By Brett Sheppard, M.A.
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As is widely documented and recognized, the environmental movement, particularly at the grass roots, received an infusion of energy with the collegiate embrace of the first Earth Day in 1970. The American public was enthusiastic about considering ways in which our civilization mistreats the environment. That first Earth Day event was characterized by a great deal of community clean-up activity that expanded into the environmental movement that is still with us today. Earth Day extended environmental awareness throughout the population from a revolutionary beginning that did not elude the college campus, already involved in anti-war and pro-civil rights advocacy. This revolutionary origin has evolved into a committed mainstream that carries - at the personal and institutional level - powerful demonstration of modes and methods for a culture-wide conversion to environmentally and socially sustainable standards.
Recycling - The Beginnings
Students at the University of Colorado (CU) in Boulder ran with the incendiary beginnings of that first Earth Day to organize an Environmental Center on campus that same year. The Center, still the origin of many improvements taking place on campus today, is primarily funded by student fees and operates with a substantial degree of independence in setting its own agenda. The first major project initiated through the Center was a campus recycling program.
In 1982, well before most actors and organizations came together to improve the campus built and natural environments, CU hosted its second annual National Recycling Conference. At that time, only 4 colleges were known to have well-established programs: CU, Stanford, the University of California at San Diego, and Cornell. Students organized and proved their mettle to get recycling going.
Much of the current debate today among those involved in recycling is on the merits of institution-run vs. student-run programs. Now that schools are becoming serious about recycling as a business, many programs are cutting students out of the loop. This trend may have negative consequences for the student campus and learning experience, and for the environmental movement on the whole - college students are future leaders, and as leading stakeholders can be developed as volunteer devotees in ways that business-style institutional programs are unlikely to encourage.
Campus recycling collection surpasses the per capita recycling of the same materials in the towns and cities where the school is located, and in most cases has helped boost municipal mandates. Twenty years after the first CU-Boulder effort, it would seem unconscionable for an institution of higher learning not to have a campus recycling program of some variety - these pioneers assisted in the symbolic acceptance of recycling throughout society both by proving the feasibility of conservation and by becoming a standard of the college experience: recycling is an ordinary presence in a campus day.
Now the money factor, measured both in saving on landfill costs and the institutions' revenue from selling the recycled goods, is the solidifier in terms of campuses designating full-time facilities and staff to recycling. Through 1996, the program at the University of Colorado had diverted around 10,000 tons of recyclable materials from the waste stream, and gained over $500,000 in revenues.
Facilities Management
Another early strategy for saving both money and resources was through the re-thinking of facilities management. Given an incentive at the outset by the energy crisis of the 1970s, a handful of schools continued testing and implementing new energy-efficient strategies even after the economic benefits was no longer the driving force. Most frequently, this was due to the drive of key individuals, such as Walter Simpson, Energy Officer for the State University of New York in Buffalo (UB). Since being hired in 1982, he has led the way to implementing over 300 energy-related retrofit projects, focusing on installing more energy efficient lights and motors, making seals on doors and windows less prone to "leaks", and lessening the carbon footprint of the university's heating and cooling systems.
As many other universities have done, UB explored the incentives and rebates it could receive from its utility company for retrofitting and installing energy-saving technologies. With that money and assistance from an energy company, UB embarked on a $17 million retrofit project. With the money that will be saved from making the system less wasteful, the program will pay for itself after only 3.76 years.
Energy consumption is acknowledged to produce the most significant environmental impact associated with campus operations; it is significant that UB has been able to reduce intake by 30%. Simpson suggests that one of the most effective ways to change the campus attitude toward energy and conservation is through an awareness campaign. The addition of signs at building entrances showing that building's annual energy bill often shocks people into realizing what a large consumer of resources it actually is. Calculating and displaying annual savings resulting from retrofitted projects could galvanize people behind these changes. Exposure to the ins and outs of energy issues is priceless for students-as-citizens.
Many universities are taking the day-to-day accountability of conserving resources out of users' hands - saving energy (and dollars) without requiring users to consciously decide to conserve. Expensive upgrades to motion detector-operated lights and climate control - also often subsidized by rebates from utility companies - are generally the most popular changes from controls that are kept under lock and key, only accessible by facilities operators or the custodial crew. While this is an institutionally mindful approach to protecting the environment and scarce financial resources, it may less likely to be as successful as direct accountability as a strategy for immediate conservation and for influencing the development of future leaders. Students are notorious for leaving every gadget they own powered on at all hours of the day - a habit that can be overcome by a conscious awareness. Greening the campus with motion sensors rather than personal initiative doesn't enhance the students' sense of personal responsibility.
