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In January, Project Hilltop and the Campus Sustainability Advisory Board conducted a ’sustainability survey’ among students that looked to quantify what Georgetown students think and do about conservation on campus. Vox has the report, which compiled the results of 645 student responses, and we’ve summarized it below.
What do we want to see Georgetown doing?
Transparency was a big issue for students who responded to this survey. “Overwhelmingly, students want to know, ‘What is Georgetown doing?’” the report on the survey results said students asked in the free-response section.
Students also consistently brought up Leo’s, asking that the University reduce food waste, offer a more varied menu, more information on preservatives used in food, and the elimination of non-biodegradable disposables. “Students also ask[ed] about workers’ conditions and ask that lights be turned off when Leo’s is not in use,” the report said.
Some called for more recycling bins and education, and asked that the University focus more on waste reduction than recycling. Students complained of leaking sinks, faucets, and showers in residence halls, and extreme temperatures in dorms and classrooms. Some wanted to see easier and better transportation efforts, such as buses to basketball games.
As part of Georgetown’s effort to reduce its carbon footprint by 50 percent by 2020, the University has begun using bio diesel to fuel the GUTS buses and other university vehicles. In a University press release, Vice President for Facilities and Student Housing Karen Frank explained that the fuel reduces carbon emissions at low cost to the University, since engines do not have to be converted to run on the fuel.
The fuel is 80 percent diesel petroleum and 20 percent biodiesel. While that may seem like a small percentage, it has contributed to the 17 percent reduction in emissions over the past three years. And that’s not all the University has been doing—those nifty Jesuit golf carts are electric vehicles, and the Outdoor Education program has a van that runs entirely on vegetable oil collected from local restaurants.
Props to Georgetown for getting serious about carbon emission reduction—now howsabout getting rid of those Styrofoam containers in Leo’s?
The holidays never come too soon for Georgetown alum Julie Littell. In December of 2007, Littell realized that her passion for decorating gifts unnecessarily conflicted with her love of the environment. So, she began Earth Presents—a company that sells eco-friendly gift wrap.
The wrapping paper sold by Earth Presents is made from 100 percent recycled products, and the inks used for the designs are all vegetable-based. They also sell gift tags, ribbons, and bows that are packaged in 100% recycled content. The company also gives children from the D.C. area an opportunity to provide the artistic inspiration for the designs featured on the gift wrap.
This year Earth Presents donated wrapping paper to Georgetown’s EcoAction. They will be selling the gift wrap for charity in Red Square to help promote a recyclable and Earth-friendly holiday season.
The Aspen Institute recently released its biannual “Beyond Grey Pinstripes” ranking of business schools that do the best job of integrating social and environmental issues into their curriculum, and Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business came in a very respectable 35th.
The ranking is a significant improvement from our 2007 showing, when we came in 73rd. In 2005, the first year the Aspen Institute ranked business schools, we were 30th.
The rankings are based on four factors: how many courses that involve social, environmental or ethical concerns are offered; how much class time is spent on these issues; how many courses demonstrate the intersection of social or environmental issues with for-profit business; and how much faculty research is on social, environmental or ethical issues.
Dear LXR, this actually shouldn’t be your energy use model
You may not be aware of it since, as the Voice’s Editorial Board pointed out in this week’s issue, the University hasn’t done a great job of publicizing it, but Georgetown is in the midst of Switch It Off, an inter-dorm energy use reduction competition.
Each residence hall is now competing against each other to see which can reduce its energy consumption by the highest percentage as compared to how much energy was used in the residence hall last year. There will be a prize awarded to the dorm that reduces its energy the most, but the University hasn’t yet said what exactly that will be.
Village A is currently in the lead, with a reduction in energy use of 13.1 percent from the previous school year. Six of the nine dorms have a net decrease in energy use over last year, but three have actally increased their energy use. LXR is the big offender, with a whopping energy use increase of 18.1 percent.
The Sustainable Endowments Institute just released its 2010 College Sustainability Report Card, and while Georgetown is still in the B range, we’re making some improvements. This year we received an overall grade of B, up from the B- we received for the past two years and the C+ we received in 2007.
Georgetown’s biggest gains came in the areas of Climate Change & Energy and Shareholder Engagement.
For Climate Change & Energy, where Georgetown jumped up to an A from last year’s C, the College Sustainability Report Card praised us for decreasing our carbon emissions by 12 percent between 2006 and 2008. We also got plaudits for installing monitors in dorms that display real-time energy use per resident.
