Greening a University - Literature review Example

Greening a University 1. Introduction “We are living in an aquarium called Earth” (Barlett and Chase 2004, p.259). This means our common air, water, and climate are linked to our health and lives. It is essential to educate students about our relation to our environment and therefore universities play a critical role. Students should learn the significance of collective action, and engaging the students’ imagination and creativity to find ways to correct the current negative balance between humans and nature. The university is therefore a good place to start a ‘green’ initiative and this report will present some of the most important aspects in making a ‘green’ university. 2. Greening a University Normally, greening the university means counting the current and future environmental consequences of our actions in all aspects of university life. In a large university like John Hopkins according to Barlett and Chase (2004), with many campuses and a decentralized administrative structure, greening is a complex challenge. This is because each of the campuses and each of the schools present its own challenges and strengths for environmental stewardship. Moreover, decentralization makes sharing information about program successes and working toward one goal challenging (p.260). In implementing an environmental sustainability programme on university campuses actively is attempting to minimise the environmental impact through a “series of policy decisions, implementation strategies, and cultural change programs” (Holdsworth and Caswell 2004, p.199). 2.1 Greening Initiative Greening is not a trivial pursuit to be consigned to volunteers and do-gooders. To a certain extent, universities are outstanding places to begin establishing goals for institutional action and teaching based on the principles of environmental stewardship and sustainability. However, institutional philosophy changes very slowly and is often precipitated by individuals who are advocating for action. A series of steps, each propelled by individual students, staff, and faculty members are likely to result in the creation of initiatives for greening (Barlett and Chase 2004). For instance, a few universities in the United States, staffed offices have been established with mandates to incorporate sustainability into various facets of institutional life and the surrounding community. The University of Florida Office of Sustainability established in 2000, has there areas of focus and one of them is “Greening the University of Florida”. This initiative is a grass-roots movement of students, faculty, and staff that focuses on curriculum and operations, which works to improve community health through sustainable practices (Dernbach 2002). “There is no formula for making environmental change happen and there never will be one” (Creighton 1998, p.41). Hard work, dedication, and money according to the same author do not ensure that change will happen or last, although they may be the most significant factor. The seemingly slow pace of change can be especially frustrating for students who are on campus for only thirty weeks a year for four years. More often, change happens in surprising ways and several factors may help in greening a university. The economics of environmental stewardship, for instance, depends on money, as we must often communicate our efforts to green the university in financial terms. It is nearly impossible to assign a monetary value to the benefits of clean air, potable water, and open space, but favourably, many of the most significant environmental initiatives can have real financial benefits that are usually related to cost avoidance or avoided liability. Business and financial officers from colleges and universities understand both long-term and short-term cost avoidance and the benefits of avoiding costly fines and potential liability problems. It is therefore important for environmental leaders to quantify the benefits and cost of a new environmental technology, such as new photocopiers, or of a new policy, such as mandate for the purchase of recycled paper campus-wide. Logically, it is always better to complete a project for less money or with great savings than original predicted than the other way around. Project cost must include the cost of existing and additional labour. This includes operational cost like electricity, waste, and water, which is important in order to educate the university that these are in fact costs of many decisions that are often overlooked (Creighton 1998; Bower 2006). ‘Greening’ in UK institutions of further and higher education or FHE according to Huckle and Sterling (1996) was threatened by the increasingly competitive and resource-constrained climate in which institutions are operating. Meaninglessly, this has occurred at a time when individual and collective achievements have created the opportunity for environmental good practice to yield substantial benefits. The main objective of ‘greening’ of the 1990s is to inculcate and natural ‘culture’ of environmental responsibility in FHE institutions and since then has made tremendous progress. In old or new universities, however, greening was often heavily dependent on the role of individual champions. In some, these were ordinary academic staff associated with environmental course that were becoming more and more uneasy at the disparity between what they were teaching and what was being practised throughout their campuses. In other institutions, the champions were senior managers, people who became the inspiration towards the institutions drive for environmental responsibility. However, the large parts of FHE remain untouched by national greening initiatives, and there is still no national system to monitor the progress (p.87). Aston