Blueprint for a Green Campus (2002 Update) 

Table of Contents | Introduction | Climate-Friendly Campus | Growing Without Increasing Traffic | Safe/Healthy Campus | Consumption and Disposal Habits | Greening Building Design and Construction | 2001 Blueprint Update | Original Blueprint  

Introduction

In April of 2000, the University of Colorado Environmental Center released the Blueprint for a Green Campus. To quote the introduction to the Blueprint:

“Building on the environmental successes at CU over the last two decades, we propose a vision of a growing, dynamic campus which steps lightly upon the earth and satisfies additional demands for energy, transportation, and resources through increased efficiency rather than increased consumption.”

The Blueprint lays out challenging goals in the areas of climate change, transportation, health and safety, and disposal and consumption habits.

The 2001 Update to the Blueprint for a Green Campus was released last spring as a check-in on the Blueprint. Now the 2002 Update seeks to answer questions on support for the Blueprint goals, what progress has been made toward the goals, obstacles to further progress, and newly emerging issues.

The major campus departments have reported on their progress on working toward the goals set forth in the Blueprint. Information from the departments is incorporated throughout the 2002 Update. The complete reports as submitted by Facilities Management, the Housing Department, Environmental Health and Safety, and Parking and Transit Services are available at www.colorado.edu/ecenter, by clicking on the “Blueprint for a Green Campus” icon.

The Blueprint has been formally endorsed by two major campus bodies: the University of Colorado Student Union and the Boulder Faculty Assembly. The Blueprint was also recognized by the United States Environmental Protection Agency, which issued a Year 2000 Climate Protection Award to the Environmental Center for the creation of the Blueprint.

The Chancellor's Executive Committee reviewed the Blueprint for a Green Campus in spring 2000, and set up a Blueprint Committee, chaired by the Vice Chancellor for Administration. The committee has met quarterly to review the proposed goals, and to make recommendations to the Chancellor on implementation steps. The committee has not yet discussed all of the areas in the Blueprint, and has made few formal recommendations. One area of active discussion is whether the committee should be replaced by another, more formalized council, in order to more effectively advance these issues.

One highlight this year is that the committee did recommend adoption of an Integrated Pest Management Policy, which has now been formally adopted for the Boulder campus. The policy sets forth general direction on pest management and pesticide use and designates a campus IPM coordinator who will review departmental plans for compliance. Details can be found in the “Creating a Safe and Healthy Campus” section of this document.

Progress during 2001-2002

There are a number of major accomplishments that are worth highlighting in this introduction.

Institutional and Structural Issues: First, in the arena of “accounting for true costs,” the Blueprint recommended that the campus marketplace be adjusted to send the right price signals. Currently, the campus marketplace often encourages excess resource consumption, through practices such as ‘free’ printing in computer labs, un-metered energy use by campus departments, and parking prices which treat the land under parking lots as free.

Last year, Housing eliminated free printing from computer labs in the residence halls, instead charging individual users. In the first year of implementation, Housing estimates a 55% reduction in paper use.

The campus Information Technology Council is currently considering the issue of pay for printing in the public computer labs on campus. The IT council created a Pay-for-Printing Task Force “to determine appropriate printing solutions for the campus public and student-based printing.” The goals of the ideal solution are to:

• Contain printing costs for the campus
• Provide fair and equitable access to print services for all campus constituents
• “Reduce waste by providing a financial incentive to conserve resources” (language from the draft report of the taskforce)

If this is adopted, it could lead to a very significant decrease in campus paper use, by sending the appropriate market signals to individual users. More information can be found in the section on “Greening Campus Consumption and Disposal Habits.”

Another recommendation involves more consistent and accurate monitoring of campus environmental performance. Progress on this front includes the required reporting and tracking of campus pesticide use as per the Integrated Pest Management policy.

The Blueprint also recommends the creation of a formal campus environmental council. The Blueprint Committee has partially served this role. In addition, a network of staff whose job responsibilities cover environmental operations has become established. The Housing department created a new position a year and a half ago dedicated to recycling and environmental management. This is a major step forward, as there is now an institutional voice within that department. It is interesting to consider the broader context that Facilities Management created an environmental operations supervisor position 3 years ago, and Parking and Transit Services created a transportation modes coordinator position 2 years ago. This means that all of the major operational departments on campus now have dedicated staff paying attention to environmental issues. These staff meet and communicate quite regularly, forming an informal network of environmental managers on campus.

