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Feature Stories
CC Hits 2020 Carbon Neutrality Target
By Leslie Weddell
Colorado College has achieved carbon neutrality, a goal it set in 2009 when it
committed to becoming carbon neutral by 2020. After a decade of work, the ambitious target has been met — even as the college increased its building footprint by more than 10% during that time. CC is only the eighth institution of higher education in North America, and the first in the Rocky Mountain region, to achieve this goal.
“This achievement is a shared effort; the result of the hard work, commitment, and resourcefulness of the entire Colorado College community,” says President Jill Tiefenthaler. “We thank all those who helped make this happen: former President Dick Celeste, the Board of Trustees, the students and young alumni who have worked on these initiatives, and CC’s faculty and staff, particularly those on the Sustainability Council, whose work and leadership has been invaluable.”
Colorado College stands out among other schools that have reached carbon neutrality in an important way — it has made the greatest emission reductions on campus while buying the fewest offsets than any other U.S. campus.
A JOURNEY TO CARBON NEUTRALITY
ENACT FORMED
CC’s student environmental club begins. 1970
COLORADO ENERGY GRANT
Facilities Services obtains a Colorado Energy Grant to insulate heating lines in tunnel to save energy. 1985
MARK SMITH HIRED
Colorado College receives the annual award for contributions to sustainability in 2007 due to the work of Professor of Economics Mark Griffin Smith. 1988
ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES PROGRAM FOUNDED
Professor Howard Drossman founds the Environmental Studies Program. Today, the program includes faculty from natural science, social science, and humanities disciplines. 2000
1980 1990 2000
CORE VALUE: ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY
As a response to the Working Group on Campus Sustainability, the Board of Trustees adds an explicit focus to CC’s core values: “... nurture a sense of place and an ethic of environmental sustainability.” 2003
FIRST LEEDCERTIFIED BUILDING
CC builds its first LEEDcertified building, the Russell T. Tutt Science Center, to give departments more space and adequate laboratories for teaching and research. 2003
ENERGY CRISIS
The Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries declares an oil embargo, throwing the U.S. and other countries into an energy crisis. CC installs Interlight's Phantom Tube lamps to reduce energy consumption as a response. 1973
ENERGY-SAVING FEATURES
State-of-the-art energy-saving features are installed during the renovation of Worner Campus Center and construction of Barnes Science Center. 1987-88
CAMPUS-WIDE ENERGY EFFICIENCY
Facilities Services installs a central-cooling distribution system to improve campuswide energy efficiency. 1992
FIRST WORKING
GROUP ON CAMPUS SUSTAINABILITY FORMED Professors Walt Hecox and Howard Drossman work with President Dick Celeste, and, at the demand of students, form a Working Group on Campus Sustainability to make recommendations to the president. 2003
SYNERGY HOUSE
The Synergy House, which later becomes a net-zero energy building, is designed as a prototype for students to study and live carbon neutral. It is so popular that a second Synergy House is added in 2012. 2003
“This means we’ve done the difficult work of reducing our on-campus emissions first, rather than what some see as ‘buying our way’ to neutrality through offsets,” says CC Director of Sustainability Ian Johnson. Colorado College has done this in a replicable and scalable way, meaning nearly any other institution could apply the strategies used by CC to achieve its goal of carbon neutrality.
Colorado College embarked on its journey to carbon neutrality in 2009, when then-president Richard F. Celeste signed the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment, now known as the Second Nature Carbon Commitment. Celeste chose not to sign in 2007, preferring first to have more information in hand, including the college’s
From left: David Amster-Olszewski '09, founder and CEO of SunShare, toasts with Office of Sustainability Director Ian Johnson at the celebration for reaching the college's carbon neutrality goal. Photo by Jennifer Coombes
carbon footprint and the efforts necessary for it to reach carbon neutrality, including reducing the college’s emissions of greenhouse gases, cutting energy use, using more renewable energy, and emphasizing the importance of sustainable energy sources.
Since the college’s baseline year in 2008, CC has reduced on-campus emissions by 75%. Colorado College achieved neutrality through a variety of initiatives, including efficiency upgrades, building renovations, campus engagement, on-site renewable energy and local renewable energy purchases, reducing its carbon footprint even as its physical footprint expanded by 10% with the alliance with the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center in 2017. Between the Fine Arts Center and the Bemis School of Art, CC added more than 142,000 square feet to its building footprint.
