Page 18 - College Planning & Management, October 2017

green screen and water harvesting demonstration project. The work will “potentially show the capacity of building skins to eco- logically contribute to the urban environment,” according to Rottle on the UW website. “We want to use the project as a billboard for new sustainable practices, and to discover to what extent green walls and screens can help promote biodiversity, produce food and reduce energy use. By harvesting water to irrigate the green wall, the project will reduce potable consumption and may lessen storm water impacts.”
Launched in 2012, the project won an honorable mention in the What Makes It Green competition sponsored by Seattle’s chapter of the AIA. Five years later, the green wall continues to serve as a teaching tool for a variety of disciplines including construction, horticulture and design. The water catchment piece allows for ongoing research.
Even if students don’t engage with any of the living lab projects they still have an opportunity to explore sustainability. Sean Schmidt, sustainability specialist, runs programs for freshmen that introduce them to the topic and then lets them explore how it fits into any degree. “I bring in guest speakers and representatives from organizations like Boeing and the General Services Admin- istration,” he says. The idea is to give students a green vocabulary that helps them bring innovative ideas with them wherever they land after graduation. “They can articulate how resource and process efficiency reduces costs.”
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18 COLLEGE PLANNING & MANAGEMENT / OCTOBER 2017
The Green Thing Is the Right Thing
After 10 years of strong focus, sustainability is a core value that Fahmida Ahmed, director of Stanford’s Office of Sustainability proudly says is, “integrated into every aspect of campus life.” Achievements include Stanford Energy System Innovations (SESI) which electrified the campus and gets 65 percent of its power
from renewable sources like solar. Most of that solar comes from a dedicated facility built in Southern California.
The move has allowed the school to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 68 percent. “There’s been a real transformation in the last couple of years,” says Ahmed, “and huge positive reinforce- ment from the administration. Ten to 15 years ago there was a more of an ‘us versus them’ attitude but now everybody wants to do the right thing.”
That “right thing” includes more than 1,000 sustainability courses taught across Stanford’s seven different schools. “We approach teaching sustainability through a systems perspective,” explains Dean Pam Matson. “It’s not just about the environment but [also] about human well-being.”
The school is also trying to change the behaviors of students, faculty and staff. Their focus on getting the campus population out of single-driver cars caused a drop in lone drivers from 72 percent to 50 percent. A project called My Cardinal Green offers even more opportunity for changed behavior. This engagement program evaluates a person’s commitment to sustainability and assigns a “shade of green.” It then generates a specific, tailored list of what an individual can do to be greener.
“You get points for completing a given activity and a cash incen- tive,” says Ahmed. Actions can be as simple as turning off lights be- fore leaving the office or taking shorter showers to more complicated tasks like motivating a business manager to start a green team. This year saw 700 participants, and Ahmed hopes for more. “Sustainabil- ity isn’t just state-of-the-art HVAC or energy efficiency but individu- als armed with tools and information. They want to see that their actions matter, and programs like My Cardinal Green does that.”
The school’s strong commitment and verifiable outcomes re- sulted in Stanford Earning a Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System (STARS) Platinum status from the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE). CPM
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