14 minute read
Past, Present, and Future Sustainability at CSW
This important work is happening closer to home as well, and The Cambridge School of Weston is firmly engaged. “To anyone who knows CSW, this would not come as a surprise,” observes Trustee Kevin Mendik P’20, member of the Buildings and Grounds Committee. “Our sustainability initiatives are a natural outgrowth of the kind of community we’ve always had. Our student body has always been progressive and environmentally conscious. We’re not acting from a place of ‘Hey, this would look good from a public relations perspective.’ It’s part of our mission…it’s simply who we are.”
A longstanding tradition
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Since its founding, The Cambridge School of Weston community has dedicated itself to embracing challenging work and addressing complex questions. It’s little wonder, then, that green living has long been an aspirational goal. “In our mission statement, we talk about social justice,” notes Head of School Lise Charlier. “As an institution, we’re committed to providing ‘a progressive education that emphasizes deep learning, meaningful relationships, and a dynamic program that inspires students to discover who they are and what their contribution is to their school, their community, and the world.’ Sustainability is social justice; it’s in our DNA.”
Recently retired science teacher Marilyn DelDonno has been among the most impassioned promoters of sustainability at The Cambridge School of Weston over the years. A dedicated environmentalist and faculty member for nearly four decades, Marilyn has long championed the teaching of sustainability as part of the science curriculum. “I want students to think about how science and society are connected and about how to protect our planet,” she asserts. “Here at CSW, we began advocating for that worldview long before climate change became a hot topic. Sustainability is woven into the fabric of this community, especially in the Science Department. The Garthwaite building is a great example of our commitment to these efforts.”
Marilyn has played an instrumental role in promoting sustainability initiatives outside the classroom as well, serving on the school’s Sustainability Committee—a joint student/ faculty group—since its inception. “CSW students have always been interested in creating a green campus,” she notes. “They’re constantly pushing us to think and move forward on sustainability.”
Executive Assistant to the Head of School Sherrill Bounnell echoes that assessment. “I’m in my 21st year at CSW—I came in July of 2001—and when I first joined the administration, there was an environmental club,” she recalls. “Sometime in the 2000s, that club morphed into the Sustainability Committee, and Marilyn has led the group for its entire existence. CSW is a progressive school, so embracing sustainability just makes sense,” continues Sherrill. “We’re walking the walk.”
Indeed, CSW has been actively building a green community for over five decades. In the 1970s, the new dining hall was constructed to include a passive solar design. In 2005, the new maintenance building was built with composting toilets, radiant floor heating, and a southern exposure that fostered reduced reliance on energy. And in 2007, the renowned Garthwaite Center for Science and Art was designed to LEED Platinum standards and constructed using sustainable building materials. The 21,000-square-foot facility features passive solar design, a high-performance heating and ventilation system, a living green roof, composting toilets, high-performance lighting, and more. Indeed, the execution was so successful that in 2008, The American Institute of Architects’ Committee on the Environment (COTE) named it one of the nation’s Top Ten Green Projects of the year.
An ongoing commitment
As the school continues to modernize its physical plant in pursuit of carbon neutrality, members of the CSW community also remain committed to pursuing an array of sustainability initiatives. The administration has deemed CSW an idle-free campus and is preparing to install electric car chargers. The Facilities Department has introduced sustainable landscaping around campus to promote water conservation and support pollinators, turned to greener fuels for lawn mowing and leaf blowing, reduced chemical usage, and selected organic fertilizers for use on lawns and playing fields.
Students likewise play a critical role in this carbon-free environmental quest. In years past, they’ve competed to recycle more waste and consume less electricity. They’ve sought to become more mindful about consumption of food and material goods. “Our students have held CD and book swaps and battery recycling drives,” says Sherrill. They’ve also maintained a love/hate relationship with composting, she notes with a chuckle. “In the early 2000s, a group of students built a composting bin and part of lunch duty involved taking food scraps there, but that initiative fell away during COVID.”
Now composting is once again a priority, and Coco Wu ’23, a student co-head of the Sustainability Committee, is leading the charge. “We had an active composting program before COVID and I’d like to see it return,” she says. “I was raised in a family that emphasized sustainability—my grandparents were always telling me to pick up grains of rice so as not to waste them and my parents were never without their reusable shopping bags. Every little thing in my life built my interest in green living.” It wasn’t until Coco attended a Weston town hall meeting to explore how the town could reach net zero emissions, however, that she realized her passion was broadly shared. “I discovered that many people cared deeply about climate change, and it made me want to help The Cambridge School of Weston community intensify its sustainability efforts,” she recalls.
In addition to her work with the Sustainability Committee, Coco is also the co-head of the school’s Fashion Club. “I’m considering a career that combines sustainability with art and fashion,” she explains. She is already experimenting; she has created a dress out of PVC bioplastic and cotton for a wearable art class and worked with another student group known as the Zora Foundation to mount a sustainability-focused art exhibition with the Weston public school system.
