Since adoption of our Campus Sustainability Plan in 2018, the College has made steady progress on our campus sustainability goals. This year the Office of Sustainability advanced into Phase 2 of the implementation plan and we are excited to share some of the highlights of what has been achieved. There remain many large challenges to overcome, particularly around our 2030 carbon neutrality goal. We remain excited to continue working collectively with the community to advance sustainability on campus.
The College completed $1.75 million in energy efficiency projects this year, exceeding the goal set in the Campus Sustainability Plan. LED lighting installations were completed in Shain Library, the Plex, 40 renovated classrooms and all outdoor lights. The College also installed air-source heat pumps at 33 Gallows, Nichols House, the Service Building and Strickland House. Finally, more than 70 steam trap and thermostatic radiator valve repairs were performed. These projects are projected to save over 420 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents per year (MTCO2e). The MTCO2e savings bring the College 2.8% closer to reaching our 2030 Net Zero commitment. The College received over $700,000 in incentive awards from Eversource to support these projects. Perhaps most exciting, the College committed to participate in a threeyear, Eversource-funded program called Strategic Energy Management that provides technical support, and some financial incentives, for low and no-cost energy efficiency projects on campus.
The College has worked towards installation of a large scale solar array on campus for many years. This year we took a major step forward by partnering with Bridge Energy to submit a successful bid to the state’s Non-Residential Renewable Energy Solutions (NRES) Program. The College committed to completing the installation of a 730 kW array within the next three years, which will produce electricity equivalent to approximately 7% of the main campus needs. The NRES program allows the College to sell electricity and Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) to Eversource, which greatly improves the financial viability of the project and reduces the financial payback to six years. The array will be positioned along a south facing slope adjacent to South Lot in an area currently infested with non-native vegetation. The installation is planned to include wildflower and low meadow plantings under the panels, greatly improving the aesthetics of this area.
Last academic year a student-led SustianabiliTeam proposed and implemented a pilot program to replace single-use cardboard food containers in the dining
Our solar array on the Service Building has been exceeding production estimates since being installed in 2021.
halls with reusable containers. The initial results were so successful that Dining Services adopted the CONN-tainers program and replaced disposable to-go containers with the new reusable plastic clamshell containers. Students were provided a single container for a small refundable deposit, and a simple and efficient tracking system was utilized to provide clean, replacement containers after the initial container was returned for cleaning. More than half of the student body signed up for the program this year The program has been so successful that we estimate it has paid for itself within two months and eliminated over 20 tons of waste.
The Office of Sustainability continued to promote sustainability through a variety of outreach activities on campus supported by our student-led Events team. This year the College adopted Climate Change/Culture Change as our annual sustainability theme to spotlight the social justice aspects of climate change. The culmination of the campaign was the President’s Distinguished Lecture by Pulitzer Prize finalist Elizabeth Rush, author of Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore. While on campus, Rush visited SUS 293 Applications of Sustainability to meet with students engaged in sustainability on campus. We also hosted polar researcher and alumnae Susana Hancock ‘07, who gave a lecture titled “In Whose Hands is Our Planet’s Future?” For Sustainability Week in October, our Events team provided activities each day that included a sustainability trivia night, a movie night, a water testing challenge pitting bottled spring water versus tap water, a vegan food truck, and promoted talks on social justice. Finally, the weather cooperated for a wonderful Earth Week series of events culminated by Earth Day festivities on Tempel Green with vegan food trucks, eco-friendly tie dye, our energy bike, recycling corn hole, student bands, and lots of informational tabling.
The Events team also helped staff The Dressing Room free thrift shop (previously called Swap Shop) throughout the year. The Dressing Room, which has a focus on being a safe and gender-affirming space, provides clothing, toiletries and other necessary items for free to any student. Students who want a private experience can make make appointments with a stylist supplied by our partner office, Gender and Sexuality Programs.
