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Colby College 2006 Campus Sustainability Achievement Award Application

Category

Four-year and graduate institutions, 1,001 - 10,000 student FTE

Contact

Ruth Jacobs
Associate Director of Communications
Colby College
Waterville, ME
(207) 859-4353
RNJACOBS@COLBY.EDU

Governance & Administration

Sustainability is engrained at Colby. It is one of seven principles in the "Summary of Colby Values," (along with academic integrity and non-discrimination etc.) in the catalogue:

Campus Sustainability and Resource Conservation
Colby College is committed to nurturing environmental awareness through its academic program as well as through its activities on campus and beyond. As a local and global environmental citizen, the College adheres to the core values of respect for the environment and sustainable living. Colby seeks to lead by example and fosters morally responsible environmental stewardship. Environmentally safe practices inform and guide campus strategic planning, decision making, and daily operations. We urge community members to recognize personal and institutional responsibilities for reducing impact on the local and global environment. Finally, we recognize that achieving environmental sustainability will be an ongoing challenge that evolves, as we become more aware and educated as a community.
(http://www.colby.edu/catalogue)

Colby's commitment to sustainability has been recognized by the Environmental Protection Agency and Maine's governor.

• Colby formed the Environmental Advisory Group (EAG) in 2000. Administrators, faculty, staff, and students advise the president on environmental stewardship, including conservation, alternative energy, and greening projects. The EAG continues to expand its role and initiatives.
• Colby's strategic plan (2002) reinforced the Environmental Studies Program, "in both its policy and scientific formations, including a sustainable campus greening initiative.
• Project RESCUE (Recycle Everything, Save Colby's Usable Excess) salvages unwanted items that students leave behind. In four years it has recycled and reused tons (literally) of items. (See EPA Web site: best management practices.)

Memberships: Colby is a member of or has signed agreements with:

• NWF Campus Ecology Program
• Maine Green Power Connection
• The Institution Recycling Network
• Clean Air Cool Planet Climate Initiative
• Environmental Protection Agency (EPA New England College and University Integrated Strategy)
• Green Campus Consortium of Maine
• Governor's Carbon Challenge

Human Resources: Environmental Studies (ES) Coordinator position added (2004). New tenure-track ES faculty position added (2004). Campus horticulturalist/Environmental Initiatives Coordinator becomes Environmental Programs Manager (2005).

• In March 2006, student, faculty, and administrative EAG members presented "Fostering a Campus Committed to Environmental Sustainability" at MIT conference, Transformations That Are Working in Higher Education.

Green Buildings: EAG developed Green Building Practices and Principles that were endorsed by the administration. Colby's first green building (completed 2005) received silver LEED certification from the U.S. Green Building Council.

The following statement is part of Colby's master plan for campus expansion:

Colby's commitment to environmental stewardship will be evident in all phases of the campus expansion. State of the art run-off management and sedimentation ponds will ensure that the quality of storm-water run-off not just from the newly developed area but from the entire campus sees a net improvement after completion of the remediation systems. In addition, buildings proposed on Colby Green are being designed to apply for certification through the U.S. Green Building Council's "Leader in Energy and Environmental Design" (LEED) program.

Operations

Energy
One hundred percent of Colby's purchased electricity comes from green sources-half hydroelectric, half biomass. Co-generation at central heating plant using excess and waste steam generates 12 percent of the electricity used on campus.

Building
Colby's first LEED-certified building (silver certification), completed in 2005, is heated and cooled using three geothermal wells. Colby will seek LEED certification on a 53,000-square-foot interdisciplinary studies building currently under construction.

Dining Services
Local Food: Dining services and major food supplier work with more than 100 local growers, processors, and manufacturers. "Maine First" policy uses out-of-state goods only when native ones are not available. Twenty percent of Colby's dining services budget now goes to purchasing local products.

Organic Food: All three of Colby's dining halls serve some organic foods; one dining hall specializes in vegan and vegetarian fare with more than 20 organic items regularly on the menu. Colby purchases milk from (Maine's) Oakhurst Dairy, which works only with farmers who pledge not to use artificial growth hormones.

Sustainable Seafood: Dining halls abide by the "Fish List," a nationally recognized guideline for eco-friendly and sustainable seafood purchases. Following additional research, Colby goes beyond the Fish List to serve sustainable seafood.

Composting: Since 2002 Colby has separated food waste for composting. In 2004, 66.2 tons of food waste were delivered to a nearby facility that produces compost for garden centers, nurseries, and landscapers. Composting initiative allowed the removal of seven garbage-disposal units from dining halls, reducing water use considerably. In a 2005-06 RecycleMania competition, Colby placed third for "targeted material food service organics," i.e. composting food waste.

Waste Reduction: All three dining halls were redesigned to implement a "Just in Time" strategy, reducing pre-consumer food waste by up to 80 percent. Dining halls avoid discarding more than 150,000 paper cups per year by not stocking them. In 2005 "Trayless Tuesdays" in one hall cut food waste by 260 pounds per day.

Other Dining Services Initiatives

• Dining Hall Renovation: A 2005 dining hall renovation used renewable, plantation-grown lyptus wood for wainscoting and trim. Light fixtures have daylight sensors that automatically adjust to natural light.
• Frying Oil: All fryer oil is collected for bio-diesel use on a local farm.