Because climate change is linked to and influenced by many different factors — from environmental racism to human health and income inequality, clean water, food production and access, and more — achieving carbon neutrality impacts far more than just the college’s operations, says Johnson. The college is undertaking many new initiatives, including adding more sustainability courses and finding new ways to make the college more accessible to students from diverse geographic, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds, increase students’ literacy and understanding across majors, and strengthen the institutions that build the resilient society that will be needed to adapt to impacts from climate change.
How does the Rocky Mountain weather make moving toward carbon neutrality easier or harder?
“Well, our sunshine affects it in a positive way. Solar is pretty financially viable in most places in the world anymore, but in a place like Colorado where we’ve got on average 300 days of sun, it’s especially good. However, it’s challenging in that we’re still a heatingdriven climate. Most of our buildings need more heating than cooling throughout the year and that requires a substantial source of energy.”
— Ian Johnson, director of sustainability
EARTH TUB COMPOSTER
The Earth Tub, a fully enclosed composting vessel featuring power mixing, compost aeration, and biofiltration, is installed at Worner Campus Center for on-site composting of campus food waste. 2004
BRENDLE REPORT
The Brendle Group helps CC determine what it would take to become a carbon-neutral campus. They recommend a goal of 2020, achievable by renewable energy, energy conservation, and offsets. 2008
FIRST GREENHOUSE GAS INVENTORY
The first greenhouse gas inventory is conducted by the Office of Sustainability. This data is used as the baseline for CC’s emissions going forward. 2008
SUSTAINABILITY PLAN The Campus Sustainability Council drafts the CC Sustainability Plan, which is accepted by CC’s Board of Trustees. 2009
14 WEEKS - 14 HABITS - 14% REDUCTIONS
The “aCClimate14” effort is initiated — a campus-wide resource conservation campaign designed to achieve a 14% reduction in electricity, heat, and water use through behavioral change. It saved CC nearly $100,000. 2009
2010
CAMPUS SUSTAINABILITY COUNCIL
President Celeste establishes the Campus Sustainability Council. In the first year, the group of students, staff, and faculty advises President Celeste to establish an Office of Sustainability with a full-time director. 2004
FIRST SOLAR PV SYSTEM
A group of students, donors, and staff collaborated with David Amster-Olszewski ’09 to install the first solar PV system on campus on the Edith Gaylord House just prior to Commencement on May 19. 2008
EMILY WRIGHT '04
LEADS SUSTAINABILITY EFFORTS
Emily Wright ’04 is hired as a consultant to oversee the Office of Sustainability. By 2010, Wright is hired as CC's campus sustainability coordinator. 2008-11
PRESIDENTIAL ADVISORY COUNCIL FOR SUSTAINABILITY
President Celeste forms the Presidential Advisory Council for Sustainability to address the question, “How can we create a sustainable campus now and in the future?” 2008
CC COMMITS TO CARBON NEUTRALITY
Following approval by the Board of Trustees, President Celeste signs the President's Climate Commitment, formerly known as the American College & University President's Climate Commitment (ACUPCC). 2009
CAMPUS ENERGY MANAGER
Under the leadership of President Jill Tiefenthaler, Facilities Services hires Mark Ferguson as the first campus energy manager. 2012
How can alumni get involved?
“Join Tiger Link (coloradocollege.edu/ tigerlink). Once on the website it will take only seconds to copy your LinkedIn profile to Tiger Link. Once copied, join our first group – Climate Change Professionals — with over 200 members. Tiger Link will allow you to connect with other alumni working in this space as well as current students who may be interested in connecting with you for information, help with research, internships, and jobs. Your human capital is valuable.”
— John L. Knight Professor of Economics Mark Griffin Smith
CC’S NET EMISSIONS
Year
2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
Net Emissions
(Metric Ton CO 2 Equivalent)
36903.38 29941.31 30041.22 28781.27 28970.12 27307.60 27197.31 28256.15 24692.00 27084.18 22335.65 5935.89 0
CC’S REMAINING EMISSIONS (FY19)
18,159 Metric Tons CO 2 Equivalent
is the equivalent of ...