In terms of Shareholder Engagement, where we also now have an A rather than a C, we got good marks for involving students, faculty and staff in the decision-making process, not just administrators and trustees as had previously been the case.
We also inched up in terms of Endowment Transparency, earning a D this year, rather than the F we received for the previous three years, thanks to a slight liberalization of the University’s policy on disclosing endowment decisions.
The only area where Georgetown’s grades suffered this year was Transportation. While we’d previously earned a B in that category, this year we came away with a C.
That means we met less than 50 percent of their criteria for environmental reporting, green building design, waste programs, renewable energy, green food options, alternative fuel vehicles and water conservation.
Greenopia did give us points for requiring LEED Silver designation for all new construction, exceeding the average for waste diversion, and using a large amount of solar energy.
Out big black mark? Environmental reporting and transparency:
Georgetown could certainly benefit from some additional reporting. Simply put, Georgetown had some of the worst reporting we came across and this is unacceptable …
Georgetown has some environmental reporting (although not much), but has yet to take part in the ACUPPCC’s challenge for reporting/transparency.
As unsettling as our evaluation is, other local schools didn’t do much better. American also came away with one leaf, getting knocked for poor reporting, as well. Howard didn’t get any stars, just a scathing indictment of their lack of environmental action. George Washington, Catholic and Gallaudet weren’t included in the rankings.
Renewable Energy Turns Me On visited Walsh, Healy, the ICC, Reiss and Leavey and found some serious problems with their recycling bin set-ups. According to the post, Georgetown’s recycling bin failures are four-fold:
Every facility should have bins for as many different types of recycling as possible and trash cans.
Paper—which is sometimes divided into mixed paper, white paper and newspaper—should either be consolidated into one category or all three bins should be paired together.
The appearance and placement of recycling and trash bins should be standardized.
Recycling bins should be available in locations where they’re most needed (i.e. you should have paper recycling near copying machines, plastic and aluminum recycling near vending machines and Hoya Court).
Yesterday, EcoAction’s blog, Renewable Energy Turns Me On, drew our attention to a unsuccessful campaign from the 2006-7 school year which called for a $30 fee added on to tuition that would be used to make 30% of the University’s energy renewable and the possibility of a new push for a green fee.
According to the EcoAction blog, the petition received over a thousand signatures back in ‘06-’07, but instead of implementing the green fee, Georgetown opted to “explore options for renewable energy with other universities in DC.” Although Georgetown created a Sustainability Action Committee, it didn’t allot any money to the group, limiting its effectiveness.
Now the question EcoAction’s asking is whether it would be wise to start another push for a green fee. Here’s some of the pros and cons they laid out in the post:
Would it run into the obstable of being associated with all of the other fees that we pay that seem to have no direct impact on us? The activities fee leaves a large unused endowment and a green fee/fund could run into problems if not used and not made directly relevant to the improvement of student life.
However, as the other universities begin to champion such causes adn the Pope being vocal about the issue himself, there are clear reasons for Georgetown to assert itself as a force for college sustainability.
What do you think?
Photo from Flicker user Tracy O, used under a Creative Commons license.
The good folks at the Sustainable Endowments Institute must have missed the Voice’s article this week about how GUSA, EcoAction, and the Corp are painting the campus green. At least, that might explain the B- Georgetown got in the SEI’s 2008 College Sustainability Report Card. Take heart, though. Georgetown students might cringe at the idea of getting a B- on anything, but it’s not all bad in this case.
The good news: In the category breakdowns, we received an A in Investment Priorities. Also, Georgetown’s grade was a bump up from last year’s. Though it’s only slightly higher than the average grade of a C+, it’s a whole lot higher than the D+ that both GWU and American received and Howard’s F.
The bad news: That being said, where would Georgetown be if we only defined success as being better than GWU and American? Georgetown was behind all of the Ivies, except for Princeton, which also received a B-. And we received an F for Endowment Transparency and C’s in Climate Change & Energy and Shareholder Engagement.
Georgetown’s report is viewable here and the entire report card is here.
Vox Populi is the staff blog of the Georgetown Voice, a weekly newsmagazine at Georgetown University. Opinions expressed in posts are those of their author alone unless otherwise stated.
Dear LXR, this actually shouldn’t be your energy use model
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