Grounds

• Integrated Pest Management plan minimizes the use of chemicals.
• Organic fertilizers used whenever possible. Soil samples ensure that phosphate fertilizers are used only when necessary. No phosphates used on lawns adjacent to campus pond.
• Road and parking-lot drainage is diverted, collected, and treated, drastically reducing water and potential contaminants introduced to the pond and local watershed.
• The Colby Green project created three sedimentation ponds and 1.5 acres of wetland to slow campus run-off, decreasing erosion and acting as a filtration system.
• Campus irrigation systems equipped with rain sensors eliminate unnecessary sprinkler use.

Green Cleaning
Where possible, traditional cleaning chemicals are replaced with citrus- and water-based products. Purchasing concentrated cleaners in bulk reduces the amount of packaging going into the waste stream.

Curriculum & Research

Colby is committed to producing environmentally literate graduates and to reducing the college's impact on the environment. By the time they graduate, 75 percent of Colby students have taken an environmental literacy course.

The ES major count for the Class of '09 marks a 60-percent increase over last year.

Colby's Environmental Studies (ES) Program, one of the oldest in the country, was expanded and restructured in 2003 to offer a richer, project-based curriculum with hands-on learning experiences in environmental science and policy. ES offers interdisciplinary majors in environmental policy and in environmental science as well as a minor in environmental studies that can be elected by majors in any discipline. Colby ES graduates currently work for nonprofits, consulting firms, educational institutions, businesses, and government agencies, and many have completed graduate work in the environmental sciences/studies, urban/rural planning, natural resource management, law, environmental and public policy, or other related areas.

In 2004, senior environmental policy majors in the ES program created The State of Maine 2004: An Environmental Assessment. This was the first of a series of reports, with Web sites, assessing Maine's environment. They evaluated climate, fisheries, forests, solid waste, and freshwater resources. For each section, they explored the context and current state of the issue, provided a series of indicators examining both the environmental problem as well as underlying drivers of those problems, and concluded with a series of policy recommendations.

In addition to their contributions toward campus greening, ES students actively contribute to the local community. In the course Problems in Environmental Science, students have been collaborating with local lake associations and the Maine Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) for the last 20 years to study different lakes and watersheds in the region, analyze lake water quality, and determine what factors affect it, including land-use patterns. The results and recommended mitigation strategies from these studies are shared with the DEP, presented to stakeholders in a public forum, and made available on the course Web site (http://www.colby.edu/biology/BI493/BI493.html). Lake associations have been grateful for this information and often begin implementing the proposed recommendations the following summer.

Community Service and Outreach

Green House: In 2005-06 Colby introduced "dialog housing." Students created the "Green House," which was responsible for a number of awareness-raising efforts and energy conservation initiatives. Residents created an energy efficient "model dorm room," played host to events, and helped organize sustainability efforts.

Light Bulb Exchange: In an effort to reduce campus energy use, in 2005-06 the Environmental Studies Program distributed compact fluorescent light bulbs to faculty and staff in exchange for inefficient incandescent bulbs. Compact fluorescent bulbs are 66 percent more efficient and will last 12,000 hours, saving both energy and money.

Green Campus Summit: Colby was awarded $25,000 by the Henry P. Kendall Foundation to fund a Green Campus Summit in spring 2005. Teams of students, faculty, and staff from selected Maine and Canadian schools spent a weekend at Colby discussing climate change and related campus sustainability issues with national leaders in these fields. Students in Colby's ES program organized the summit.

Energy Management Forum: In the spring of 2006 Colby played host to an Energy Management Forum for teams from area high schools and middle schools to help young people cultivate responsible attitudes toward energy use. The Natural Resources Council of Maine provided information and activities teaching students about advocating for green energy. The Maine Energy Education Program led students through hands-on lessons about the effects of energy consumption on the environment and the connection to global climate change. Members of Colby's Green House gave tours through the model dorm room and talked with the students about sustainable lifestyles. Each team shared an energy project it had been working on including a solar car.

Sustainability Month: Colby dubbed October 2005 its first "sustainability month." Students helped to organize and run a number of events including a campus cleanup, a barbeque at the Green House, a food waste survey, a panel discussion, a tour of the LEED-certified alumni center, and more.

Events: Each year the ES program sponsors a robust series of environmental events for students and the general public. In 2005-06, the series included:

• Ronald Tilson, director of conservation at the Minnesota Zoo, discussed his international wildlife research and conservation efforts and how his experiences as a student led him to become a world authority on tigers.
• Anil Gupta, a professor at the Indian Institute of Management - Ahmedabad, who has developed an international reputation for his work in discovering, encouraging, and supporting grassroots inventors as a means of alleviating the economic problems of the Indian countryside.
• Tyrone Hayes of the University of California at Berkeley, whose research shows that one herbicide causes frogs to become hermaphrodites and has decreased fertility and caused prostate cancer in male rodents.
• Sociologist Robert D. Bullard, founder of Clark Atlanta University's Environmental Justice Resource Center and the author of 12 books, including Dumping in Dixie: Race, Class, and Environmental Quality and The Quest for Environmental Justice: Human Rights and the Politics of Pollution.

All material copyright 2005-2008
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