Coco has also worked to integrate sustainability into the classroom, once serving as a member of the Curriculum Committee to build strong connections between sustainability and coursework. “The best way to promote awareness of sustainability is to incorporate it into classes,” she observes. She has made a conscious effort to raise the profile of sustainability issues with the Board of Trustees, too, attending a board meeting, meeting with the chair of the Building and Grounds Committee, and inviting trustees to appear as guest speakers at Sustainability Committee meetings. Most recently, she worked with student Sustainability Committee co-head Eli Berger ’23 to connect CSW with the National High School Climate Forum. “As we look for ways to reach our green goals, it’s helpful to get ideas and opinions from students at other schools,” she observes. “My hope is to see small actions every day and work step-by-step to achieve our goals. The first step is to promote awareness of how important climate change is, and then to formulate plans to address it. I’m watching more and more students and faculty start caring about this issue, which is encouraging.”
Such student initiative is heartening to Trustee Chin Lin P’18, chair of CSW’s Buildings and Grounds Committee, as well. “It makes me very happy to see this level of student interest and involvement,” he observes. He points to the effort to rejuvenate composting as one of many exciting developments. “Not only is composting important in reducing waste, but it also has a positive fiscal impact on the community because it reduces the amount of trash that must be removed. But this type of plan doesn’t work without user buy-in from students, faculty, and staff; when it comes to sustainability, it can’t be a top-down initiative.”
Science Department Chair Kevin Smith is also enthusiastic about student engagement. “Our students have always been—and continue to be—active participants in promoting sustainability,” he observes. “They provide tremendous input and cultivate valuable awareness among their peers.”
An organic farmer prior to joining the CSW faculty in 2014, Kevin is particularly interested in educating students on composting and other food-based programs. “Food waste is a significant issue, so I’m delighted to see that Coco and other students are enthusiastic about composting,” he says. “Students have also taken an active role in promoting related campus initiatives such as sustainable landscaping and gardening on campus.” And Kevin sees more good things coming. “I’m not sure I can capture everything that the school is doing around sustainability,” he avers. “Such initiatives used to funnel through Marilyn DelDonno and the Sustainability Committee, but now Head of School Lise Charlier and the Board are promoting a campus-wide embrace of sustainability. It’s extremely exciting.”
The town of Weston is also an enthusiastic partner, Kevin continues. Take Cat Rock Park, for example, where he frequently leads his ecology classes in field work. “The town has been great in helping us think about ways that CSW students can step off campus to promote sustainability in the park and serve as active stewards of the space through maintenance, the creation of informational materials and the like,” he notes.
Kevin is equally keen on CSW’s Wilderness Trips, which he leads. The program enables students to spend time in conserved landscapes and consider the environmental impact of their food choices. “Food is one of the ways that we connect on the trip,” he explains. “We eat only vegetarian and vegan meals—we don’t bring beef—to encourage the students to become more thoughtful about their eating choices.”
Indeed, CSW students are thoughtful about this and many other issues, and they’re becoming increasingly vocal about their desire to shape the dialogue. Students are reaching out to the Board of Trustees and asking to be involved in strategizing for the future and kept abreast of new developments. And, more importantly, they are encouraging one another.
A face to the future
As The Cambridge School of Weston looks toward the future, one thing is clear: an informal approach to sustainability is no longer viable. “Sustainability is no longer an optional lens through which to make decisions,” says
Photo by Tom Hill P’20, ’22
Lise candidly. “As head of school, I’m working to make equity and sustainability an ongoing priority—we owe it to our young people.”
The community has embraced the challenge. From a proposed hydroponics program to a tree equity study in Weston, students are exploring creative ways to pursue sustainability both on and off campus. Supported by the school’s PACE (Promoting Awareness and Community Engagement) initiative, they are using Community Engagement (CE) projects to transform ideas into action. “CE is a place of deep learning for our students, and partnership is a big part of this,” observes Lise. “It’s important for our students to share their gifts with others and gain exposure to the wider world. Community engagement is the true application of being in proximity and in partnership to an issue in a way that models understanding. Students learn that if you want to change something, you can. It’s a valuable lesson that makes the future hopeful.”
Teachers are also committed to the cause, working to make sustainability an integral part of the curriculum just as they have done with social justice. “Somehow, somewhere, I want the idea of protecting the planet to be part of every single science course at the Cambridge School of Weston…maybe part of every course,” says Marilyn. “I would love to see the concept of sustainability pop up everywhere, just as social justice does. It’s one of my dreams.”