The College made great strides in promoting more sustainable forms of transportation this year. Promoting bike versus automobiles usage requires infrastructure to support maintenance and storage of bikes. This year we added three new covered bike shelters located near student dorms in the southern, central and northern portions of campus to provide better bike storage that is protected from inclement weather A fourth covered bike shelter was installed in between Shain and Blaustein to serve the central academic spaces and Windham and Knowlton dorms. Additional stainless steel bike racks were placed at academic buildings throughout campus. The new bike racks include three custom artistic designs depicting an opening flower blossom developed in partnership with Artists for Humanity, a high school program for under-
Top Row: Scenes from Earth Day. Bottom Row: The Dressing Room and members of the Events Team
resourced teens in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The improved bike infrastructure was further supported by new investments in tools and storage capacity for Spokespeople. Spokespeople continues to be a student driven bike share program and recently added loaner skateboards to expand humanpowered transportation options for our students.
To further reduce the reliance on petroleum-powered vehicles, the College is continuing to expand its capacity to charge electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles. The campus added two new Electric Vehicle (EV) charging stations with capacity to charge four cars simultaneously near Cummings Art Center. The EV charging stations were installed in partnership with the Williams School and the electrical service has the ability to add two additional dual-head EV charging stations and be expanded up to eight parking spaces as campus demand increases.
Finally, the College began the process of transitioning its own fleet of vehicles over from petroleum-based to electric vehicles. Two new GEM car small utility vehicles recently arrived on campus and will be used by Facilities trades. The purchase of electric vehicles resulted from efforts of a SustainabiliTeam of Office of Sustainability fellows who inventoried our existing fleet of vehicles and researched various electric vehicle options. Potential electric vehicle replacement options were brought to campus on two occasions for test drives by facilities personnel before the GEM cars were selected.
Every year the Office of Sustainability introduces new student-led SustainabiliTeams with most of the new project ideas generated in our SUS 293 Applications in Sustainability course. This year was no exception and two new teams were formed to tackle initiatives on campus. Can Camels Can? discussed plans to transition to aluminum products with Catering and Dining. Aluminum cans are preferable to plastic bottle because they are readily recycled at higher rates to produce new replacement cans. In comparison, plastic bottles have a poor recycling rate and are often down-cycled to produce lower quality products. Therefore, the Office of Sustainability would like to move the college back to a higher use of aluminum cans whenever possible. The Can Camels Can? team also received funding from the SGA Sustainable Fund for a Floralia Can Collection and support for a permanent can redemption program.
The Energy Builders team was developed to share awareness on energy consumption through behavioral change education. The team ran a successful pilot energy conservation competition between dorms leading up to Earth Week. Lambdin dorm won the competition by reducing consumption by about 16%. To improve outreach and education, the Energy Builders team started a web-based dashboard. Next year the team is planning to run the conservation competition throughout the campus.
The Office of Sustainability began a Green Office Certification program in 2021 to provide educational outreach and incentives for voluntary energy and waste reduction efforts for campus offices and academic departments. This year we certified seven new offices in the green office certification program. We now have 15 total certified offices with 2 earning platinum, 3 gold, and 10 silver. To keep partnering offices engaged and help them improve their rating, we created the Green Office Newsletters to share tips on how to be sustainable and held three Lunch & Learns for certified green offices.
Student-athletes in the Office of Sustainability coordinated with coaches Eva Kovach and Jim Ward this year to create a new sustainability and sports initiative on campus titled Camel Green Team. The idea was formulated in the PHE 111 Sport and Sustainability class in Fall 2022. PHE 111 is a class developed with the support of a Sustainability Focused Course grant from the Office of Sustainability has been offered twice with a third class scheduled for Fall 2023 and has attracted a total of 60 students. The Camel Green Team is still in the works, but we are hoping to create more sustainable athletics on campus. In particular, the Camel Green Teams is a way to create intra- and inter-team competitions aimed at ways to reduce carbon footprints, educate athletes, and reduce waste from teams.
This May we said goodbye to graduating seniors Sarah Anderson, Adrian Beckford, Grace Begin, Hannah Jones, Cian Murphy, Paige Nolan, Sarah Padilla, Sophie Protano, Liam Rimas, Mary Rusnock, Emma Weis, Amanda Williams, and Alaine Zhang. Sarah Anderson and Amanda Williams were awarded our Student Sustainability Leadership Award. Congratulations to all!
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