Southern Oregon U Introduces Dish Loan Program
The Sustainability Resource Center at Southern Oregon launched a new program to loan reusable dishes and utensils for free at campus events in an effort to move toward zero waste events.
Bucknell U Launches Sustainability Website
As part of increased sustainability programming, the university recently launched its first sustainability website as resource to the campus community. The website serves as a centralized place for the campus community to explore the institution's academic, research, engagement and operational goals.
Arizona State U Student Spearheads Lab-Glove Recycling Program
A junior majoring in sustainability and interning at Kimberly Clark, a paper company, started a lab glove recycling program in partnership with Kimberly Clark called RightCycle. Lab gloves are collected with special cardboard boxes, sent to recycling centers and processed into plastic pellets or nitrile powder, which can then be used to manufacture anything plastic.
Campus Compact Announces Positive Engagement Grant Recipients
Campus Compact, a nonprofit organization working to advance the public purposes of higher education, recently announced 40 college and university recipients of grants from its Fund for Positive Engagement to bring people together across lines of difference.
St. Joseph College Launches Local Food Institute With $4M in Funding
The Institute for Local Food Systems Innovation seeks to develop the state’s food and beverage industry and meet regional food security goals. The institute will encompass five enterprises: a food manufacturing incubator, a hydroponic farm, a traditional crop and livestock farm, an agri-tourism event center, and a complementary entrepreneurship development and education program offering certificates.
Penn State U Berks Chancellor Establishes Endowment for Ethics & Sustainability
Penn State Berks Chancellor R. Keith Hillkirk and his wife have established the Hillkirk Family Program Endowment for Ethics and Sustainability, which will provide ongoing support to increase awareness and education and to encourage action in the campus community and beyond, regarding issues related to ethics and sustainability. This endowment was funded with an initial gift of $25,000 and will provide resources for programs and initiatives to engage the campus community. The college has established a committee that will review funding requests, which can be initiated by faculty, staff and students.
U Maryland Celebrates 2 MW Solar Carport Installations
More than 7,000 solar panels now sit atop Regents Drive, Terrapin Trail and Mowatt Lane parking garages, with a combined capacity of 2 megawatts. The project was funded by a $250,000 grant from the Maryland Energy Administration and matched funding from the university's Facilities Management.
Northern Arizona U Installs Tree Education Project
In an effort to educate the community about the value of urban trees, this time-limited installation included 23 "price tags" in Wheeler Park and NAU’s North Quad that describe the financial contributions of the trees as a result of their various ecosystem services and health benefits.
National Recycling Coalition Announces 2017 Award Winners
The University of Florida received this year's Outstanding Higher Education award from the National Recycling Coalition (NRC), while the University of Illinois at Chicago was recognized as honorable mention. The NRC mentioned UF’s Hinkley Center for Solid and Hazardous Waste Management and curricular opportunities for waste professionals. The University of Illinois at Chicago was cited for its Sustainability Internship Program.
Insight Into Diversity Acknowledges 2017 HEED Award Recipients
This year's Higher Education Excellence in Diversity (HEED) Award was given to 80 higher education institutions, 15 of which were categorized as Diversity Champions by exemplifying an unyielding commitment to diversity and inclusion throughout their campus communities, across academic programs, and at the highest administrative levels.
Cornell U Launches Interactive Sustainability Campus & Community Map
The new interactive map features over 200 data points organized in topical map layers with sustainability features across campus, including green buildings, bottle water filling stations, bike-share and car-share locations, sustainability landscape sites, electric-vehicle charging stations, sustainability centers and institutes, and reuse centers. Through joint funding between the Campus Sustainability Office and the Office of Engagement Initiatives, the map was developed with living laboratory and engagement opportunities in mind.
Harvard U & U California San Diego Win 2017 Freezer Challenge
The University of California San Diego was identified as the organizational winner by saving an estimated 500,000 kilowatt-hours per year. Harvard University's Hoekstra Lab was the individual laboratory winner, saving an estimated 13,000 kilowatt-hours per year. Individual labs at the University of Alberta and the University of California San Diego received honorable mention. The Freezer Challenge encourages researchers to implement sustainable practices around cold storage management. Labs received points for taking actions such as properly maintaining freezers and refrigerators, discarding old samples and retiring unneeded units.
