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Nov 29 2011

Higher Education’s Future - Not Failing the 3R’s

Submitted by Paul Rowland on November 29, 2011 - 11:15am

Institutions of higher education (IHEs) may seem to be doing just fine in these uncertain times: enrollments continue to increase; students are graduating in record numbers; and funding appears to be relatively stable.

Oct 12 2011

Session Recap >> The Billion Dollar Green Challenge

Submitted by Sam Hummel on October 12, 2011 - 11:50am

Facing burdensome budget cuts and unstable energy costs, many colleges are grappling with how to finance urgently needed, but capital-intensive, energy efficiency retrofits. In response to this need, the panel will advance the hypothesis that innovative investments in revolving loan funds can provide a viable and vital large-scale funding solution.

Oct 11 2011

Recap >> Billion Dollar Green Challenge Launches at AASHE2011

Submitted by Sam Hummel on October 11, 2011 - 10:06am

Yesterday, Mark Orlowski of the Sustainable Endowments Institute announced the launch of the Billion Dollar Green Challenge, following Chancellor Tim White's keynote. It challenges institution to invest a total of $1 billion in self-managed green revolving funds on energy efficiency upgrades. By doing so, the Challenge is transforming energy efficiency upgrades from perceived expenses to high-return investment opportunities.

Oct 10 2011

Recap: Update on the Presidents Climate Commitment

Submitted by Sam Hummel on October 10, 2011 - 10:47am

Just a year after AASHE was created, AASHE, EcoAmerica and Second Nature came together to ask college and university presidents to step up and not only commit their institution to become climate neutral, but also to educate their students about climate change. We started with 12 presidents at 12 institutions. Today, we have 676 institutions in all 50 states.

Oct 7 2011

Energizing the Higher Ed Sustainability Movement -- with Renewables

Submitted by Ashwini Srinivasa... on October 7, 2011 - 10:51am

I recently attended the fourth annual Renewable Energy Technology (RETECH) conference in Washington, D.C., from September 19-20, hosted by the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE).

![retech1][retech1]

Oct 6 2011

U.S. Higher Education Solar Capacity Leaps 450 percent in 3 Years

Submitted by Sam Hummel on October 6, 2011 - 1:31pm

We are pleased to announce that today AASHE has launched a new Campus Solar Photovoltaic Installations Database that provides technical details on hundreds of on-campus solar pv projects, giving a clearer picture of higher education's adoption of solar pv technology than has previously been possible. The database reveals dramatically accelerating deployment of on-campus solar pv in recent years, including dozens of megawatt scale arrays installed as part of institutions' overall strategy to insulate themselves from ever-increasing utility rates while simultaneously reducing their greenhouse gas emissions.
[Update 10/19/11 - See end of blog post]

Oct 3 2011

Appalachian State: People's Choice Award for 2011 Solar Decathalon

Submitted by Ashwini Srinivasa... on October 3, 2011 - 2:07am

![jacqueline_stewart_and_ged_moody_1.jpg][jacqueline_stewart_and_ged_moody_1.jpg]
The Tidal Basin in Washington, DC is perhaps best known for the cherry blossoms that attract many visitors in the spring. But during the past few weeks, the park has served as the staging ground for the 2011 Solar Decathalon.

Sep 20 2011

Why Rio+20 Matters to You

Submitted by Paul Rowland on September 20, 2011 - 1:00pm

I just finished a conference call where more than a dozen NGO leaders were holding a discussion with representatives from the US Departments of State, Education, and Labor. The meeting was entitled, “Rio+20 Social Pillar Stakeholder Consultations.” (You may have noticed in the recent AASHE Announcements that we have established a website for collecting input from the higher education sustainability community for the Compilation Document for the 2012 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development known as Rio+20.) Toward the end of the call one of the participants asked whether RIO+20 would make any difference. I believe the answer is “YES” to much of world and “POSSIBLY” to those areas where Agenda 21 (the outcomes document of the original Rio conference 20 years ago) was ignored.

Sep 9 2011

Antioch University New England's (AUNE) Green Guru program

Submitted by Ashwini Srinivasa... on September 9, 2011 - 8:52am

![Rachel Brett, current Green Guru ][Rachel Brett, current Green Guru ]

Jul 6 2011

Student Sustainability Research: The Culture of Water Consumption at New York University

Submitted by Niles Barnes on July 6, 2011 - 11:31am

Similar to the highlights of campus sustainability case studies that have been profiled (here and here) we also hope to highlight the excellent student research on campus sustainability that AASHE has available in our resource center. AASHE's student research database (main interface accessible to AASHE members-only) includes papers from undergraduate and graduate students on a wide variety of topics related to campus sustainability. Many of the papers were submitted for our annual student research on campus sustainability award. Although we can only recognize a few papers as "official winners" for that program, there are many exemplary research papers in the database worthy of recognition and wide dissemination.

The issue of reducing bottled water consumption has been gaining traction with many campuses experimenting with restricted sales or with campaigns to reduce bottle water use on campus. Max Liboiron, an undergraduate at New York University wrote and submitted an excellent research paper in 2010 entitled, "H204U: The Culture of Water Consumption at New York University". Included below is the abstract. The full paper may be accessed here.