University receives B grade in sustainability

By Genna Tan

During the summer, temperatures soared to over 100 degrees in Santa Clara.

But the temperature inside one of the university's greenest buildings remained at a cool 80 degrees due to its living roof -- a layer of soil and plants on top of the building -- that helped keep cold air in the building while preventing more heat from entering.

Kennedy Commons is Santa Clara's Sustainable Design Demonstration Building, and it has many green features, including walls insulated with straw and daytime natural lighting. It is just one reason Santa Clara received a B from the College Sustainability Report Card, an interactive Web site that provides in-depth sustainability profiles for hundreds of colleges.

The report card, which is an initiative of the Sustainable Endowments Institute, awarded Santa Clara an A grade in the administration, climate change and energy, food and recycling and investment priorities categories.

The university's endowment transparency and shareholder engagement received Ds, while student involvement, transportation and green building were given Bs.

The sustainability movement on campus can be categorized into a few broad areas: green buildings, reducing waste and emissions and academic programs.

Marisa Ornelas, an intern at the Environmental Studies Institute, personally defines sustainability as the ability of the current generation to live in a fulfilling way without jeopardizing the needs of future generations, in terms of the quality of life, air, water and the planet.

"Sustainability doesn't necessarily mean that you have to change the way your life is," said Ornelas. "It's just a more responsible way of living where you're more aware of what your actions do."

Ornelas said the current generation will be the group that can popularize the sustainability movement.

"A lot of times sustainability has been polarized to be a liberal hippy sort of movement, but our generation is going to be the one that mainstreams the movement," said Ornelas. "All of us have only one planet, and without a unified attack against the problem, we're never going to solve it."

A long-term goal for the sustainability movement at Santa Clara is to become carbon neutral, Lindsey Cromwell, sustainability coordinator for the Environmental Studies Institute, said. According to Cromwell, the sustainability movement aims to reduce emission levels on campus by 20 percent from 1997 levels by 2010.

"I think about it in the way that we are able to reduce emissions to as low as possible," said Cromwell. "If we have inefficient buildings, a lot emissions that happen from energy usage are wasted."

The carbon neutral goal requires a change in culture.

When students, staff and faculty are more conscious about their energy consumption, the overall emissions level will be reduced, said Cromwell.

"When the overall demand for energy is reduced as much as possible, we can use green energy to supply the rest of the energy needs on campus," said Cromwell. "Green energy, depending on where you get it from, is typically free of emissions."

The library, business school building and Kennedy Commons are the most energy efficient buildings on campus, according to Cromwell.

The sun lights about 90 percent of the public space in the library, so there is not as much of a need for artificial light.

The heating and cooling systems are also more efficient, as they use less energy to do the same amount of work as older equipment.

"We have a very efficient air conditioning system in both Lucas Hall and the new library," said Joe Sugg, assistant vice president for university operations. "Special attention was paid to the building envelope, or the insulation of the roof, walls and windows, so there won't be as much heat gain or heat loss in the room."

Lucas Hall has an equal ratio of recycling and trash bins, instead of placing just trash bins in classrooms, said Cromwell.

Bon Appetit, Santa Clara's on-campus dining service, has played a part in the sustainability movement.

In April of last year, Bon Appetit started to implement their carbon-diet initiative. Wasteful to-go containers were changed to compostable ones, and Bon Appetit staff now makes silverware more easily accessible than disposable plates and utensils.

Bon Appetit's low carbon diet initiative -- which includes purchasing locally and looking at how food choices relate to carbon emissions -- is something that Bon Appetit would like to explore more, said Lori Flashner, general manager of dining services.

"We want to look at ways to reduce the amount of those products that we're purchasing, but still offer great food and variety," said Flashner. "We also want to explore the initiative where we changed to the completely compostable packaging."

In terms of academic programs, the new core curriculum will include writing courses that have sustainability themes, such as environmental rhetoric and nature and the imagination.

Pathways, a new element of the core, will require students to take four mixed classes that center around a certain theme.

"If you're in the business school, you can do a sustainable business pathway. If you're in the engineering school, you can do an environmental technology pathway," said Leslie Gray, executive director of the Environmental Studies Institute. "It's all going to be under the rubric of the sustainability pathway."

Besides the introduction of the sustainability pathway, Gray said a community garden is being created in an open space near Mondo Burrito.

"The community garden is going to be an outdoor classroom for teaching, as well as a place for students to come and teach others from the community," said Gray. "They can also have plots where they can grow food."

The half-acre community garden will probably be open to students in January, said Gray.

"Sustainability is basically the idea that you are protecting the planet for future generations," said Gray. "Our major is growing really rapidly, and that reflects the incredible interest in environmental issues right now."

The College Sustainability site also gave Stanford University an overall grade of A -- and the University of California, Berkeley, a B.

A Campus Sustainability resource fair will be held on Oct. 24 from 2 to 4 p.m. at Kennedy Mall.

More information about sustainability events can be found at www.scu.edu/sustainability.

Contact Genna Tan at (408) 554-4546 or gbtan@scu.edu.