Kevin Smith agrees. “As educators, we’re committed to showing students how environmental sustainability overlaps with social justice,” he observes. “Take the impact of climate change, for example. The people most likely to experience the impact of hurricanes, droughts, sea level rise, etc., are those with the least ability to respond. That’s a social justice issue and making that connection is inspiring for students.” Trustees, meanwhile, are exploring opportunities to make the school more energy efficient through wholesale changes to the infrastructure, from changing lightbulbs and installing energy-efficient glass to installing rooftop solar panels and battery power walls. In its adoption of energy upgrade incentives from its providers, CSW will save money in the long term, while simultaneously reducing its overall carbon footprint. It is estimated that recent changes to infrastructure will reduce the school’s energy consumption by 53%, equivalent to 5,198 trees planted, 768,821 miles driven, or 40,072,443 smartphones charged.
Trustee Chin Lin is particularly excited about the Board’s latest plans with regards to sustainability. “We voted unanimously to install photovoltaic panels on campus this summer, which will allow us to move away from fossil fuels and offset about a quarter of our annual electricity consumption,” he enthuses. “We’re currently exploring our best options to finance this venture—as you might imagine, these things take time to plan and implement.”
The proposed plan to install solar panels on the rooftops of several buildings, including the Health and Fitness Center, would decrease greenhouse gas emissions from campus, add excess green energy to the grid, and decrease the school’s electricity bill from the grid. One projection being explored by the Board shows the school’s potential annual CO2e offset at 243,271 pounds, which is equivalent to 12,412 gallons of gasoline not burned, 23 passenger cars removed from the road, 19,162 gallons of propane not burned, or 2,655 pounds of coal not burned.
In addition to the installation of panels, the Board also voted to install a battery backup system for Warren House, CSW’s newest and most-ecofriendly dormitory, allowing for critical load electricity during power failures and a decrease — and potential elimination of — emissions from diesel generators. The battery would further decrease grid energy use and nightly emissions, and, in doing so, reduce the school’s electric bill.
The Board wants to make sure one thing is clear: when it comes to sustainability, CSW is moving forward. “If you’re going to teach students about environmental issues, how can you not practice what you preach?” asks Chin. “How can we get the students to believe that climate change is an issue of concern if we don’t address it now? To be credible, we must act. Otherwise, we won’t achieve the buy-in we need—our students are too smart.”
“It’s an obvious choice to go this route; the challenge is getting there,” agrees Kevin Mendik. “We’re taking our sustainability plan in small bites. We’ve identified what we can do, now we need to determine how to reach our goals.” The desire to achieve carbon neutral status at CSW was something that grew organically from the community, he continues. “We looked around and said, ‘Of course we’re going to strive for this goal. We just need to look at what we’re doing, why we’re doing it, and how we’re doing it.’” And there are lots of opportunities for students to get involved, he adds. “I think they would all be proud to say, ‘I went to a carbon neutral high school.’”
Board member Neta Crawford P’18, member of the Buildings and Grounds Committee, is similarly enthusiastic. “My interest in helping CSW achieve carbon neutral status goes back to my time as a parent,” she notes. “When my daughter Rose was here, I thought that the campus had the opportunity to be a place of carbon sequestration. The Garthwaite Center was a big step, but it’s the tip of the iceberg. We can move towards electrification combined with solar power to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We might even become a microgrid, which would free us from dependence on the grid and make us more resilient in the face of extreme weather events. I think that CSW could be part of a larger story and set a positive example for attaining sustainability on a school campus,” she says. “I feel like we’re ready for the next steps.”
“We need to understand the critical moment that we’re in, and every minute matters because our students are only with us for four years,” says Lise. “We’re extremely proud of our progressive nature and pedagogy here at The Cambridge School of Weston, and it is our hope that we can serve as a model for other institutions. Looking at our past, we have evidence of what can be achieved through inspiration and great ideas.
“This is all do-able,” she concludes. “If something matters, you put time, money, and thought into it. I’m expecting our community to live up to the challenge. We must look at what we have, protect it, share it, and correct our wrongs. It might be hard work, but it’s good work. It breeds optimism.” Over the past three years, CSW has taken on a number of energy upgrade incentives from its providers, resulting in extensive longterm savings for the school and a far lower environmental impact.
10-YEAR SAVINGS
$1,228,943
ANNUAL SAVINGS
$111,101.25
Electricity
$1,706.00
Gas
$10,087.00
Maintenance
ENERGY REDUCTION
53% 5,198
trees planted
EQUIVALENT TO…
768,821
miles driven
40,072,443
smartphones charged
ROOFTOP SOLAR PANEL PROPOSAL
Project Size (DC) 514 Panels / 204.3 kW Project Size (AC) 10 Inverters / 200 kW
Year 1 Generation 229,935 kWh Annual CO2e offset 243,271 lbs
12,412
gallons of gasoline not burned
EQUIVALENT TO…
23
passenger cars removed from the road
19,162
gallons of propane not burned
2,655
pounds of coal not burned
CSW’S 25-YEAR SUSTAINABILITY GOALS
Reduce total energy consumption Transition to clean energy Gain resilience during power outages
Eliminate diesel emissions from backup generators
Manage and reduce CSW’s electricity costs