University’s ‘green’ initiative is a ‘green’ campus which recognizes the role of the education sector in addressing the challenge of climate change and making the transition to a low carbon economy and society. They aim to reduce all kinds of pollution through reduced waste, reduced emissions, and responsible disposal (Green Education Declaration, Aston University 2007). The opportunities for financial savings from environmental stewardship activities differ from one campus to another, but on most campuses, improving energy efficiency will offer a dramatic return on the university’s investment, as well as decrease on and off-site pollution. Since most people on campus were unaware of the university’s actions to decrease energy use or increase recycling, an important early step is to publicize past and current efforts by the university to decrease it footprint on the earth (Creighton 1998). 2.2 Efficient Lighting and New Technologies “More light is not necessarily better light” (Creighton 1998, p.117). Lights are often integral to the architectural design and architects are expected to minimise decorative lighting that highlight features but provides little actual light. It is therefore necessary to prohibit the use of incandescent lights and spaces should be designed so that task lights are used rarely or used only in areas where the surrounding ambient light levels are low. Dark colour walls and ceilings should be avoided since darker colours absorb light, thereby requiring additional lighting to reach comfortable light levels. In essence, natural lights should be used and daylight sensors installed to shut off lights automatically when daylight levels are adequate. In regions where electric power is more expensive, installing new technologies to improve the efficiency of lighting and motors can have payback periods of as little as three months. Some electric utility companies offer rebates to subsidize efficiency measures, such as the installation of efficient technologies, dramatically reducing the cost to the institution. This is because the new technologies reduce demand for electricity, effectively gaining capacity for additional electricity users more cheaply than by building additional generating capacity. Reducing liability from chemical accident, hazardous waste spills, and oil storage can also save a great deal of money in avoided fines, suits, and liability. Although most schools begin their environmental initiatives with recycling efforts, solid waste programs will not accrue major savings unless they can succeed in reducing waste generation in the first place. Frequently, the cost of electricity and the generation of solid waste in a special project or new facility are often overlooked. For instance, when a department builds a new computer room or electronics laboratory, the cost of the increased electricity demand rarely figures into the cost of construction or facility operation. Moreover, many campuses have centralized or antiquated meters for assessing the electricity demand in a building or school, and therefore they many not actually be able to see these increased costs. Failure to look at overhead costs like waste disposal, heat, water, and solid waste handling and disposal, and apportion these costs accurately to the departments that use them, is also neglecting a portion of the financial and the environmental costs of conducting any single department’s business (Creighton 1998). 3. Conclusion and Recommendation Known that universities are home to researchers and scientist working to document environmental problems such as climate change, the green house effect, ozone depletion, and air pollution, it is depressing to see that much of this research takes place in traditional, and often uneconomical facilities. New energy-efficient building materials, insulation, windows, air-handling systems, and HVAC systems can make building and operating buildings more cost-effective. Solar collection and storage are important aspects of building design. Direct cooling from natural ventilation, pressure differentials, and indirect cooling where air is pushed or pulled through the building can radically reduce or even reduce air-conditioning needs. Windows selection, window films, shades, and draperies can affect building comfort and efficiency. Since most universities systems use electricity, natural gas, and oil to heat and cool buildings, power lights, and heat water, use of alternative fuels that are more efficient, cleaner, and cheaper to operate is a wise choice. This is because fuels and the systems that run off them are particularly well suited to universities since these institutions usually intend to exist for many years to come and need not yield to pressure for immediate returns on investment. 4. Bibliography Aston University, 2007, Green Education Declaration, Conference Aston, Birmingham Barlett Peggy and Chase Geoffrey, 2004, Sustainability on Campus: Stories and Strategies for Change, Published 2004 MIT Press, ISBN: 0262524228 Bowers C. A., 2006, Revitalizing the Commons: Cultural and Educational Sites of Resistance and Affirmation, Published 2006 Lexington Books, ISBN: 0739113356 Creighton Sarah, 1998, Greening the Ivory Tower: Improving the Environmental Track Record of Universities, Colleges, and other Institutions, Published 1998 MIT Press, ISBN: 0262531518 Dernbach John, 2002, Stumbling Toward Sustainability, Published 2002 Environmental Law Institute, ISBN: 1585760366 Holdsworth Sarah and Caswell Tricia, 2004, Protecting the Future: Stories of Sustainability from RMIT University, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Published 2004 CSIRO Publishing, ISBN: 0643090657 Huckle John and Sterling Stephen, 1996, Education for Sustainability, Published 1996 Earthscan, ISBN: 1853832561 Read More