How sustainable is our campus?

Wow this is a big assignment! I could basically work a full time job within the breadth of this question, ill see if I can summarize….. And not get too geeked out!

The first thing I would address when it comes to sustainability on our campus would be energy. Our energy on this campus comes from the city, which receives power from various resources. 57% of our energy comes from coal, renewable at 15% and nuclear at 16%, they call this the “Grid mix”. As you can see our energy consumption at the school is not very sustainable. I have been surprised at the lack of solar energy consumption at our campus, I don’t believe we generate any of our own energy from renewable resources. Our resource consumption has to be staggering; I always see lights on that don’t need to be, and air conditioning on when it is not needed. TV’s in the cafeteria run 24/7 even when no one is watching them. Our energy responsibility is lacking greatly. In a city that is bombarded with solar radiation at such an astounding rate it would be nice to see an investment in solar energy, providing jobs for installation, maintenance, and manufacturing would be an added benefit. This would reduce the schools carbon footprint greatly and prepare us for the future.

The cycling processes that happen on this campus also need to be addressed. Our water consumption is very wasteful. The H2O cycle could be changed dramatically. Plants that are only ornamental could be replaced with native drought tolerant species. Areas that are landscaped could have fruit bearing trees, providing us a food source and shade. For the amount of water expended the campus it should look like a rainforest! which in turn would provide habitat for a wider array of biodiversity! Lots of concrete could be torn up and in its place common areas installed that would provide shade and food, this would also help with H2O cycling because we could reduce run off and/or capture that runoff and use it for irrigation, or run it through water tables that would clean it and release it back into our environment instead of channeling it away with sewage to the river. With all of this new growth and life we would be amending our soils with refuse from the trees and plants, providing a higher nutrient environment for more growth!

Recycling is another factor that would be indicative of our commitment to a sustainable system at RCC. Currently RCC only recycles paper. All plastic, aluminum, and glass is recycled by the community or the students themselves. Any institution that is committed to making a community better and more livable should have a robust refuse collection program were diversion rates for recyclables is fairly high. Our waste generation is enormous, students at RCC generate such a large amount of recyclable refuse that a student ran program cannot keep up, over a period of one semester last year, the RCC sustainability club collected recyclables regularly and recycled over 300 lbs. of plastic, this is a large number but if you consider the fact that 300 lbs. was probably representative of a very low diversion rate (Probably less than 10%) we are creating a huge amount of waste. Not only do we generate a large amount of recyclables that are not being diverted, our cafeteria generates a large amount of non-recyclable refuse such as Styrofoam and plastic ware. Currently a push to replace these materials with compostable materials is happening (Sign the petition, there’s a link up top!).

Overall our commitment as a community at the campus is virtually non existent. The transient nature of the students does not cultivate a strong desire to invest time into improving this system, I think that is an idea we see reflected in the southern California culture, we create so much waste and consume so much material but we are not inclined to take the time to think about it or take action to change it, like they have done on other campuses.

I want to transfer to UC Santa Cruz next fall, so when I looked for sustainability assessment that was the first place that came to mind. What I found was amazing! UCSC has a Sustainability Office! A whole department committed to greening the school. They have interns that have resumes that read like an eco-warriors. The greatest thing? These institutions were the result of students and faculty that wanted to make a change. They have implemented a long range development plan which includes sustainability as one of its guiding principles. The school has signed a climate impact agreement with the city to reduce carbon emissions and its footprint. The campus buys credits to offset its energy consumption and at this time is considered as running on 100% renewable resources (Although I am not sure how that works, they have a power plant on campus and the city, much like riverside produces 16% renewable energy). These credits are bought by a student mandated tax on themselves!

The UCSC campus has a “no cooling for comfort”

Policy in new and existing buildings. Cooling

Equipment is limited to areas with high heat loads

(e.g., computer rooms), heat-sensitive equipment

(e.g., laboratories), or areas where high human

Occupancy results in high heat loads (e.g., lecture

halls).