Awareness of the personal costs of energy mis-management would logically follow were students living in dorms required to pay a periodic itemized bill for exactly their share of utilities use. Presumably, in addition to long-term values around wise energy use, in the short term students would be much more willing to turn off lights and machines if they could see the difference made by conservation.
To initiate attempts at camus energy saving measures, planners may consider utilizing the assistance of an energy service company (ESCO), that develops, designs, installs, and may finance energy conservation and efficiency projects. Under this design, no money is needed up front - payment is taken as the projects begin to pay for themselves. At UB, conservation changes were made with an ESCO between 1993 and 1997 that would have taken UB 10 to 15 years on its own. Punctuating the scope of change undertaken at the State University of New York at Buffalo are the savings, totaling over $60,000,000 in energy costs through 1996, as well as the reduction of emissions by 32,000 tons.
Into the future, the provision of energy to run the campus will likely be one of the principal arenas where the university can test innovative solutions, proving them to society at large. At the University of North Carolina, explorations into renewable energy sources is supported by a $4/semester student fee, which was implemented after having been approved by the student body by 74%. One of the solutions being tested is a high temperature solar collector that would generate steam to heat and cool buildings. "The combination of a high temperature solar collector, a combined heat and power plant, and district heating and cooling will be the first of its kind anywhere." Gradually, solar panels and wind power generators are becoming status symbols and identity statements as well as ecologically and economically correct: alumni fatigued by conventional fundraising requests seem to like funding an edgy, visible, and cost-saving initiative that improves both energy and institutional sustainability.
Widespread Awareness, Declarations, and Organizations
The true grounding of the current green campus movement was established in the 1980s, sparked by a project on local environmental justice, and the evaluation of environmental issues associated with the university undertaken by 10 UCLA graduate students. The resultant report was notable for demonstrating the magnitude of the impact of the university's carbon footprint size relative to other actors in the city in functions including water use, energy use, air emissions, sewage flow, hazardous materials use, waste generated, etc. It also documented how, despite the environmental and community implications of its footprint, little effort had been undertaken to better understand or mitigate the impact of these areas of consumption
The administration's negative reception of the study by grounded this effort before an extended audit could be pursued, but the document served to ignite a spreading recognition of the sheer size the university commanded, and its history of doing little to curb its environmental effects.
Shortly thereafter, the Tallores Declaration came into being. Presidents, rectors, and vice chancellors of twenty-two universities from across the globe convened at the Tufts European Center in Talloires, France, from October 4-7, 1990, to discuss the role of universities in environmental management and sustainable development. A set of principles of sustainability were formulated, agreed upon, and signed by the group. The statement promised prioritizing the setting of "an example of environmental responsibility by establishing resource conservation, recycling and waste reduction at the universities." Further, the declaration encouraged the cooperation of universities with other societal institutions, so that they might promote change outside the ivy walls. It called for "a high order of interdisciplinarity in addressing environmental concerns and a coupling of academics and practitioners in curriculum development (previously the exclusive domain of academia), in research, in operations, and in outreach."
The tenth and final point of the Declaration called for the creation of a secretariat to facilitate the exchange of information between universities, so that they might achieve a greater success in carrying out the Declaration. Tufts College, which had organized the meeting in France, offered to host a secretariat office at its U.S. campus. Financial assistance from the U.S.-based John D. and Catherine D. MacArthur Foundation led to the establishment of the Secretariat of University Presidents for a Sustainable Future, later changed to Secretariat to the Association of University Leaders for a Sustainable Future (ULSF), reflecting the importance of including all levels of leadership in the campus environment. Since, ULSF has moved from Tufts to Washington, and has expanded its services beyond its role as secretariat, to include sustainability assessment, research, evaluation, and branching out to foment new global partnerships.
Meantime, and even slightly preceding the top-down initiative, a group of students at the University of North Carolina, a long-time leader in the campus environmental movement, placed an ad in the Greenpeace magazine calling for students across the nation to come together in the promotion of environmental concerns. Following an alacritous response, the students organized an event called Threshold in 1989. This was the Student Environmental Action Coalition's (SEAC) first national conference. 1700 students turned out from 225 schools, solidifying the nascent student environmental movement. Grassroots-action campus leaders met for the first time, organized, and voted for "SEAC's first national campaign: an all out effort to save America's remaining old-growth forests and to reform the U.S. Forest Service." They were soon leading a coordinated attack on the status quo across the nation. The following conference in 1990 drew more than 7,000 students, as well as celebrities such as Jesse Jackson and Robert Redford. Though the campus environmental movement has continued to grow in scope and sophistication, no regional or national conference has garnered a turnout of such magnitude since.
