While the university has met its sustainability goals this year, staying on track may prove difficult as atmospheric carbon dioxide levels reach a record high, a recent report shows.
The university decreased its carbon emissions by 15 percent in the past year and has been moving in the right direction “on a macro level,” said Sally DeLeon, sustainability office project manager, but human activities are adding carbon dioxide and other gases to the air at an alarming rate.
In 2012, the reported carbon dioxide level of 393.1 parts per million was a record high, at about 2.2 parts per million more than the previous year’s level and more than 40 parts per million more than the target level, according to the United Nations World Meteorological Organization.
On the campus, heating, cooling and lighting university buildings and powering technology are the main contributors to this university’s carbon footprint, DeLeon said. University air travel is also a source of some of the emissions, along with faculty and staff commuting to and from the campus.
“There are ways to manage it, and I think people are aware of the conflicting priorities there,” DeLeon said. “It’s a matter of managing it.”
As the university expands and constructs more facilities, new equipment will increase power use, and demand for air conditioning in buildings and dorms will add to the university’s carbon footprint, DeLeon said. Although these additions can negatively impact the environment, she said, they are necessary as more students enter the university and more research and innovation takes place.
“As we are building new buildings and are expanding upon them, it is something that we expect, which makes it a difficulty because we want to expand,” said Ori Gutin, Student Government Association sustainability director.
To offset this problem, the university has worked to increase building efficiency and ensure new buildings meet at least Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Silver certifications, if not a higher standard, said Morgan Folger, a sustainability office intern.
“I do see that there are some unnecessary construction projects,” said Folger, a sophomore English and environmental science and policy major. “There’s a lot more that could be done, rather than taking the easy way out or the cheaper way out.”
By building new dorms to decrease commuter emissions, the university may be able to combat high carbon emissions with its own efficiency and renewable resource use, DeLeon said.
“I see [adding new facilities] as an opportunity. Now that we have the property, we can manage it better,” she said. “By making our facilities more efficient on campus, we’re using less energy and less carbon is resulting with that.”
However, the longer it takes to construct a project, the more electricity is used, Folger said, and university departments could maximize the benefits of adding new facilities by increasing efficiency and decreasing construction time.
“A lot of these buildings on campus are old, built at a time when we didn’t have a huge focus on sustainability,” said Gutin, a sophomore environmental science and policy major. When buildings are knocked down and rebuilt sustainably, he said, the university can reap the benefits in the long run.
The Sustainable Buildings and Energy Sources work group, the University Sustainability Council and the SGA’s Student Sustainability Committee have been working on ways for the university to meet several concrete goals by 2020, including decreasing electricity use on the campus by 20 percent and making all buildings and construction on the campus carbon-neutral, Gutin said.
“I think that worldwide, [the carbon dioxide level] is a problem, but on our campus, we have one of the most sustainable campuses,” Folger said. “We have the ability to keep meeting those goals.”