2,315,857,622 smartphones charged
CC’S EMISSION SOURCES
Emissions are organized into three main categories:
Business Travel: 6,707mT CO 2 e Student, Faculty, & Staff Commuting: 2,946 mT CO 2 e Waste Water Treatment: 14 mT CO 2 e CC’s remaining emissions are from:
Emissions directly created on campus Emissions from electrical consumption Emissions created beyond campus that CC does not own or control
mT: Metric Tons CO 2 e: Carbon Dioxide Equivalent
Study Abroad: 2,780 mT CO 2 e
Solid Waste: 823 mT CO 2 e
Remaining On-Campus Emissions: 6,609mT CO 2 e
To account for remaining emissions, which include difficult-toavoid emissions such as college-related air travel, study abroad, commuting, and wastewater, Colorado College is investing in carbon offsets — innovative projects that reduce or eliminate greenhouse gas emissions elsewhere. Specifically, CC has invested in a methane destruction project at the Larimer County landfill in Northern Colorado. This project prevents methane (CH4), a very potent greenhouse gas, from entering the atmosphere, and instead uses the CH4 to generate electricity directly to the Larimer County community.
Although CC has met its carbon neutrality goal, that does not mean the work is finished. President Tiefenthaler and the Board of Trustees have put together a Climate Change Task Force, led by Provost Alan Townsend, to take on a “What’s Next” project looking at operations, leadership beyond CC, academics and the co-curricular, and the endowment.
“Addressing climate change will take strong, consistent work from institutions of every kind. CC has shown that significant progress in the climate impact of operations is possible in a relatively short period of time, and we are committed to showing that can be done in other sectors as well,” says Townsend.
More information about Colorado College’s progress is available at: coloradocollege.edu/carbonneutral2020.
A NEW SUSTAINABILITY ERA
Ian Johnson is hired as the campus sustainability manager. Two years later, he becomes the Office of Sustainability's first director. During this time, Johnson appoints the first student sustainability interns. 2013-Present
CARBON ACTION REPORT
The Carbon Action Report is published, designed to move CC toward achieving carbon neutrality while allowing for the inclusion of developing marketing opportunities. 2013
BACA CAMPUS SOLAR ARRAY
A group of students on the New Student Orientation Priddy Trips help build and install a solar array at the Baca Campus. A gift from Sue Woolsey P’97, P’98, P’99, former chair of the Colorado College Board of Trustees and a life trustee, made the array possible. 2016
EAST CAMPUS HOUSING
The new East Campus Housing is completed, becoming part of the college’s 21st-century strategy for meeting the needs and expectations of students. The project showcases environmentally sustainable technology throughout. 2017
CLIMATE CHANGE TASK FORCE FORMED
Under the direction of President Jill Tiefenthaler, the Climate Change Task Force is formed. Led by Provost Alan Townsend, the CCTF is comprised of students, faculty, and staff who will advise the president on next steps for Colorado College. 2019
2020
FIRST EV CARCHARGING STATION
Colorado College installs its first electric vehicle carcharging station. The charging station comes courtesy of Jim Burness ’90, a political science major and CEO of National Car Charging. 2013
HIGH-PERFORMANCE ENERGY DESIGN GUIDELINES
Led by Campus Planner George Eckhardt, major guidelines are created: HighPerformance Energy Design, Facility Design Guidelines, Facilities Services Sustainable Operation and Maintenance Guidelines, Facility Life-Cycle Design Guidelines for Sustainability, and Sustainable Purchasing Guidelines. 2014
NET-ZERO ENERGY LIBRARY OPENS
Tutt Library is completely renovated as a net-zero energy building, making it the largest academic building to achieve this distinction. Later, it is awarded one of three 2017 Innovation Awards from the National Association of College and University Business Officers. 2017
‘WE ARE STILL IN’
Colorado College says “We Are Still In” after the U.S. pulls out of the Paris
Agreement on Climate. 2018 2020
CARBON NEUTRALITY REACHED
Colorado College achieves carbon neutrality.