One program that has been instrumental in connecting interested people across campuses, providing informational support, and promoting the normative progression of the green campus movement is the National Wildlife Federation's Campus Ecology. Also formed in 1989, its self-stated primary goal is "to reduce the need to reinvent the wheel of environmental action from campus to campus." In the fewer than 15 years since Earth Day 1990, it has worked with over 1/3 of college campuses across the nation, forging a continuous give-and-take compilation of information - Campus Ecology assists many burgeoning initiatives to get off the ground, while also taking away new ideas and information generated at these campuses. Through newsletters, publications, and multi-day organizational events at university settings, it remains the "nation's largest campus conservation education organization."
In State of the Campus Environment (2001), university presidents, provosts, and facilities managers are surveyed on various operations and indicators of the sustainability of their campus, their answers then graded and compiled to yield a useful reference to see who's doing what, and who's not. Beyond that, the grading applauds the top institutions in the various categories of analysis, and casts a mildly disappointed countenance at those not quite making the grade, encouraging both through praise and greater expectations.
Second Nature began in 1993based in a philosophy that the best and most effective way to generate normative societal change is in the very place where people have already signed up for educatory change. The organization sees the ends of its strategy as the creation of a society in which people build healthy lives, inspire communal relationships, influence the shape of guiding principles through participation in government, and protect the life support system on which all life depends.
In today's green campus movement, prospective students now often carry as big a voice as those already on campus, seeking out institutions with a true commitment to sustainability.
Grants from the United Nations to be used in addressing climate change issues gave rise to Cool It, a program directed at raising awareness of climate change on college campuses. Two years later, Cool It became Campus Ecology, as NWF realized the potential for real change on college campuses. The National Wildlife Federation's history is based around educating the public, from the grade-schooler to the adult, on wildlife issues. The importance focus on the next generation of adults makes directing energy to college campuses a natural fit in their mission. Their role is to educate and inspire individuals and institutions to make the change, often manifesting through a consultancy role. To achieve this, a dialogue is maintained between Campus Ecology and leaders in the campus greening movement, in order for both involved to stay abreast of the latest trends and to inform the path campus greening is to take by building off one another. As new issues begin to crop up at various universities, Campus Ecology will shift its focus to brainstorm on what can be done to solve the problem. For example, lately campuses are experiencing difficulty in attracting sufficient budgets to get projects off the ground, as many green initiatives are extremely costly at the beginning, with the payoff coming down the road. This understanding eludes typical economic logic, and makes it difficult to get these projects off the ground.
Organizations involved in the movement, interested in targeting and reforming institutional structures, are institutions themselves, and so are susceptible to the same political nature or internal complexity that can hinder environmental transformation at universities. Particularly in the fight for budgeting, a flavor-of-the-month program that may be more glamorous than campus greening can usurp funds that could make the difference between an organization having a heavy impact in assisting the movement, or only being able to promote changes that show rapidly visible results. Under this structure, it is difficult to address the roots of institutional transformation, which is much less quantifiable than individual projects focused on recycling or energy savings.
Food and Dining Services
The procurement of food is one of the best ways for the university to support its green activist commitment. It is the best daily means to visibly demonstrate a commitment to ending practices that encourage buying lesser quality from halfway around the world when more sustainable alternatives are locally available. Further, most dining service practices operate in a wasteful manner that need be addressed in keeping the university in the vanguard of societal transition.
Bates College provides a good example. In 1994, the dining service staff implemented a food program that had as its objectives the reduction of wastes and costs, and the use of crops grown by local farmers. The impetus stemmed from a broad base of interest shown by staff, students, and faculty on the Campus Environmental Issues Committee, who voiced a desire to begin buying locally and composting. It began with talk of "closing loops", and effecting positive change in the community. Once the committee members were galvanized behind the ideas, a chain of connections for facilitating was readily identifiable.
In deciding to go organic in food purchasing and preparation, some schools are better situated to go about this than others. Says Bates chef Bradford Slye, "Here is a college in the state of Maine, and we are sending our money to California for tomatoes when there is a guy right down the road growing beautiful tomatoes." As long as the cooks are on board, purchasing from local farmers can be just as fun and rewarding for those behind the line as for students and faculty. Buying locally normally translates into a greater variety of vegetables and tubers, in all shapes and sizes. Further, in contrast to commercial counterparts, local produce is not "waxed, gassed, preserved, packed, shipped hundreds of miles, sized out, repacked, and otherwise jostled along its journey."
