Facility Operations

Completion of a green house gas (GHG) inventory is necessary in order to begin composing energy and cost effective proposals for your campus.  By determining the campus's environmental impact, members of the Sustainability Task Force, independent study students, field study students, internship students, Environmental Study courses, etc.  will begin drafting proposals for reducing the carbon footprint of those sectors of the institution which emit the highest green house gas pollution.  Clean Air-Cool Planet provides an excel document which assists greatly in the process of gathering data for this analysis.  The excel spreadsheets are based on workbooks by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for national inventories.  

Sub-categories:

Transportation

• Converting buses to biodiesel (aka “greasel”) –using waste veggie oil from food services

• Provide more bike racks and implement a bike-loan program

• Initiate a ZipCar program and/or completely eliminate underclassmen parking

Recycling

• Increase the availability of recycling bins on campus – in residence halls, outdoor locations, and during campus sporting, musical, and art events

• Educate incoming freshman how to properly recycle

Paper Usage

• Use duplex (2-sided) printing as a default

• Allow students to print on previously used (1-side printed) paper

• Implement a printing account to discourage waste

Cleaning Products

• Purchase environmentally friendly cleaning products for use in the dorms, academic building, and dining hall kitchen

• Use environmentally friendly laundry detergent and more energy efficient washers/driers

Grounds-keeping

• Reduce use of toxic fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides and use nutrient-rich compost

• Plant native non-invasive vegetation to reduce the need for excess watering

• Discourage excess watering of lawn and do not cut grass too short

Offsets

• Purchase off-site renewable energy that is unable (at this time) to be produced on-site such as wind and solar power

Some projects may require a minimal up-front cost, but things such as turning off lights and reducing automobile transit require no cost but require education and awareness to the entire campus community.  In either case, it is important to involve students and faculty in all new implementations for a participatory learning experience.

"Stellar" campus example:

Dartmouth College

YouTube- "The Big Green Bus"

YouTube- Veggie Fuel Transportation