Lily Epstein ’22, Abby Gray ’21, and Liza Scher ’22 sit at the dining room table at Synergy House where they talk over plans for break and taste test Scher’s latest culinary experiment, roasted artichokes with lemon aioli. Students at the houses are encouraged to make the space their own and to embrace living in community.
First Net-Zero Energy Building Continues to Contribute to CC’s Carbon Neutrality Goals
By Sarah Senese ’23 Photos by Jennifer Coombes
Tucked between the sorority houses and North Weber Street on the east side of campus, two houses are visibly indistinguishable from the others around them — but what happens inside and out is unlike any other community on campus.
These buildings are home to Colorado College’s Synergy Program, a living community for students who want to work toward environmental sustainability, create a sense of community for both Synergy residents and the greater CC student body, and live independently and responsibly.
What else do we all need to consider when it comes to environmental challenges, on-campus and off?
“I’ve come to believe that our primary barriers to solving environmental challenges do not lie in the technical details of how the world around us works or the solutions we require. To be sure, both of those remain vitally important, especially the latter. And yet, I fear none of those solutions will take hold at the scale and pace that we require unless we focus above all on our increasingly decaying community bonds. Last year, when asked to write a think piece on my field for one of its core journals, I concluded with this: ‘The path our country and world follows will not rest upon the next article any one of us publishes. It will rest upon the community we all choose to build’.”
— Provost and Professor of Environmental Science Alan Townsend, quoted from “The Community We All Choose to Build,” for Inside Higher Education
RIGHT: Naomi Ablao ’22 washes her dishes in New Synergy House where a compost bucket is kept below the sink and students are asked to conserve resources through food waste and reusing jars for storage as a shared value. The kitchen is decorated in photographs, something the housemates say make the space feel like it is theirs.
BOTTOM: Liza Scher ’22 anxiously waits while her friend Lily Epstein ’22 decides to taste test her recent culinary creation, roasted artichokes with lemon aioli. The students live in the Synergy and New Synergy houses where they experience what it is like to live in a community with others who value sustainability lifestyles.
About a dozen students strive to reduce their footprint while living either at “Old” Synergy House at 1018 N. Weber St., or “New” Synergy House at 1006 N. Weber St. Established in 2003, “Old” Synergy became CC’s first net-zero energy building in 2014, and has been a prototype for student life and study as the college moved toward carbon neutrality.
Now that Colorado College has achieved its 2020 goal of carbon neutrality and become the eighth higher educational institution in North America to achieve such a feat, the Synergy Program is to thank for its contributions and initiatives creating sustainability awareness through its own community and the greater student body.
Synergy House residents can use an on-site greenhouse and garden, and have the freedom to transform and shape the spaces in whatever way they please. Because of their access to the greenhouse and garden, residents are not on a meal plan and rely on those resources and group meals to further create a sense of community. The garden is operated solely by Synergy members, producing vegetables to supplement their sustainable lifestyle. The houses also have their own compost piles (available for use by all CC students), where residents turn food scraps into useful mulch.
In 2014, the original Synergy House added a 7kW solar panel system. Students also utilize natural solar energy to heat the house during winter and natural ventilation to cool the house in the summer. Unique features like a heat pump water heater — which concentrates heat from the ambient air to make hot water — and a water collection system devised by the residents are other unique features of Synergy. (By recycling already used water for the garden or irrigation, there is barely any wasted water.)
But Synergy doesn’t just function as mechanically sustainable residential buildings; residents often host blockly events to create environmental awareness and a sense of community for all students, such as open mic nights or sustainably focused films open to the CC public. The events always have an environmentally responsible context, like recycled craft day or potlucks, in an attempt to bring other members of the CC student body into their home. Synergy strives, as much as possible, to be an open and accessible space, regardless of whether students are residents. Though living in the Synergy houses is a competitive and selective process, all students are welcomed and encouraged to attend events and be a part of the community.
Amy Raymond ’21
MIDDLE LEFT: After fixing herself a salad, Cameron Bacher ’22 sits at the table at New Synergy House and discusses a paper topic she has to write for her course. Those who live in the Synergy houses have planned meals where they cook or eat together so that food waste is minimal and communal living is maximized.
BOTTOM LEFT: The colorful New Synergy House kitchen is kept organized and clean for group and individual meals and food storage.