As is the case in most areas of campus greening, staff - in this case cooks and servers - can make or break a project. The Dining Coordinator at Hendrix College recognized this early on, and began spending many hours a week with the serving team in preparation and serving activities in order to build a camaraderie and level of trust. Only after several months was enough of a bond established to begin discussions about altering meal preparation techniques or changing recipes.
Decisions to begin re-thinking waste and its disposal at Bates accompanied the decision to begin buying locally. Both pre-consumer and post-consumer wastes are collected and directed someplace other than the landfill. Post-consumer waste is collected off the dish-cleaning line and sent to a local farmer for pig food. Pre-consumer kitchen residuals are taken to a farm for composting. Bates pays around $2,000 annually for this service, less than it costs to send the same amount of scraps to a landfill. The program has saved about $1,000 a year in disposal fees. Closing the loop, Bates buys back some of the compost at minimal costs to use in campus landscaping.
There are multiple positive effects and impacts when colleges and universities take mindful action about how they eat. At Hendrix, buying more conscientiously improves nutritional value and taste of food, stimulates community well-being, and demonstrates sensitivity and responsibility. The program is win-win: it meets the needs of the campus population and earns respect while supporting people living in the region. As a major purchaser, Hendrix has been a force for change in local community habits through its preference for products grown in an environmentally responsible way.
Similarly, the Bates program has fostered proud employees, support for the local economy, and demand for locally grown organic produce. Through the communal medium of food, they have found a tool to inform and educate students, faculty, employees, and the greater local community about sustainable practices and good living. A culture change has taken place in which the students now own the change and propagate the knowledge that this is how things are done. A student seen disposing of wastes improperly will soon be advised as to the proper methods. Finally, by diverting post-consumer waste from the waste disposal system, BOD levels for the city have been reduced, in turn reducing the costs for water treatment.
One of the pre-project considerations listed in the Bates example is to "consider the culture of the college/university, and if they are ready and willing to take some time to separate out waste materials." This is excellent advice, applicable to all institutions attempting to implement measures of sustainability - understanding of the "thinking" of the institution will inform how to approach it. The advice, though, should not be interpreted as suggesting that if an institution is not initially interested in a proposal that it should be dropped. As already delineated, culture is a living phenomenon, ready and willing to shift with popular influence.
Transportation
As on the recycling scene, the University of Colorado at Boulder has been a spearhead in devising new ways of thinking about moving people to, from, and around campus. The university has developed an interactive program with the city since 1991, when the head of alternative transportation for the city suggested a collaborative student bus program. Right from the outset the students were on board, passing a measure on the student ballot by 4-1 to charge themselves $10/semester to develop the program. In 1997 students voted 16-1 (the largest margin of victory for any student proposal in CU history) to up the fee by $5 in order to expand services and benefits. A survey conducted in 1995 determined that the bus pass program provided 5,000 trips daily to students, 30% of which would previously have been by car. It is impossible to overstate the positive impact this system has had on the environment every day, not to mention in providing students more time to relax, as they are passengers and not behind the wheel, and the financial savings for the university. Annual cost savings have been estimated at $1,000,000.
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has taken strides to provide alternatives to the Single Occupancy Vehicle. On January 1, 2002, in an effort led by UNC, "all buses in the Chapel Hill transit system became fare-free all the time for all riders." By year's end, ridership was up 42%. One of the primary approaches into campus saw traffic drop by an impressive 25%. The cost for making this happen was shared by local, state, and federal governments, and UNC, whose share was paid with parking permit fees and an $8.49/semester student fee. Also, a commuter club has been instituted for faculty and staff who walk, bike, carpool, vanpool, or transit to work. To facilitate the commitment to cut back on driving, 9 free parking passes are allowed during the year, as well as emergency rides to home or vehicle. For the first year, the university optimistically expected enrollment at 750; it reached 1700, 500 of whom had previously parked on campus. The university is currently experimenting with zip cars which would be placed around campus, and available for internet reservation any time an employee needed an automobile for a trip.
Since inception of the program at CU, the total number of parking spaces has declined. At UNC, 20 acres of surface parking will be eliminated by the end of the decade, half to become green space and half for the construction of parking facilities. The argument for the new system leveraged on those who still wish to drive is found in the fees. For the CU example, a faculty/student bus pass will reduce pressure on parking. As such, new parking facilities, for which the cost would be included in parking fees, will need not be constructed, making sense for drivers to endorse the bus pass fee.
