including an aggressive building recommissioning program, It All Adds Up energy conservation campaign, and greater emphasis on district cooling strategies.
• The University of California, Los Angeles (STARS Silver, August 2011) has been an early actor in achieving energy efficiency and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Since 1990, emissions have stayed relatively flat despite a 40% growth in campus square footage. This translates in a 26 percent reduction of greenhouse gas emissions per square foot since 1990.

Sustainable Compensation
Did you know?
Out of all institutions that submitted for a STARS rating, nearly 90 percent have taken proactive steps to ensure that their lowest paid workers earn a sustainable compensation.

• Eastern Iowa Community College District (STARS Silver, June 2011) conducted a wage assessment for employees using the Living Wage Calculator. Through this tool, the college determined that all fulltime employees were earning above the living wage in the area.
• At Middlebury College (STARS Gold, January 2011), staff conduct salary surveys on a regular basis to ensure that, on average, jobs pay at the 80th percentile of the labor market. In addition, employee share of medical and dental premiums is calculated on an income-sensitive basis, with lower-paid employees receiving the largest employer-subsidy.
• Pace University (STARS Bronze, 2011), pays employees a prevailing wage that is above the minimum wage based on analysis of job type and classification. In the midst of an economic downturn, Pace University provided a one-time lump-sum payment to employees identified as lower-wage earners to offset losses from a freeze on the annual merit award.

November’s factoids and best practices will highlight STARS credits in the Innovation and Education & Research categories. In the meantime, we hope to get your feedback on future STARS data analysis updates! Send your ideas to stars@aashe.org.