However, there is still a need for an effective council to help the campus address major environmental policy issues. It may be important to create such a council as a successor to the ad hoc Blueprint committee. This is conceptually supported by commitments adopted by the campus. The Talloires Declaration, signed in 1997 by Chancellor Park, commits the university to " convene university faculty and administrators with environmental practitioners to develop curricula, research initiatives, operational systems, and outreach activities to support an environmentally sustainable future." Interestingly, 24% of the universities surveyed by the National Wildlife Federation and the Princeton Research Associates in the 2001 State of the Campus Environment have campus environmental councils. The survey can be viewed at http://www.nwf.org/campusecology/. It should be noted that the survey rated the University of Colorado Boulder campus near the top in recycling and transportation and did not rank among the top schools for environmental goal-setting and environmental policies.

The Vice Chancellor for Administration appointed a Campus Resource Conservation Committee this year, which is analyzing and making policy recommendations focusing primarily on campus energy use. This is a very important committee within this arena. The Vice Chancellor is also considering the creation of a cross-functional team as proposed in the Environmental Management System Guide. The team would be primarily made up of representatives from the major operational departments. Both of these committees would complement a campus environmental council. The UCSU Environmental Board adopted a resolution which endorses the formation of a campus environmental council. The resolution is attached as an appendix to this introduction.

Some interesting developments in the individual goal areas include:

Creating a Climate-Friendly Campus:

• The Vice Chancellor for Administration created a Campus Resource Conservation Committee which is developing policies designed to contain campus energy use.
• The Vice Chancellor for Administration adopted a campus goal to stabilize or reduce energy use per square foot of campus building. This is significant, as the campus energy use has been increasing significantly faster than building space.
• Facilities Management and the Environmental Center have developed a "Generation Green" campaign, which targets individual behaviors which affect energy use - turning off lights, activating energy saving modes on computers, etc. The program kicked off in November in six pilot buildings.
• Several administrators have raised the idea of having the Williams Village expansion purchase wind power from Excel Energy to demonstrate a commitment to emissions reductions.

Growing Without Increasing Traffic:

• With the addition of two new high frequency transit routes in January 2001, student ridership on local transit rose by 13.6% over 2000 levels.
• The planning process for the next two high frequency transit services has moved forward. The STAMPEDE and DASH services are scheduled to begin at the start of fall semester 2002. Both will serve the CU campus, with the DASH serving commuters on South Boulder Road and the STAMPEDE linking the main campus and East campus.
• A transportation study of the proposed Williams Village expansion is underway and will determine the appropriate mix of parking supply and transportation alternatives.
• Transportation Services has developed an Request for Proposals for on-campus car rental services for students. If the process is successful, starting in the 2002-2003 school year students will have access to automobile mobility without having to own a car.
• Several major projects are moving forward to provide housing for students on or near campus, which substantially reduces car travel. These include the private Village at Boulder Creek development, the conversion of the College Inn to student housing, and the development of up to 1900 new student beds at Williams Village.

Creating a Safe and Healthy Campus:

• The campus has adopted an Integrated Pest Management policy which formalizes a commitment to less toxic pest control.
• Facilities Management is conducting an inventory of all cleaning products to rank their toxicity.
• In its first eight months, Environmental Health and Safety’s new waste treatment facility has rendered 18,600 liters of photo processing chemicals as non-hazardous waste, recovered 5,156 gallons of water, and realized over $10,000 in actual cost savings. Neutralization of acid/base solutions has resulted in the reduction of 900 liters of potentially hazardous waste. Greening Campus Consumption and Disposal Habits:
• UCSU allocated significant capital funding for expanding recycling in both the 2000 and 2001 academic years, and is now considering funding for the 2002 academic year. Facilities Management and Housing are working cooperatively with the Environmental Center to implement this aggressive expansion program. This has resulted in expanded recycling of cardboard in the residence halls and could lead to food waste composting.
• The UMC remodeling and expansion project has involved an extensive recycling and reuse effort. Over 2.5 million pounds of construction and demolition waste were diverted from the landfill during the expansion phase of the project. The renovation phase will continue this effort.
• The Pay for Printing issue previously referenced is a major factor in reducing paper waste.
• On December 8, 2001, the UCSU Legislative Council passed a bill regarding the paper consumption of all UCSU Cost Centers. The bill requires the use of 100% post-consumer copy paper for all standard printing and copying. This does not include copies on colored paper, bound print jobs or the use of letterhead. Letterhead, colored fliers and any major print job must utilize paper with at least 30% post-consumer content.