U California Riverside Fellows Help Reduce Carbon Emissions
As part of the Carbon Neutrality Initiative Student Fellowship Program, five participating fellows will receive a stipend of $3,000 to fund a project that reduces greenhouse gas emissions produced by UCR buildings and vehicles. An additional student engagement fellow will serve as the initiative’s ambassador, receiving a $4,000 stipend plus $1,000 to fund campus event programming geared toward educating and inspiring other students.
Cornell U Launches Free Online Climate Change Course
The new course on climate change science, communication, and action focuses on equipping learners with the tools they need to understand climate science and policy fundamentals, and how to take action to communicate and implement climate change related projects in their community and work.
Indiana U Launches $300M Grand Challenges Program
The university's Grand Challenge program announced the new Prepared for Environmental Change initiative. The new multi-million dollar initiative seeks to gather an interdisciplinary team of researchers that will engage government, business, nonprofit and community leaders to implement actionable solutions to the impacts of environmental change.
U British Columbia Students Design & Install Pollinator Homes
Working with biologists, zoologists and local planners, students in the UBC school of architecture and landscape architecture (SALA) designed, built and installed three pollinator homes for bees and bats. The project will provide the opportunity for students to study sharing spaces with species in urban environments.
Bournemouth U Initiates Employee Sustainability Program
After a six-month pilot of a behavior change program reduced energy consumption by 14.6 percent across four departments, the university is expanding the program to all staff members. The initiative works by engaging employees on a range of themes through an online platform and app. Employees are rewarded with points for reducing their environmental footprint and improving their well-being through measures such as cycling, car-sharing or using re-usable cups and bottles.
U Michigan Serves Campus Farm Produce
The university's campus farm was able to begin supplying its produce to on-campus dining halls after attaining its USDA Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) food safety certification in June. This effort was in part made possible by the addition of a covered produce wash station built by volunteers and student farmers. Students volunteers work at the farm each week, engaging in hands-on learning about sustainable farming, the environment, equality and issues of justice surrounding food.
Emory U Class Revitalizes Pilot Green Roof
An abandoned rooftop garden was recently revamped through a class project and was funded by the university's Sustainability Incentives Fund grant through Emory's Office of Sustainability Initiatives. The original project in 2008 was part of a student-led pilot study exploring the benefits of vegetative roof coverings and had been largely unmaintained since.
Mount Royal U & Simon Fraser U Designated as Changemaker Campuses
Ashoka U recognized the institutions for having embedded social innovation as a core value. Along with the Colombian Institute of Administration, a business school in Colombia, they join a network of 40 institutions across eight countries. MRU and SFU are the first Ashoka U Changemaker Campuses in Alberta and British Columbia, respectively.
California State U Receives $250K for Clean Tech Workshops
The university received a $250,000 grant from the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator's new Energize California initiative that will fund clean technology innovation workshops and events at five Los Angeles-area CSU campuses over the next five years. The workshops are intended to help students learn about resources and programs that could help them bring new clean energy technologies to the market.
Thompson Rivers U Installs Sidewalk Made of Solar Panels
A professor from the university's Geography and Environmental Studies department and students helped install photovoltaic panels on a sidewalk in July. The solar sidewalk project is meant to demonstrate the role sidewalks and other everyday structures can play in generating energy.
U Illinois Chicago Students Plant Urban Garden
Aiming to address issues of sustainability and food security in low-income Chicago communities, the new urban garden was developed and implemented by two undergraduate students in the university's Human Development and Learning program. During the spring 2017 semester, the two students acquired access to the plot of land and earned funding from the university to partner with a local sustainable garden-to-table organization.
North Carolina State U Architecture Class Builds Facility for Campus-Grown Food
The student-designed and built facility will bolster productivity of the university's Agroecology Education Farm by offering a place to wash and store produce grown for university dining halls. The building includes integration of reused materials, such as a sink basin, cedar siding and three steel coolers that will be modified to function with brand-new cooling systems. The building will also include a rain garden, a small herb garden, a cistern to collect rainwater for irrigation and exterior landscaping with native plants.
Indiana U Purdue U Indianapolis Earns Bee Campus Designation
The university recently obtained Bee Campus USA certification for its activities designed to support pollinators. The designation was announced during the university's second year participating in Pollinator Count Week, a Keep Indianapolis Beautiful event that seeks to take inventory of pollinators and raise awareness of their role in the human food system.
MIT Announces Inaugural Incubator Fund Recipients
The school's Office of Sustainability announced the recipients of the first-ever Campus Sustainability Incubator Fund, with $200,000 awarded between four multi-departmental projects, all of which use the MIT campus as a test bed for research in sustainable operations, management and design. The four selected projects include water recapture at the power plant, modeling the environmental impact of buildings, evaluating the benefits of recycling laboratory gloves, and eliminating wasted energy in HVAC systems.
