From trayless dining to new bus routes, students may have noticed a number of changes instituted around Grounds this semester to improve sustainability in the University community.
Most of the newly introduced initiatives involve adding services to already existing programs, University Sustainability Planner Andrew Greene said.
Greene noted that while many of the programs started out on a “grassroots level” within different departments of the University, thanks to increased student advocacy and awareness in the administration, they are starting to take off.
Go Team Green!
Currently, the University is working to assemble a sustainability programs management team, a multidisciplinary group charged with providing a comprehensive assessment and implementation of sustainability initiatives, University Utilities Director Cheryl Gomez said, explaining that system programs management relates to “how we use, interact with, maintain and operate our buildings.”
Gomez is heading the search for a sustainability programs manger to lead the overall team, who will eventually be a part of the newly formed Presidential Committee on Sustainability, she said.
University Architect David Neuman noted that sustainability guidelines, both ones existing now and ones to be developed by the sustainability committee, are one of the University’s key priorities.
“We all recognize that we need to accelerate it,” he said; “it affects everybody.”
But this acceleration means more than just adopting green practices, Gomez said, noting that sustainability is a “multi-faceted term.”
“It’s one word that encompasses a lot,” she said, noting that everything from recycling practices to new construction guidelines fall under the heading of sustainability planning.
Neuman explained that there is a slight — yet important — distinction between sustainability and green policies: While green acts tend to be individually executed, “sustainability is about putting it all together.”
Gomez noted that while many people have differing definitions of sustainability, the concept usually incorporates a few key ideas.
“Sustainability refers to things that mitigate our impact on the environment ... reduce the non-renewable resources and energy that we consume,” she said, noting that it also includes economic and social aspects.
As a result, working toward greater sustainability of the University and its natural resources has required a very “diversified approach,” Greene said.
Building up and powering down
Gomez said incorporating green designs into all new facilities is one way in which the University is looking toward a sustainable future.
In 2007 the Board of Visitors passed a construction resolution requiring all new construction and renovation projects to meet Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design requirements, Gomez said. These LEED requirements, according to Neuman, are already in effect for 24 ongoing construction projects, including South Lawn Project and Cabell Hall.
Of these projects, several are expected to reach a gold or silver rating by the time of completion, Neuman said. LEED certification levels range from general to platinum level certification.
Part of complying with LEED standards is planning the best uses for construction materials, waste management and energy usage, Gomez said. Energy usage is another priority in sustainability planning, Gomez added.
“Lighting is a huge consumer of energy at the University,” she said, noting that to combat excessive energy usage, University Facilities Management has replaced incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent lights, installed timers on lights and set classroom computers to go into sleep mode at night to save energy
By conserving energy in small ways, “we can all make a huge impact,” Gomez added.
Getting around the green way
University Parking and Transportation is another component of the University community implementing new sustainability measures. One program in its final contractual stages is a car-sharing program, according to Rebecca White, director of University Parking and Transportation.
“We will have services on Grounds that would allow students to rent a car by the hour,” she said, adding that both gas and insurance will be included in the flat rate of about $11 an hour. The cars should be available later this semester, White said.
The car-sharing program is not the only sustainability plan undertaken by Parking and Transportation; most of the office’s sustainability initiatives fall under the Transport Demand Management Program, White said.
“We’ve branded it with those words in the past 6 months,” she said. “It was just a way to pull several strategies of using single occupancy vehicles into one buzzword.”
White said the system includes the open rider program, which allows students and faculty members to ride Charlottesville Transit Service buses for free. Other bus programs include re-designed routes with GPS locators that make more efficient use of the University Transit Service and the use of a 20-percent blend of biodiesel fuel, despite rising gas prices and the premium for biofuels, in UTS buses. White said the biofuel initiative is well worth the extra expense both for the environment and for buses’ operation, which is improved through the use of biodiesel.
In addition to making UTS buses environmentally friendly, the University is working to reduce carbon emissions in other ways; Neuman said he is part of a group working to reduce those emissions over the next 10 years. White described two initiatives that would contribute to this greater goal: installing bike racks on the front of all UTS buses and improving pedestrian walkways.
Trayless and beyond
While University Parking and Transportation has focused on improving the environment through reducing emissions, University Dining has found ways to move toward sustainability programs through programs reducing water usage and trash.
Perhaps the most noticeable recent change to University Dining has been the removal of trays from dining halls across Grounds.
“[Going trayless] was a decision that has been about two years in the making,” University Dining Director Brent Beringer said, citing the initiative as the result of collaboration between University students and dining administrators.
Members of Student Council’s Environmental Sustainability Committee and the student interest group Green Grounds both worked with dining administrators to bring about the introduction for the trayless initiative. Last year, they helped promote “trayless Tuesdays” and the message that going trayless saves hundreds of thousands of gallons of water per month, Beringer said.
The University is not the only institution doing away with trays, Beringer added, noting that other Virginia schools such as James Madison University, Virginia Commonwealth University, Virginia Tech and Longwood have also made the transition.
“It’s definitely the wave,” he said, “There are very few schools who are not at least considering it.”
Along with the new tray initiative, University Dining will continue with projects set in place last year, including replacing Styrofoam to-go cups and boxes with containers made of grass material and recycled paper in the three dining halls on Grounds, Beringer said.
Used cooking oil is also recycled into chicken feed, he noted.
“None of our waste oil goes into landfills,” Beringer said, which “has always been the case.”
Looking toward the future, Beringer noted that University Dining is working to gain certification from the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality in order to start a composting project that will turn post-consumer waste into compost and prevent it from going into landfills. The project will begin at the Observatory Hill Dining Hall, Beringer said, adding that the program has the potential to be applied to other dining halls in the future.
Beringer said this initiative is part of the movement toward “green dining,” a term that includes environmentally friendly dining practices and the use of more locally grown foods. “Almost all of it is student-driven,” he added. “They are the group of people that is getting this done.”
Fourth-year College student Graham Evans, a member of Student Council’s Environmental Sustainability Committee, was one of the many students who has helped to make green dining a reality.
“In the last year, the dining administration, Aramark and the University have been extremely supportive of green dining,” Evans said, citing the Architecture School’s Fine Arts Café — which serves locally grown foods — as an example.
Beringer said University Dining hopes to increase the amount of locally grown foods and green dining items — including organic foods, humanely raised animals and fair-trade items — to a 20-percent target rate.
“We’re well on our way,” he added.
For the masses, not just a few
As changes to improve sustainabiity are pursued in offices across Grounds, students likely will increasingly notice opportunities to become involved in the movement. Students traversing across Newcomb Plaza last Monday, for example, may have been surprised to find a farmer’s market. Coordinated through the Student Council Environmental Sustainability Committee, a series of local vendors came to Grounds to sell fresh produce, flowers and other locally produced goods.
The idea was to give students a flavor of the various locally grown foods available in the Charlottesville area, said fourth-year College student Connie Migliazzo, one of the event’s organizers from the Environmental Sustainability Committee.
“We really wanted to educate people about the importance of eating and buying local foods,” Migliazzo said.
The City of Charlottesville’s farmer’s market is usually open Saturday mornings on the Downtown Mall from April through October, Migliazzo said, adding that she hopes bringing the local vendors to the University can become an annual tradition.
“It’s a total success,” said third-year Architecture student Ben Chrisinger, a fellow member of the Environmental Sustainability Committee. Chrisinger added that sustainability is no longer just for a small minority — it affects everyone.
After all, Gomez noted, sustainability isn’t just about going trayless or being friendly to the environment; it is about planning for the future and assuring that the University can continue to operate efficiently and effectively within the surrounding environment and greater commonwealth community.
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