Green Planning
Oct 1, 2009 12:00 PM, By Michael Crowley
Crafting a campus sustainability program for your institution.
Surveys and lessons learned
National Wildlife Federation's 2008 Campus Sustainability Survey
National Wildlife Federation (NWF) reported that more than 50 percent of colleges and universities surveyed for its "Campus Environment 2008" report having a staff person dedicated to sustainability on campus; 76 percent of those surveyed reported that they developed their sustainability programs primarily because they "think environmental sustainability programs fit the culture and values of the campus." This marks a significant milestone in the ecological identity of campus communities.
Harvard University Green Campus Revolving Loan Fund
Harvard University has been funding on-campus energy and resource conservation projects through a revolving loan fund since 2002. The fund's operation is simple and direct: capital is provided to fund sustainability projects, and the savings generated from those projects are reinvested into the fund. Harvard has invested more than $12 million in projects since the loan fund's inception, and has maintained an estimated return on investment of 25 to 30 percent.
Duke University: "Charting a Path to Greenhouse Gas Reductions"
Duke was one of the first universities to apply the metric of "Net Present Value per Metric Tons of Carbon Dioxide Equivalent avoided" to climate action planning. In a paper presented at Ball State University's Greening of the Campus VI in 2005, Duke University's Environmental Sustainability Coordinator Sam Hummel showed that this metric can address the "question of how to compare the relative benefit of strategies as diverse as increasing carpool incentives and burning more natural gas in the steam plant."
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