Curriculum and Practical Teaching
In an essay penned some 60 years ago, Aldo Leopold articulated how the structure of teaching at a university contributes to a lack of a comprehensive understanding. "All the sciences and arts are taught as if they were separate. They are separate only in the classroom. Step out on campus and they are immediately fused." Changes in curriculum and learning concepts have probably been the latest to garner attention in the move toward a greater environmental stewardship. Among the universities that have accepted the challenge to become more sustainable, only a handful have begun to consider class requirements and offerings anew.
The University of North Carolina is one of these, applying instruction and student interest to local opportunities and issues, so as to provide a tangible experience. A class offered for the first time in 2003, called "Carolina: A Sustainable Campus?", puts students to the task of evaluating the university's environmental record while exposing them to the range of activities required to run and adapt a large institution. At student request, a follow-up course was offered the following semester. A second course offered that same year, "Transportation and a Sustainable Campus," brought students into the assessment of the university's efforts to-date, exploring directions it may go in the future. A third course, focusing on renewable energy technologies, was taught by an undergraduate physics student. Students interested in teaching can work with a faculty member for a semester developing a class and learning teaching skills, then teach the class the second semester, earning six credits in the process.
Other classes were reformatted to institute a greater focus on experiential learning, using campus facilities as a test subject. This also leads to staff re-evaluating their practices once questioned on why things are done as they are and having to explain the rationale behind them. Utilizing the regional drought from the previous year, which sparked the Every Drop Counts campaign and a campus water intake reduction of 25%, one class examined the water wars between dorms to assess the impact it had on individual behavior. Another reviewed correspondence between UNC and the Orange Water and Sewer Authority as an examination of good business letter writing. Not to be overlooked, the Kenan-Flagler Business School is a global model "in terms of teaching environmental responsibility, social responsibility, and the overall concept of sustainability."
Involving students in operational changes on campus, exposing them to every stage of a particular process, is invaluable as a form of applied instruction. Lessons learned in this way will often make a longer-lasting impression than material learned in the classroom. In food studies at Hendrix, Saint Olaf, and Carelton Colleges, staff members and college students analyzed food service invoices, studied farms and feedlots throughout the U.S. that supplied the campuses, and worked with local farmers to assess alternatives. Students were involved in every step, even to preparation of the proposals that went to the administration. In the process, students learned how their institution operated, about economics, agriculture, ecology, and ethics. When proposals were adopted, they learned they could effect real change. Studies as such downscale global problems to a manageable size.
The institution as laboratory teaches students how to analyze complex, multidisciplinary problems, and how to formulate and compare alternative solutions. It also provides the opportunity to integrate coursework and student idealism with the community at large. Carolina is looking into adding a "Distinction in Public Services" recognition to transcripts for students who have contributed 300 hours to community services. As exemplified, UNC is one school leading the way in demonstrating the common sense use of local events and resources in the classroom, and ways to encourage students to apply themselves to local needs. In the examples given above, curriculum development is bending toward the university understanding its place in community and the world anew.
Coordinators, Current Trends, and the Essentials
Many encouraging initiatives throughout college campuses are unorganized, with efforts focused independently and in a piecemeal fashion in various faculties. While these efforts can achieve high levels of success in their individual arena, attempting to alter the course of the ship requires one captain overseeing all that is taking place, drawing actors together, implementing new ideas, and generally concentrating solely on where the university wants to go, and making it happen. To achieve this, some universities are really getting serious about change and hiring a sustainability coordinator.
This has lately catalyzed UNC into its current level of directing energy toward sustainability. UNC was the benefactor of circumstance and timing when, in the early 1990's, interest arose from many different campus actors to green the campus. From that beginning, progress has been notable, but operating in segregated fits and starts around the campus. Then in April 2001, Cynthia Pollock Shea was hired to be the glue in campus efforts. Doing so has organized activity into the culture change that seems to have insinuated campus life at Carolina. Much in the same way organizations such as Campus Ecology and Second Nature have provided a central base to receive and distribute information, building the knowledge base more efficiently than if each university was operating independently, the sustainability coordinator is positioned to "forge collaborative solutions, while avoiding the duplication of work."
Harvard boasts an inspiring program not to be overlooked. An inter-faculty advisory committee was composed in 1999, comprised of four faculty representatives, four student representatives, and three administrative representatives. This committee recruited Leith Sharp in 2000 to be the full-time Director of the Harvard Green Campus Initiative (HGCI). Most impressive on its list of achievements is the establishment of a "$3,000,000 interest-free revolving loan fund that was created to finance environmentally and economically beneficial projects throughout the university." The Best Practices Exchange Program provides a forum in which different parts of the Harvard Community can come together to exchange cost effective practices that conserve resources. The Computer Energy Reduction Program is a web-based instructional site that provides information on how and why to conserve energy on campus. The Greenhouse Gas Inventory seeks to compile university-wide consumption data from stationary and mobile sources, to calculate greenhouse gas emissions, and to track long-term trends and identify areas of reduction. All of these programs have been started as a result of putting a central figure in place to oversee the development of sustainability on campus.
