St Louis Community College Going Green “for real”

St Louis Community College Going Green “for real”

Presented at MCCA Conference5 November 09

Peggy Moody, Ph.D., District-wide Sustainability Coordinator

Projects Across the College• Paper Reduction Efforts• Energy Efficiency• Energy Audit (GHG inventory)• Professional Development• Community outreach

Already GreenSTLCC has been going paperless• Online registration and catalogs• Direct deposit for employees and

electronic payment to contractors • Board Agendas and Policy and

Procedures are available electronically

• Instructors using BlackBoard for syllabi, educational materials, and online testing (web classes)

Rethinking Paper• Despite good efforts of using

paper with 30% recycled content, we are burning through 28 million sheets of 8x10 per year

• Paper audit — to change, we must know where and how we use paper — as our IKON copy rep said, “Where there is mystery, there is margin.”– Student Labs?– Faculty?– Administration?

Using Less Paper• Raising awareness—creating options

for using less paper– Assessing how we use paper for our

work• Student papers—can they be submitted on

line?• Faculty handouts and testing—can more

faculty use Blackboard?• Administration—can we handle job

applications electronically? Have bids into engineering via CAD?

Changing Paper Behaviors• Training to use electronic tools like

Blackboard and shareware like OneNote or Illuminate

• Having assistance from copier contractors to install pop-up suggestions to print with the most conservation (central copiers vs desk-tops)

• Trying out new strategies for ONE MONTH to see if habits to print can be changed

Making It Real

Each season, employees and students submit their image for the posters, thus engaging users in this paper conservation effort.

One strategy—“Please consider me before you copy and print.”

Energy EfficiencySTLCC is nearing a 50 year history in conservation. Long before LEED strategies were common practice, the college was: • weatherizing buildings; • installing CFL lighting, room occupancy

sensors and water sensors inbathrooms

• replaced boilers, cooling towers, andchillers

• replaced roofs with white surfaces

Making Efficiency Real• Before Leadership in Energy

and Environmental Design(LEED)--

• South County University and Education Center—– Natural lighting from the

architectural design helps cut electricity, as well as providing a sense of wellness with views to nature.

– Ventilation allows for more access to outdoors, rather than artificial heating and cooling.

– Technology uses Energy Star

Even More RealGold LEED Buildings:• Wildwood (as per President

McIntyer’s presentation)• Harrison CenterSilver LEED:• The Bio-Research,

Development and Growth (BRDG) Park at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center—building to be shared with other companies

Green House Gas (GHG) Energy Audit

• President Marcia Pfieffer, at the Florissant Valley campus, signed the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) President’s Climate Commitment in October, 2008.

Making It Real• This semester at FV, a

carbon assessment is underway involving facilities staff, the campus sustainability committee, and students measuring: – direct emissions, – emissions from purchased

sources, – emissions associated with travel.

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More Carbon-Free For Real• Two campuses now use

GEM electric cars.– Wildwood Grounds Crew and– Florissant Valley Police use their

cars• Biofuel exploration—

Florissant Valley is converting kitchen oil waste to power their lawnmowers

• One district-wide hauler for Recycling program

Professional Development• Center for Teaching and Learning

– Visioning sessions identifying sustainability as one of 4 LT goals

– Green building: one woman’s journey• Professional Development Day

– It is easy being green (’07)– Presentations on using Wildwood as a

learning lab; Fair Trade; OneNote andIlluminate as paperless meetingstrategies; green presence on ourwebsite (09)

Future Collaboration• Partnering with St. Louis County

Health Dept for Recycling luncheons

• St Louis University “Water Matters” spring 2010

Community Outreach• Steve Long for WCD—RCGA

presentation (9/09)– job development via

collaborations and partnering with USGBC as a provider of green building courses

– http://stlworkforce.org/greening-of-stlcc/green

• Green Homes Festival (STLCC as Silver Sponsors)

• Crowder College visit (10/09) learning about alternative energy curriculum

Green Learning For Real• At FV Green fairs—Phi Theta Kapa students

raise awareness via “consumer consequences” tool

http://sustainability.publicradio.org/consumerconsequences/

• At Meramec—Eco-lition student group-Oct 26th & 27th held Environmental Activism Days creating a sculpture that represents the needs of the environment, both built and natural.

• Special School District graduates work as our Recycling Technicians

Going Green is a Journey• Moving towards alternative energies• Moving toward integrated green jobs

training and curriculum • Continuing collaborations with

regional partners• MEASURING our environmental

impact• Sharing our successes

Our commitment• St. Louis Community College considers

environmental stewardship an integral part of our mission to expand minds and change lives. We are committed to assisting our region in fostering awareness and development of a growing green economy and society by incorporating sustainability concepts into our academic and business practices.