Green Building

• While this is not an area referenced explicitly in the Blueprint for a Green Campus, the way we build our buildings has such a profound impact for so many years that the 2002 Update has included a separate section.
• The University Memorial Center Expansion and Renovation Project prioritized sustainable design from the project’s inception and has made exceptional progress in addressing indoor air quality, using recycled and renewable materials, conserving energy and natural resources, and reducing and recovering waste.
• The new construction planned at Williams Village raises some opportunities. The Request for Proposals to private partners did reference sustainable design in a number of areas.
• Housing’s project review process now includes an environmental review of each project by the Environmental Coordinator.

Obstacles and Outstanding Issues

At the same time that there has been significant progress in some areas, there are still major challenges ahead. Some of the issues we face:

• Energy use continues to increase rapidly, with four to five percent annual growth rates. We will not be able to meet the climate goal without substantially slowing this growth rate.
• Increasing housing costs are leading to an ever larger percentage of university employees and students living outside of Boulder. Unless the university can build significant amounts of housing on or near campus, this trend will make it more difficult to meet the transportation goal.
• The University has not yet made a firm commitment to any of the goals proposed. This contrasts to schools like Stanford University or the University of Washington, which have committed to the transportation goal; or Tufts University, which has committed to the climate goal. While we can make some progress without a formal commitment to the goals, there are difficult decisions that will require policy guidance from the highest levels of the university administration. Without clear goals it will be difficult to resolve these issues.
• Finally, the physical growth of the Boulder campus means we must continuously reduce our per capita or per square foot use of energy, paper, and other resources in order to meet our goals. This is clearly technically feasible. As Amory and Hunter Lovins and Paul Hawken point out in Natural Capitalism, a 10-fold increase in efficiency is possible with today's technology. The real question is whether we have the political will.

Appendix

University of Colorado Environmental Board Resolution
Adopted 7 March 2002

Whereas:

• The University of Colorado at Boulder has a long history of environmental leadership; and
• There is currently no comprehensive environmental council or committee which sets policy or makes policy recommendations to the campus chancellor; and
• Twenty-four percent of colleges and universities do have environmental councils; and
• CU Boulder is a signatory to the Talloires Declaration, which commits the campus to “convene university faculty and administrators with environmental practitioners to develop curricula, research initiatives, operational systems, and outreach activities to support an environmentally sustainable future;” and
• The Blueprint for a Green Campus, which has been formally supported by the UCSU and the Boulder Faculty Assembly, recommends the creation of a campus environmental council; and
• The committee set up by the chancellor to review the Blueprint for a Green Campus is adhoc, has a limited scope, and does not represent the full spectrum of campus constituencies and expertise.

Therefore

• The UCSU Environmental Board recommends that the Chancellor create a campus environmental council; and
• The Environmental Board recommends that the council include students, faculty, staff, and administrators, and include nonvoting members who are representatives from off campus local, state, and federal environmental agencies; and
• The Environmental Board recommends that the council be charged with developing proactive policies and implementation strategies to reduce the environmental impacts of the university; and
• The Board recommends that the council be charged to review and develop implementation strategies for the Blueprint for a Green Campus, develop implementation strategies for the environmental management section of the campus master plan, and recommend other policies that will contribute to the long term sustainability of the University of Colorado at Boulder.
• The Board recommends that the Campus Resource Conservation Committee, the Solid Waste Advisory Board, and the Hazardous Materials Advisory Board all serve as standing subcommittees of the environmental council. In addition, other subcommittees may be formed as needed.