The campus has a fairly in-depth energy monitoring program where they have been tracking energy consumption since 2000. The overall energy consumption has maintained at almost 9% per square foot which is fairly impressive due to the amount of growth the school has seen in the past 10 years. Speaking of building: the school has a commitment to exceed the new LEED building codes by 20% in all future growth. (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) an internationally recognized green building certification system) the campus is also committed to maintaining natural landscapes.

Integration of Campus and Forest

A startling and beautiful feature of UCSC is the

weaving together of buildings, courtyards, and

redwood forest throughout campus. While

conventional construction methods can often disturb

landscaping well beyond a building’s footprint, UCSC

requires that the approach taken to both design and

construction of its buildings allows building footprints

to nestle amongst the campus’ large trees.

55% of the campuses total land is designated as protected natural landscape.

Recycling programs at the school are struggling to reach a mandated 50% diversion rate for recyclables, including oil from fleet vehicles, and other electronic waste. The school is currently at 35% and expects to reach the 50% mark when a comprehensive composting program is developed, a good place for leftovers which may possibly exceed 25% organic coming out of the campus cafeteria! The school has a program ran by their facilities dept in which recyclables are collected at pick up points around campus, students and faculty are responsible for emptying internal recycling bins into these pick up spots, sounds efficient to me! Paper is sold to a recycling firm and proceeds enter back into the system, the school currently produces 1.5 lbs. of paper per person in its departments. 80% of e waste and furniture is diverted into a re-use program where it is sold and diverted from landfill.

The schools food supply is also quite impressive:

• Due to UCSC’s leadership in food services

sustainability, Dining Services staff have been

mentoring and consulting other Universities through a

webcast (titled Academic Impressions: Sustainability

& Dining), conference presentations, and site visits.

• The innovative local-sourcing of produce from small,

organic farming operations with commitments to

social responsibility provided over 13% of produce

served by dining services in 2006-2007.

• About a quarter of the produce served on campus is

third-party certified organic – 23.8% in 2006-2007,

26.3% so far in 2007-2008. Approximately half of this

produce was from local farmers, though the exact

figures are unknown.

UCSC, unlike RCC has a waste diversion program in their cafeterias which promote lowering non-recyclable waste, like the use of compostable tableware.

Low-Waste Disposables

• The dining halls issue every incoming first-year

student a refillable, reusable bottle. Filtered water is

available in the soda machines to encourage students

to avoid purchasing bottled water.

• Dining halls use only reusable plates, cups, and

silverware.

• For to-go containers, Dining Services has

implemented use of compostable boxes.

• UCSC Catering uses disposable tableware derived

from sugarcane that can be pulped and returned to

the soil as compost. Catering provides collection

containers at some events to separate and collect

these items, but currently there is not oversight

regarding how those items are disposed.

And this is where my proposal for RCC comes in. If UCSC can do it we can, we must make the move to more sustainable materials in our cafeteria. The first goal of doing this would to be to research how much plastic and Styrofoam RCC is using in its cafeteria. A quick look at our financial records would indicate how much waste we are generating and also how much money we are spending on that waste. These raw numbers should be enough to bend some ears of the people making these purchasing decisions. The next step will to be creating a comprehensive cost analysis of how much the switch to compostable materials will cost, who will supply them, and all pertinent information for purchasing should be included. The goal will be to match or undercut the costs of the materials we are using now, labor costs would not change and even though these materials would not be diverted into recycling we would be land filling a material that will eventually degrade and not be found in some fishes stomach in the pacific a hundred years from now (If there are still fish in there). A petition will be circulated to show community support (remember to sign!). When the financial assessment and waste analysis is complete, they will be put into a report with the petition, and be submitted to all major appropriate offices/people on campus. Hopefully this line of action will provide us with the opportunity to make a change on this campus for the better!