In October of 2007, President Roth signed the American College and University President’s Climate Commitment, a framework of support for colleges and universities nationwide to effectively reduce carbon use and increase energy efficiency. Now, almost two years later, the University is continuing to work towards the implementation of these initiatives despite bureaucratic and financial obstacles.  

“There are some real success stories, but there’s a lot more to do,” Roth said. “We are trying.” 

Under the statutes of the Commitment, the University pledged to make sustainability a core focus of the campus’s future through various projects and timetables. The ultimate goal of these actions—including incremental steps, such as conducting biyearly greenhouse gas inventories, developing a campus climate action plan and hiring a University Director of Sustainability—is for the University to become a carbon neutral institution by the year 2050.

Despite the recent economic shortfalls, Professor Barry Chernoff of Biology and Earth and Environmental Science remains positive about the campus’s continued progress in its sustainability practices.  

“I think it’s going as well as it can, especially given that we took a huge hit to our portfolio,” Chernoff said. “As far as I can tell, none of the cutbacks have been in the areas related to sustainability and reducing our emissions and impact on the planet.”

The Sustainability Advisory Group for Environmental Stewardship (SAGES) is critical of the implementation of the Commitment’s goals. SAGES, which consists of 7 faculty members, 15 staff members and 7 students, is responsible for developing a Campus Climate Action Plan by January 2009, and for delineating timetables, programs and policies necessary for the University to meet their carbon commitments. 

Chernoff is confident that SAGES—staffed with many influential members of the campus—will be able to effect real, sustainability-oriented changes geared towards long-term advancements in light of current economic restrictions. 

“The Administration has been very enlightened and they are really dedicated to the cause of getting this done,” Chernoff said. “As far as I can tell, none of the [financial] cutbacks have been in the areas related to sustainability and reducing our emission and impacts on the planet. Ultimately not only do they save the planet, they save us money.” This quote is repeated

SAGES is divided into seven subcommittees that focus on critical components of campus energy use—energy, green building, transportation, procurement, recycling and waste, technology and compost.

One of SAGES main accomplishments so far is the 2008 completion and release of The Green Report, a thirty-page inventory documenting the campus’s greenhouse gas emissions. Under the statues of the Commitment, such a document must be completed every two years following the initial inventory by November of 2008. However, after the success of this year’s research, Director of Environmental Health, Safety, and Sustainability, Bill Nelligan, has decided to conduct the inventory yearly in order to better track campus progress. 

Nelligan noted that the major source of emissions came from over two hundred campus residence buildings, which all have individual energy and heating sources. The Green Report found that in the 2007 fiscal year, the University consumed over 28,000,000 kWh of energy, which released 19,283 tons of carbon dioxide and over 105,000 MMBtu of natural gas into the atmosphere—this corresponds to 5,730 tons of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere in 2007 alone. 

While the Freeman Athletic Center consumes the most energy out of all of the individual buildings, the Department of Residential Life required 3.2 million kWh of electricity, 13,688 MMBtu of natural gas and 293,032 gallons of number-two oil. 

“We realized that this is an inefficient way to spend our energy,” Nelligan said. 

Nelligan explained that much of this energy expenditure is due to how the campus is structured, with smaller residence halls and a larger use of program and woodframe housing, which makes it more difficult to streamline and curb energy consumption.   

Nelligan predicts that the recent February opening of a 3.5 million dollar campus cogeneration plant will further increase energy efficiency. According to Nelligan, the energy that the University receives from the New England electrical grid is only 30 percent energy efficient, meaning that 70 percent of the energy is lost in transport. However, the campus cogeneration plant, which runs on natural gas, will create about 85 percent of electrical needs at an 80 percent energy efficiency rate.   

Although a cogeneration plant was in the works prior to the implementation of the President’s Climate Commitment, both Nelligan and Roth see it as part of the greater goal of achieving energy efficiency. 

“The cogeneration plant that we opened this year has been even more successful than we had thought,” Roth said. 

After the completion of this first step, SAGES has begun to work on enacting a Climate Campus Action Plan, to be completed by January of 2010, which will outline the institution’s specific short and long-term sustainability plans. According to Nelligan, SAGES plans to have the first draft of the Action Plan completed by December 2009, so that President Roth can review the draft before submitting it to the Board of Trustees for final approval in January 2010. 

Both Nelligan and Chernoff noted that although the President’s Climate Commitment calls for carbon neutrality by 2050, the Action Plan will place a greater emphasis on achieving carbon efficiency, which is seen as a more practical goal. 

“In today’s terms, carbon neutrality is not achievable,” Nelligan said. “Carbon neutrality means that we will not use carbon in 2050—this is not a realistic goal; everything uses carbon, you have to use carbon.”

SAGES subcommittees are currently developing components of the plan that will focus on their specific area of concern. The committees generally meet every month to work on these initiatives in preparation for the approaching January 2010 deadline.  

Nelligan described the complexity of the various issues that the campus faces and the diversity of proposals geared towards carbon efficiency.  

“We are asking ourselves questions like, how do we buy less vinyl copying paper in an effort to reduce our carbon use?” he said. “How do we buy and how do we guarantee environmentally and socially acceptable products? How do we teach sustainability as part of the curriculum?

Director of Physical Plant and Chair of the Transportation Subcommittee Clifford Ashton described the considerable work that remains to be done.  

“I think it’s a kind of gargantuan goal,” Ashton said. “But we are working on establishing goals and taking bite size chunks to make it more manageable.”  

The University has already taken several steps to address campus environmental concerns. This year, the Environmental Organizers Network (EON) has increased efforts to further streamline composting and the University has worked to institutionalize the use of the campus ride board. Following student encouragement, all trays will be eliminated from the Usdan Market Place and paper towels will be removed from dormitory bathrooms beginning next semester. In addition, all campus renovations now adhere to the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating, which ensures environmentally sound construction practices. 

Other proposals, however, have yet to be fulfilled. The University intends to install a 100 Kw solar panel array on top of the Freeman Athletic Center. Currently, the University and the corporation involved with the project have approved the plan, but the installation remains contingent on the allocation of state and federal funding. 

Furthermore, under statutes of the New England Governors and the Eastern Canadian Premiers agreement, 20 percent of the University’s energy must be from a renewable energy source by 2010. Currently, the University consumes between five to seven percent renewable energy, about the amount needed to run the Freeman center.  

According to President Roth, hiring a sustainability director remains one of the campus’s main goals.  

“One of the centerpieces of this [Commitment] had been to higher a Director of Sustainability,” Roth said. “It has been frustratingly slow.” 

The University has applied for a three-year grant from Northeast Utilities, which would provide funding for the University to hire and share a Director of Sustainability with Trinity College and the University of Hartford. Following the expiration of the grant, the University must incur the director’s cost. The actual director, however, must still be hired after the expected grant’s approval.

Chernoff noted that besides the large use of energy in woodframe houses and residence halls, reduction in the campus’s large waste stream is another crucial issue.

Two campus initiatives, Waste Not and Recyclemania, occur each year to raise awareness regarding the University’s high waste accumulation, as well as Do It In The Dark, which works to minimize wasteful energy use in woodframe housing. 

In addition to the bureaucratic, technical and financial obstacles, cultural resistance has proven to be another matter. 

“Most people are eager,” Nelligan said. “The resistance has been to the change in the culture. People are saying, but I’ve always done it this way, why do I have to do it that way? When you explain the why, then they really understand the need for the change. Energy efficiency is not very sexy stuff.” 

Chernoff agreed with this assessment. 

 “We still have cultural changes to make on campus and we need to face this a community,” he said. “It’s not just students or just faculty, it’s the community.”