Installing a coordinator, who does not fit neatly into any of the acting groups on campus, provides a figure to draw together faculty, staff, students, and administration. She will be in a position to evaluate without bias the strengths, weaknesses and needs of each of the groups. The position has led Cynthia Shea to understand that, though staff members are seated lowest on the ladder of importance on campus, they have the greatest potential to make a project happen or not. They can own it. It has also led her to see that much of the mid-level, or younger staff, who have grown up with these issues, are interested in making something happen.
It is essential that "every effort is made to work with - not independently of or against - offices or individuals with responsibility for managing campus resource consumption." New programs, policies, or procedures can have territorial implications, turning people off even before the work begins if they are not approached correctly. Further, recognition of a job well done should be lavished on staff who have their sleeves rolled up and are actually making it happen, as much as other actors. While faculty and students receive much of the accolades for turning campus procedure around, it is the staff, who actually manage most of the vexing logistics - as well as the blame when approaches fail. That said, it should be recognized that it is extremely important to get all campus actors involved, and to constantly encourage their continued participation. While staff knows how the university works as a business, it is usually the administration that needs to be worked on the most. They may be supportive of an initiative, but it still is not on their daily radar.
The one group that true campus reformation cannot do with out, however, is the student body. Being that they are the paying customers, if a hearty desire for something different is not welling up inside, chances are new initiatives will not be tried, or will fall flat before really getting a chance. Evidence of where this enthusiasm can lead is displayed on the University of Colorado campus. Environmental justice has nestled down into the collective campus consciousness ever since the first Earth Day in 1970, when the Environmental Center was created. The Center is primarily funded by student fees - $3.54/semester, which provides 70% of the annual $250,000 budget - allowing for a substantial degree of independence than would be found if the Center was beholden to another group for funding. The Center has been the spark for much of the change on the CU campus. Combining experience of staff with enthusiasm and idealism of students, "the Center is able to generate a substantial force for environmental reform." This would not be without the student drive.
Decisions on the tactics students should or should not take to get the administration to take them seriously are case and circumstance dependent. The administration occupies a powerful space in facilitating change, making it a campus priority, and demonstrating commitment to the wider public. As such, they need be courted with care. When commitment is lacking at the top, it is best to try a cooperative and humble approach to gaining their support. "Adversarial tactics such as public embarrassment, letter-writing campaigns, and sit-ins are not likely to foster the kind of cooperation that underlies long-term and successful efforts." One example supporting this is the relationship between the University of Michigan president and the Sustainable U of M team, which deteriorated after the latter generated over 1,000 letters about environmental concerns on campus, and publicly directed them to the president. However, when the administration will not budge, these tactics are a better option than taking "no" for an answer. For some time, students at CU pleaded for an increase in funding to provide for undergraduate environmental programs and resources. No action was taken to support this desire until students made the front page marching on the president's office.
One of the most daunting tasks for a coordinator, or anyone in the beginning phases of turning campus operations around, is in the collection of baseline data. Questions for specific information will often be met with reasons why that information is almost impossible, or too costly, to derive. However, initial dismissal should not put one off. It is essential to have quantitative baseline data on consumption, cost, and even attitudes, before the program is initiated.
Some Lessons for Global Sustainability
In achieving a level of sustainability at which an institution leaves a positive impact on the physical environment, even the most advanced universities in the campus greening movement are just beginning. Recognizing that the giant strides in defining a new identity in regards to environmental stewardship have been taken in such a short time would indicate that the university is on the right track, and could be studied as one model of the path to be taken toward achieving global sustainability. If nothing else, they show us that change is possible in reforming our existence within the world.
The Talloires Declaration can be seen as similar to international agreements in providing a framework of principles that university presidents agree to strive to abide by. Being a Talloires signatory indicates that the university has decided to explicitly consider the environment in campus operational and growth decisions. It is, in essence, one of the first steps to take toward sustainability, a non-binding step that demonstrates the university's preparedness to begin considering itself anew.
In this light, it feeds into the slow international move toward sustainability. Global structures and customs that need be altered or undone to set the world on the path to sustainability are relatively steadfast, not easily swayed. Though a slow change in the face of proclaimed impending doom can be discouraging, steps such as the Talloires imbed the new direction as the right way to go, raising the baseline of the least amount acceptable for a university to strive to achieve up a level.