“As a community, we have been pretty active about trying to get people into our house by advertising our events through posters in public spaces. There is an idea that you need to know somebody to live here or attend events, but in reality, we want a wide range of people to come through our space and hopefully apply to live here,” says Jasmine Linder ’22.
Amy Raymond ’21 appreciates Synergy for the independence the program offers residents, allowing for them to run their own space and decide how they want it to be operated (such as in areas of food waste and shopping habits). “The autonomy that we have at Synergy makes it a special space, as well as the experience of sharing a small space with a small group of people. In addition, the intentionality of the space makes it really special,” she says.
Linder’s favorite aspect is the bond formed among all the residents. “Learning how to live closely with people in such a tight-knit space who we may not know otherwise is really special; a kind of family tends to form here,” says Linder.
Bethany Grubbs, director of the Residential Experience, says over the years she’s seen students take great pride in the community built in the Synergy houses by crafting their own unique, sustainable experiences.
Synergy, she says, “is one of the only communities on campus that chooses their own students during the theme housing selection process. They read, interview, re-read, and re-interview about 100 students a year for roughly 10 spots.”
The students spend nearly two weeks each year going through the interview process, perpetuating the students’ value in those who live in the community. Synergy members highly value diversity in the houses, as well as applicants’ willingness to invest time and energy in living as sustainably as they possibly can.
On the outside, the houses appear to be close communities with tight group values, but Synergy’s importance radiates further than to merely those who live there. The residents are extremely proud of the values perpetuated in the community, as well as all they’ve accomplished.
“Synergy is a special housing option,” Grubbs says, “because its mission statement extends to environmental justice and activism work, attracting a community of caring, ambitious, and socially engaged people who are excited to make lasting change on campus and beyond.”
How did the campus geography lend itself to geothermal on Tava Quad?
“The fact that we have open spaces without buildings on them, and ones that are designated to remain that way forever, make it feasible. Something like the library needs a fairly large geo-exchange field. We needed to be able to access that fairly readily in order to drill. It tore up the quad for the duration of a summer, but beyond that, you can’t really see the impacts of the installation. That quad remains largely the same visually as it did before. If that had been slated for development, that would have made it more difficult.”
— Ian Johnson, director of sustainability
By Brenda Gillen
Photos by Jennifer Coombes
Sustainability in the Classroom
Crestone gardener Ginny Ducale discusses her garden with Cass Kennemur ’22 and Clara Martinez Dunbar ’22 during a lesson on food sustainability for Anthropology Professor Sarah Hautzinger's First-Year Experience course.
At Colorado College, sustainability is a core value that is evident in classrooms across campus and in field study locations near and far.
According to CC’s Office of Sustainability, most CC students are involved in sustainability classes or activities. In addition to its renowned Environmental Studies Program, 23 other academic departments are offering sustainability courses in the 2019–20 academic year. Altogether 80% of departments provide such courses, totaling 8% of all courses offered at the college. Outside the classroom, a peer-to-peer sustainability outreach and education program serves 77% of CC students. This focus on sustainability reflects the reality that for today’s students, climate change is not an issue that they will have to face someday; it’s here.
In the 32 years he’s taught at CC, Economics and Business Professor Mark Smith has helped students gain real-world knowledge by introducing them to people working on the front lines. In Block 1 last fall, students in Smith’s Managing the Impacts of Climate Change on the Colorado River course went to Denver, Glenwood Springs, the Grand Valley, Grand Junction, and Gunnison, where they met with six members of CC’s alumni community, including water resource managers, a farmer, a rancher, and other experts in the field.
“I like introducing students to people who are on the ground. I call it kicking dirt clods. They’re actually walking in the fields, seeing the water being turned out into a field of alfalfa, or peaches being grown,” Smith says. “And, I also like confronting students with various stakeholders who are all sympathetic. I think there’s a certain intensity of the experience that they appreciate.” Economics major Diellza Muriqi ’22 took Smith’s course because she has an interest in environmental economics. For the first two weeks, students read about water in the West, sustainability, market successes and failures, and public choices. They took to the field during the third week.
“I had no idea what the water crisis was here in Colorado before taking that class. Because at CC, we have enough water, we have every source that we need. But going to that field trip, talking to all these organizations in Colorado, made me understand how big of an issue water is,” Muriqi says.
