The university is teaming up with 85 eco-friendly organizations across the state to promote sustainability in local communities — especially College Park, which city officials said needs a green makeover.
Sustainable Maryland Certified — a green initiative program intended to provide resources and incentives to municipalities committed to protecting the environment — launched June 26 and, in addition to getting the program off the ground, university officials said they hope to utilize it and revitalize the city.
“There’s so many communities that wanted our help, and we just couldn’t get to all of them,” said Joanne Throwe, director of the university’s Environmental Finance Center. “So, we thought, ‘What program could we do that would really take all of our tools and our expertise and our knowledge and share it with more communities?”
The initiative — which the center spearheaded and replicated from a similar program in New Jersey — will allow communities to earn points by adopting certain sustainability practices, including encouraging community action through the creation of a “green team,” overseeing and improving community energy efficiency, regulating greenhouse gas emissions and promoting natural resource conservation.
A registered municipality needs to earn 150 points before it can cash in on the program’s incentives. Throwe said she hopes as the program progresses, it will offer similar rewards to that of New Jersey’s, which include grants, prioritization for state funding and access to training and webinars.
City officials said this could be the fuel the city needs to increase its sustainability initiatives, which many said need improvement.
“I feel that this is an effort that will be really good for Maryland,” said Mayor Andy Fellows. “I think it will give an opportunity for municipalities, like College Park, to really structure our efforts and have a real strong way for getting recognized for our efforts.”
The city has two main sustainability problems: relying on fossil fuel energy and poor water management, according to Fellows, who is also a member of the initiative’s founding board.
“There’s still a lot of water that we’re not retaining in College Park and on the campus,” he said.
In addition, amidst nearly 40 trash cans, there’s only one public recycling bin in the city, according to Director of Public Works Robert Stumpff. However, he said this will change come fall.
“More containers have been ordered to be placed this fiscal year,” Stumpff wrote in an email. “In addition, I am working with a vendor to place recycling and trash containers in public spaces.”
Because the university has won multiple awards for its environmentally-friendly efforts, the city is in an advantageous position to springboard its plan for a more livable community, Fellows said.
The university has seen great progress in achieving sustainability since former university President Dan Mote signed the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment in 2007, said Mark Stewart, manager of the university’s Office of Sustainability said. This encourages greater collaboration between the city and the university.
“We are working with the city to see if we can become an EPA green power community,” Stewart said. “That would be a real community partnership between not just the university and the city government of College Park but also all the businesses and residents.”
Just days before the launch of Sustainable Maryland Certified, the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment presented the university with its Second Nature Climate Leadership Award in honor of the steps the university has taken to reduce its carbon footprint.
“The general goal that we’ve already articulated is to use some of the sustainability practices that the university’s already committed to and think of ways to bring their practices off-campus,” Fellows said.
Throwe hopes to replicate the success of New Jersey’s sustainability program, which now has around 370 of its 566 municipalities pursuing the program and 70 certified to date, according to former Maplewood, N.J. mayor Fred Profeta, who headed the launch of the program.
“We’re obviously having an affect on greenhouse gas emissions,” said Profeta. “We incentivize towns that do programs for high-efficiency cars; we incentivize programs for residents to control their thermostats. All these things have enormous effects.”
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