The university also lends a positive outlook to the prospect of changing the pace of our move toward global sustainability. History reminds us that the university is notoriously slow in terms of making change. One of the most conservative of societal institutions, the university has been reluctant to make institutional change in terms of structure, curriculum, or culture. Founded on ancient traditions of academic governance, it has seemed content to maintain those structures. Or at least this was the case until recently. Campus sustainability has broken through this deeply imbedded characteristic, bringing forth change and the will to change at a pace previously unheard of in the university. The university's characteristic of a societal institution that often is a breeding ground for change has not in the past extended to actual change within the university. The sometime cumbersome organizational culture and characteristics of a university, which sees varied voices and interests struggling for position within a hard-set mold that resists any of their individual efforts, has lately been outdone by an impetus which has brought those voices together.
When momentum swells behind initiatives that are deemed morally imperative, and meaningful beyond the immediate place and circumstances, the possibility of transformational change becomes apparent. It is in this situation where all barriers previously perceived as standing in the way are relatively easily brushed aside - it is then when the movement can seem to become its own organism, growing and branching out to engulf all activity in the place it was begun. Students provide the energy and anything-is-possible idealism to provide the spark for this type of change. They are appealed to and driven by the moral imperative in rethinking the structures that their world is built around. As always, they seek to change things for the better. Presidents and administration are more driven by cultivating a certain perception held toward the university by the public at large, or consciously designing the university to appeal to certain values. Occasionally, the qualities mentioned in relation to the student body can infuse the high level leadership of the university, setting the stage for potential institutional transformation. While a movement residing solely within the student body and related actors can instigate the beginnings of institutional change, upper level support is essential to organize the entire institution around the change. In this case, decisions will begin to take shape not solely in response to achieving a greater efficiency, but due to external forces with diverse interests.
Viewing the university in this light, as a manageable self-contained unit that is both replete with a variety of actors and yet small enough to organize the body into one, reveals that efforts toward sustainability might find the most success in similar societal clusters. The "Think Globally, Act Locally" slogan may hold the key to a sustainable future. Local organizational structures will often be reminiscent, to varying degrees, to that of the university, with a diffusion of power ebbing and flowing within the structure. Moreover, a committed leader in the small scale has a much greater ability to set the wheels of change in motion through initiative design and through unifying the population behind the ideas. Attempting to translate the possibility to a national structure is difficult to imagine. The scale is simply too large. Far too many interest groups are hardened around their particular interest, and often will remain pitted against one another regardless of what would most benefit the societal whole. This may be due to the implication that a national society is too unruly a beast to change as such. However, local initiatives escape this hindrance. As in a university, the people can own the change because they and their immediate neighbors are directly affected by it. When a change can be seen and felt, a much greater chance exists for its adoption.
Initiatives on the national level will likely only be able to address incremental change agents, such as recycling, rather than root causes. While efforts such as recycling have been recognized as a positive symbolic change, the root causes of a self-destructive lifestyle must be targeted to truly find the path toward sustainability. The most nascent initiatives in campus greening, such as curriculum reform and complete building re-design, speak to a move toward addressing root causes. Again, changes as such have a better chance of succeeding when stemming from local impetus.
Universities that have transcended to border on cultural reformation, and those that have been able to target one aspect of campus operations for reform, both provide models for sustainability outside of the university. The forward edge of thinking on campus greening says that the former group, those straining toward institutional transformation, are the ones on the right track, providing the best model. Indeed, these examples do seem to be striving to break the mold which has delineated the extent to which institutions could rethink themselves. They are constantly pushing the limits. Though they are a small bunch, and continuously having to fight to maintain their momentum, they are proving to us how life can be redesigned.
To the global actor interested in inscribing for itself a new way to interact with the world, they are an encouraging example. For others at the beginning stages of change, their example can be overwhelming. Those universities which have found the will to redesign well one aspect of campus may for some be more accessible. In reaching toward sustainability, actors in some countries will be better suited to rethink agricultural standards, energy practices, or transportation design than the entire picture. Comparative advantage further dictates what areas of the economy are most open to redesign within countries. Examples such as Bates College and SUNY Buffalo prove how to be recognized for being strong in one area of sustainability. However, I would argue that the successes made in the instances of holistic change should always be heralded, emphasizing all structural obstacles overcome on the way to achieving the gains made.