Wilfrid Laurier U Receives $5K Grant for Planting Trees
Through a grant from Tree Canada, the university will be planting a small strand of mature trees on its Waterloo campus that will include national and provincial emblem trees, and symbolic First Nations trees. The tree-planting project commemorates the 150th anniversary of Canada.
U Nevada Reno Launches Online Marketplace for Campus Produce
Students and the surrounding community now have the opportunity to access fresh fruits and vegetables through a new virtual farm stand, offered through the university's Desert Farming Initiative. A collaboration between three key groups, the Desert Farming Initiative seeks to support Nevada agriculture through education, research and outreach.
ACEEE Launches 'Shrink Your Dorm Print' Campaign
In preparation for the 2017-18 school year, the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy recently released the Shrink Your Dorm Print campaign, which offers a tip sheet and shopping guide for students interested in reducing their carbon footprint.
Colgate U Students Place Two Honey Bee Hives
A collaboration between the university’s food service provider, Chartwells, and a group of students looking to support the local honey bee population led to the installation of two hives in a newly established apiary last month. The new endeavor also resulted in the creation of a student beekeeping club.
Wilfrid Laurier U Receives Recognition for Sustainable Energy Management
The Ontario Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change recently honored the university with its Minister's Award for Environmental Excellence for putting in place a series of innovative energy conservation measures to reduce energy consumption while improving efficiencies and functionality of space. To date, the initial phase of the Laurier Energy Efficiency Program (LEEP) has reduced the university’s current energy consumption by approximately 40 percent. LEEP is a multi-campus energy management program designed to reduce the consumption of all utilities across the Laurier’s campuses.
Northern Arizona U Launches Sustainable Citizen Program
After piloting the Sustainable Citizen Program in the 2016/17 academic year, the university has now expanded the program to include all students. The program measures and increases sustainability literacy and engagement by offering a path that includes a pre- and post-literacy test, two basic sustainability seminars, volunteer work and short, required reflection paper. Students have their entire time at the university to complete the program, and at graduation are given a Sustainable Citizen pin.
EAUC Publishes Living Labs Research
The Environmental Association of Universities and Colleges (U.K.) recently released new research on living labs. The research is broken into three reports: what living labs are and why they are important; making the case for living labs; and how living labs work.
U Colorado Boulder Creates 'Social Justice Living Environment' in Dorm
In fall 2018, the Social Justice Living Environment will house communities for students who identify as black, LGBTQ and those passionate about diversity. The new program stemmed from student concerns following a campus climate survey revealing only a quarter of African-American undergraduates and less than half of undergraduates, in general, felt welcome on campus.
Webster U Publishes Interactive Eco-Map
In early May, the university published a campus map that highlights the spectrum of green infrastructure and resources on campus. The map allows viewers to navigate different layers, such as solar panels, bike racks or water bottle refill stations.
U Hong Kong Expands Smart Meter Program
A student-focused carbon reduction and behavioral change pilot project included the installation of smart meters in select student rooms and a real-time data dashboard. The technology and science-based program will be scaled up this year to include 1,800 users from four residential colleges. Students in the college led the development of data-driven solutions that reduced electricity use by over 25 percent in the pilot project.
Wesleyan U Receives $4M Gift for College of the Environment
An alumnus and his wife recently donated $4 million to the university’s College of the Environment. The endowment will fund seminars, workshops and faculty-student research grants, internship learning opportunities for students with financial need who are pursuing studies related to environmental research, and an endowed scholarship for those who have demonstrated exceptional academic accomplishment and are pursuing the environmental studies linked major or the environmental studies certificate through the College of the Environment.
UK Student Union Renews Efforts to Fight Climate Change
(U.K.) Delegates at National Union of Students National Conference voted in favor of a motion to renew the drive for student action against climate change. One of the two key resolutions in the motion is to support protests against the President Donald J. Trump's rollback of progress on climate change.
MIT Opens Energy Dashboard Data to Students, Faculty & Staff
Massachusetts Institute of Technology has launched a new website that makes available detailed information about energy use and carbon emissions on campus. This resource is available to the institute’s students, faculty and staff, for education, research and decision-making purposes. The rollout of this central data dashboard, called Energize_MIT, helps the school meet the goals and commitments set out in its 2015 Plan for Action on Climate Change.