People from organizations they met with talked about many things, including sustainable usage of water and how they’re encouraging farmers to replace flood irrigation with sprinklers. Farmers talked about their family farms being affected by drought. Muriqi plans to specialize in environmental economics in graduate school, and she believes a variety of career opportunities will be available for her, including some that address water resources.
“I come from Kosovo, and we have different issues there. Here the issue is not having enough water, but in Kosovo it’s the treatment of water. So I could work with sewage treatment plants to make it possible for the water to be treated in a way so that it can be used again. That’s a possibility,” Muriqi says.
During Professor Sarah Hautzinger's First-Year Experience course, students visit a Baca Grande, Colorado, home that was built from the wood of an old barn and is entirely off-grid to learn about sustainability decisions in the home and how these choices impact day-to-day life.
Associate Professor Corina McKendry teaches environmental politics and political economy in the Political Science Department and for the Environmental Studies Program. McKendry says environmental courses are in demand at CC. Introduction to Global Climate Change is offered five blocks per year; it’s usually full and often has a long waiting list. A new course called Environment & Society was offered four blocks this year, and it too has been full.
“I think there’s a broad interest and concern among the faculty from across the disciplines about teaching classes that really engage with questions of sustainability, of environmental justice, and of climate change,” McKendry says. “And students are interested in the intersection of environmental problems with social equity and economic vitality.”
McKendry also directs the CC State of the Rockies Project, whose mission is to enhance understanding of and action to address socio-environmental challenges in the Rocky Mountain West through collaborative student-faculty research, education, and stakeholder engagement. Last summer, six State of the Rockies fellows conducted research on climate adaptation and inequity in the Front Range. All of the fellows are presenting their research at academic conferences.
Natalie Gubbay ’20, a mathematical economics major, conducted quantitative and qualitative research that resulted in a paper she’s submitted for publication. Her paper, “Spiraling Up Through Drought Responses in Colorado’s Agricultural Communities,” explores how 15 Colorado farming communities respond to drought, the strategies they’re using to do that effectively, and the implications of that adaptation.
“One of the things that attracted me to this opportunity was that it straddles the world of independent research, but also engages with local communities, and it produces and disseminates information that could be applicable and of benefit to the area around our college,” says Gubbay.
Gubbay looked at traditional economic measures, like county gross GDP, income, and education statistics and she researched social capital and social networks for all 15 counties. Additionally, she produced case studies for Kit Carson and Conejos counties, which involved interviewing community leaders.
“I was asking questions about strategies and resources that were important in enabling these different community members who were really central to community resilience in both counties, and asking them what strategies and resources enable them to do their work successfully. I learned a lot more focusing on the ways in which they are actively addressing drought and climate change, even in communities where people don’t believe in climate change, than I would have just understanding the constraints,” Gubbay says.
Her report back to the community leaders was well received. Kit Carson County included it in their community health improvement plan, which will be submitted to the state of Colorado.
Sustainability in the classroom is augmented by a variety of co-curricular experiences. Through Pikes Peak Workshop, teams of three to four students are paid to research a topic that addresses sustainably managing outdoor and recreational assets near campus. Sense of Place trips deepen students’ knowledge about regional sustainability issues. Through academic coursework and co-curricular experiences, Colorado College impresses upon students both the serious challenges that they must face and their ability to be the ones to make positive changes.
How is CC working with and leading the local higher education community?
“We've begun some conversations with the United States Air Force Academy and their climate change club. The demographics of CC and the Air Force Academy are different as well as the demographics of people who might attend events at either of these institutions and so we’re looking for ways to send more of a common message through institutions that appeal to different community members. We are also just in the very beginning stages with the University of Colorado Colorado Springs as well — I’ve always had counterparts there, but we’re formally starting to work on a relationship with them. This is all part of the thought leadership piece of the Climate Change Task Force: how to engage more with some of these other institutions.
— Ian Johnson, director of sustainability
86 CC’S ACADEMIC FOCUS
courses are sustainability-focused or -inclusive 80% of academic departments have sustainability course offerings 24 out of 30 departments offer courses related to sustainability