That a debate has surfaced on the recycling scene on the merits of student-run vs. facility-run centers suggests consideration is being and should be given to matters other than only what the most lucrative way of operating might be. That said, most decisions made in business today center on what the decision will mean in financial terms. Proving that technologies and systems redesigns, such as at UB, can have positive impacts on a school's fiscal outlook as well as its environmental character, is one of the most crucial factors in selling a sustainable future. On the other hand, decisions taken outside of the narrow financial view, that revise economic analysis to include full-cost pricing, are a good beginning to influence another normative shift. Some changes on campus will not be economically advantageous. Though almost all redesigns in buildings will see eventual financial savings, other changes, such as the construction of parking structures with rooftop gardens, will not, at least not in terms of today's economic analyses. That they are going forward on some campuses anyway is evidence of something more meaningful in the works.
Finally, changes in community structure witnessed within the campus greening movement provide one more essential applicable to sustainability on a wider scale. Town/gown relations have historically been of a love/hate variety, growing more stressed as both the town and university continue to grow. The town often views the university as a huge entity operating under a degree of accountability much lower than its size would suggest necessary. Lately, actions of sustainability at universities have had the effect of proving a willingness to take responsibility for their impact as well as influencing a redirection of standards in town operations. Some curriculum is involving the local community, drawing from local expertise and giving back through community service. Though these changes in relations are just beginning to develop, they are doing so in all cases for the better. The drive toward sustainability can extend well beyond the benefits it infers on the environment, to creating new societal structures based around altruism. It becomes contagious, continuously building on itself in normalizing change. It provides the idea around which the disinterested pursuit can unite people to strive toward a common goal.
Conclusions
"It is curious that in a place where inquiry is so highly prized, the environmental impact of the campus has gone virtually unquestioned." Aldo Leopold
Despite the examples provided herein, as well as numerous others, the majority of college campuses are still operating in the same heavy, wasteful manner that they have for years. Though recognition of environmentalism has become customary, ingestion of the principles that underlie it has not even approached realization in the university. Though many are steeped in knowledge of the deleterious ways in which we treat the natural world, and the rapidity with which conditions are predicted to worsen, nobody is sprinting to infuse everything we do with that knowledge.
As the pressure on campuses builds to become more sustainable, many solutions offered up by or acceptable to the powers that be will be of the cosmetic variety, rather than genuine, substantive, and usually more transformative changes. Transformation is never an easy process, and certain actors may rail against it. But lighthearted efforts will achieve neither the environmental nor financial benefits possible. Easier said than done, reaching into the hearts and minds of actors essential to the process is difficult. The initiative does not have to come from all actors, but it does have to include them. The luck to be had in this sense is often a derivative of nothing formulaic, but circumstance. At West Chester University in 1992, the president assembled the "Green Team", a 50-person task force composed of students, faculty, administration, and staff, and "charged them with determining if the institution could become a national model for a green campus." The team recognized that to gain widespread commitment around campus, changes in the prevailing attitudes and campus culture were essential. A culture change, and nothing less, is required as a firm soil in which to root environmental efforts. Only then will people seek to understand their place and presence differently, both on and off campus.
Recently, at a student-welcoming event at UNC, staffed recycling stations were set up, and "free food providers were contacted in advance to help influence their materials choices." These are small, easily overlooked, but ultra-important steps toward real change. Instituting that culture change requires proactive thinking, beginning with making almost imperceptible changes that quietly inform peoples' attitudes toward their immediate environment. The accumulation of these changes will shift the learned structure of relationships a person has which define his world.
The rapid pace of change taking place on the college campuses- achieving staggering results within the past 30 years - should not be shelved as irrelevant in the greater search for a sustainable system. They are proof that where there's a will, there's a way. Consider how quickly large-scale societal change could occur if these initiatives were adopted far and wide. For example, "if dining facilities in other institutions such as hospitals, corporations, or government agencies also became markets for local food producers who use healthy and environmentally sensitive production methods, the potential to make the agricultural infrastructure more sustainable is tremendous."
A slow change in society has both greater staying power and the allowance for citizens to settle down more comfortably in understanding their environment afresh. It has a better chance of achieving bone-deep acceptance than does something rushed onto people. For this, the direction and pace of the environmental movement achieving change around the world is promising of a brighter future.
Unfortunately, we have arrived rather late at understanding the magnitude of the environmental problems we have caused; there is little margin for delay in fundamentally addressing these problems. The universities at the vanguard of the campus greening movement prove how new understandings of environmental responsibility can become manifest, making for a healthier populace and environment. In the face of collapse in the environmental balance, the moral responsibility behind their actions must be regarded as the model for all large scale institutions, which impact the environment and society so profoundly, to adopt into the future.
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