State University of New York at Buffalo
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Education and Research:
The University at Buffalo (UB) is a premier research institution with an increasing focus on research and academics that embraces environmental sustainability. Researchers and academics at UB publish cutting edge work on some of the most pressing environmental issues today such as providing clean drinking water to communities and glacial melting trends in Greenland and Antarctica.
A new academic and research program at UB, the Ecosystem Restoration through Interdisciplinary Exchange (ERIE), initiative is a collection of academic programs and research projects designed to advance the science, engineering, and policy of ecosystem restoration, and contribute to the ecological recovery of the Great Lakes and Western New York (WNY). ERIE participants include scholars from numerous academic departments at the University at Buffalo and neighboring institutions in the US and Canada. The program is funded through the National Science Foundation Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) program.
In 2009, UB established a clean energy business incubator program that will provide business support to accelerate the successful development of early-stage, clean energy technology companies in WNY. The Directed Energy program is designed to join the technical expertise of UB scientists and engineers with the business development skills of the university’s technology incubator to foster clean energy companies and job growth in WNY. Funding is aimed at assisting companies throughout the incubation process and developing a financially self-sustaining program that makes WNY a regional center for developing clean energy technologies.
Campus Operations:
Energy
UB has a history of environmental sustainability, beginning over 25 years ago when the first energy officer was hired to reduce energy use through conservation and efficiency. Because of these efforts, UB has saved over $100 million. With the creation of UB Green in 1999, waste reduction, transportation, and environmental education joined energy conservation as tasks of the new sustainability office.
To reduce carbon emissions, UB has purchased renewable energy credits since 2002, with the intention of increasing these purchases over time. In 2009, UB was recognized by the Environmental Protection Agency as the leading purchaser of renewable energy in the Mid-American Conference, UB’s athletic conference. In 2006, UB installed the largest solar array in WNY (73.5 kwh). In 2009, UB in partnership with the New York Power Authority announced the construction of a 1 MW solar array that will be placed on 7.5 acres on the UB North Campus and is slated to become one of the largest college or university arrays in the country. Additionally, two 60 kilowatt micro-turbines provide pumping capacity and heat UB’s swimming pools.
UB has a strong background in green building as demonstrated by building the first LEED certified building in WNY. In 2005, the UB High Performance Building Guidelines were published, setting a high standard for building design at UB. UB’s new Engineering Building is slated to become LEED Gold and a new housing complex is expected to achieve LEED Silver.
Transportation
UB currently has 56 compressed natural gas, 5 hybrid, and 10 electric vehicles, a fleet that is constantly updated to meet state and federal regulations as well as institutional sustainability goals. Transportation demand management options are increasingly being offered to UB students, faculty, and staff. In the fall of 2007, UB placed bicycle racks on every bus that travels around and between UB’s North and South campuses. In the fall of 2008, over 1,000 bicycles were transported on these racks. UB currently has bicycle rack capacity to store over 500 bicycles, with additional racks added annually. By fall 2009, a carsharing program and a carpooling program that offers preferred parking to campus commuters are anticipated to be in place.
Waste Reduction and Recycling
UB has a wide range of programs designed to promote recycling, expand purchasing of recycled materials, facilitate re-use of materials and equipment, and avoid waste. UB’s composting program diverts pre-consumer food waste from the landfill. When possible, UB Campus Dining & Shops purchases from local suppliers and distributors. In 2008, UB instituted a policy requiring 100% postconsumer content processed chlorine-free recycled paper for all general uses. Additionally, Mail Services began collecting and returning junk mail sent to UB addresses, reducing contributions to the waste stream. UB has worked with its office supply contractor, Staples, to direct purchasers on its website toward the sustainable products that are offered. UB also has a materials exchange program called UB SWAP, where unused office items can be posted on the SWAP website in hopes that someone else will reuse it.
Administration and Finance:
Sustainability is also a guiding principal for UB's Comprehensive Physical Plan. This serves as an opportunity for UB to exemplify best practices in environmental stewardship and sustainable development, from the way that the buildings are constructed to the way that public spaces are designed and utilized to how students, faculty, and staff travel to, from and between UB’s campuses. The Comprehensive Physical Plan and the emerging Climate Action Plan will have a unique synergy—both have similar implementation schedules and they will rely heavily on the purpose and drive of the other.
In March 2007, UB President John B. Simpson signed the American College and University President’s Climate Commitment (ACUPCC), committing UB to become climate neutral by a date to be determined. To coordinate these efforts, President Simpson created the Environmental Stewardship Committee (ESC), comprised of UB administrators that have direct organizational and financial control over the university units that have primary responsibility for the sources of greenhouse gas emissions on campus. The ESC is composed of six subcommittees—energy, transportation, materials, information technology, research, teaching, and public service, and outreach and communications.
In January 2008, UB released the UB Green Climate Action Report, a greenhouse gas emissions inventory and report that detailed the myriad strategies for how UB can reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. After the inventory was submitted to the ACUPCC in September 2008, UB began to explore carbon management software platforms that could provide a more granular view of its emissions and transform over 25 years of energy use data into a format that could be analyzed and mined for additional opportunities to conserve. Early in 2009, UB purchased rights to Clear Standards, a proprietary carbon management tool that will help UB measure, monetize and mitigate its carbon emissions through close analysis of existing trends and projections of our emissions into the future. UB also commissioned Ecology & Environment to complete its Climate Action Plan as required by the ACUPCC, a task that is currently being completed with the assistance of the ESC and subject matter experts in the campus community.
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