Sustainability Committee

CCSCN Meeting
September 14, 2012
SC 336  2:00-3:00

In attendance: Jon Rosales, Neil Law (co-chairs), Dan Seaman, Rick Scott, Louise Gava, Kathleen Buckley            

Co-Chair's Report   

The committee met for the first time to outline the workload and agenda for the academic year.

The committee will meet on Fridays, at 2 pm, unless notified. Louise will not be able to meet in the second half of the semester, as she will be teaching

Rosales suggested that the committee focus on doing two elements of our charge well this year:

1.  Communicate more effectively with the campus
2.  More actively coordinate sustainability activities

Strategies to accomplish these two will be developed in subsequent meetings.

Discussion

Neal Law had several questions for Dan Seaman about the Master Plan.

Dan suggested we attend the meeting about the Master Plan to hear more about the progress.

Plans for a new residence hall have been split from the master plan.  An architect and construction company will be chosen this fall and they will explore potential sites versus costs.  The hope is that the building will be geothermal (and expand the geothermal system to include additional buildings), which could decrease our carbon footprint.

Two alumni have started a green roof company near Boston with a focus on food roofs.  

Jon: NYSERDA has feasibility grant money for looking at district heating.  We might want to look at this. Imagining a broader solution for our community might be timely.  One issue is the time it takes for a full conversation to make this happen.

Louise: Princeton Review and College Prowler - some of our students are saying we are not following through with our green commitments. 

Next meetings

9/28   Meet new students assigned by THELMO to this committee.
Continue our discussion of the Master Plan in lieu of Sarasota Associates' presentation to the campus community.

10/3 or 10/5 Joint meeting with Buildings, Grounds and Campus Support Committee to discuss Master Plan. BGCS has been contacted to ask what day they would like to meet.

10/19 Louise Gava or Cathy Shrady to update the committee on the Sustainability Semester Start discussion on a communication strategy of the Climate Action Plan

Other meeting dates: 11/2, 11/16, 11/30, 12/14

CCSCN Meeting
February 10, 2012
Johnson Hall of Science Rm 309

Present: Kathleen Buckley, Nick DeFilippis, Ben Dixon, Louise Gava, Matthias Nevins, Jon Rosales, Dan Seaman, Cathy Shrady and Rick Scott

SLUBAYMAX (web version of SLUBAY)- Eric Williams-Bergen

• Maybe this committee might want to oversee keeping this site a vital community resource. Gave us an overview of this site
• Would need to develop terms of use and need someone to shepherd some control of SLUBAY
• It gets people thinking about how we live as a community. We could potentially build a suite of community resources. It could include services as well a ride pod might be another possibility

Thoughts from the committee:
Jon - could we track greenhouse gases?
Eric - certainly we could would the ride board and perhaps with reusing items
Nick - and it will decrease the amount of trash and keeps items local and we save shipping

The question for our committee:  Would we be willing to help guide the development of the terms of use policy and assist in introducing this to the community?

• This is a next step as a digital community-building tool
• Faculty council is excited about this as well
• We could have a group test the platform before releasing it campus wide

The role of students: the question is whether it needs to be a segregated version given the potential interactions of faculty/staff and students

• But the students could adapt this for student use
• There are financial/liability issues when you cross lines
• Connect it with the Barn Thrift Shop
• Could use it to advertise the sustainability "tip of the day" on the site
• Eric would like to have students involved in transferring to the student arena
• Matthias seemed interested and would be willing to sit in on the meeting with Lisa Cania

Jon- Could we make some estimates of carbon reduction and include this in our calculations?
Eric - We could run contests - join our ride board and use it for a month and be eligible for a drawing ...to help encourage alternatives to single person vehicle use
Jon - Perhaps add a question like - would you have taken this trip if it weren't for the ride pod (so you have a baseline and the trip isn't counted as savings if it was an extra trip)

Facilities Master Plan- Dan Seaman

• 20 people invited to be part of the advisory committee for the facilities master plan
• 2 hour meeting just recently; introduced the project planning team, goals, priorities and expectations and talked about how the climate action plan factored into the master plan
• Will address the Alumni council tomorrow as well
• Handed out the questions posed to the advisory committee, department chairs and VPs and handed out the Scope of Services related to the Master Plan
• Matthias - some Thelmo members are interested in energy efficiency issues and the new Thelmo Environmental Conservation Chair, Andrew Skaggs, will meet with Louise next week

ADD Andrew to the email list for this committee

Jon- How to involve this committee in the discussion of the Master Plan?  Homework, handed out the first work plan that was developed as a means of discussing whether there is anything in the plan that we want to suggest to the Master Planning team - read for our next meeting

New York Negawatt Challenge- Louise Gava

• The Dashboard 2.0 just launched and is still loading slow
• The campaign to win the competition is moving forward on many fronts

e.g. "Do it in the dark" shirts
Skit at the Colgate hockey game on Friday the 17^th

 

Next Meeting:  February 24, 2012    SC 336
Dan, Rick and Ben will be unable to attend
Aileen O'Donoghue will present at our next meeting

CCSCN Meeting Notes
January 27, 2011

As submitted by: Kathleen Buckley

Old Business

Speakers for the Climate Summit in the fall
Louise Gava gave a quick update on planning for the summit. The theme of the climate summit is climate change, sustainability and social change.  Louise said a variety of speakers would be brought in, with a focus on the denial campaign.  The summit will be September 25-27.

The planning committee would like to invite Dr. James Hansen from NASA as keynote speaker since he has been targeted by the denial campaign.  Jon will invite him and/or Dr. Michael Mann at Penn State who has also been targeted by denial groups.  Other speakers include someone from GreenPeace's ExposeExxon campaign, Don Brown from Penn State, and Naomi Oreskes of the University of San Diego, author of Merchants of Doubt.  Other possible speakers include:

• Jerry Bartlett - local Colton person and provocative speaker

• Randy Hill and Kirk Fouss - to do a rhetoric workshop on how to engage folks on issues of Climate Change 

• Carol Gable - a session on fiscally responsible environmental investments

• Cornell cooperative extension - a speaker on climate, crop failure, and how it affects us on campus

• Liam Hunt - the presidential candidates and maybe what they she said in the course of the campaign

Others helping plan includes: Sue Powers from Clarkson and Jon Montan from the County Planning Office

Jon thinks addressing the denial campaign is important to focus on for the summit

New business

Meeting times
The meeting times for spring semester are at 2:30 pm on Fridays, every two weeks beginning today

Dan Seaman gave an update on the CAPThe climate action plan will be integrated with the Master Plan.  The CAP and Strategic Map are the two main guiding forces for the Master Plan and the first work plan of the CAP will be derived from work with the Master Plan.  CCSCN will be updated and consulted as the consulting group - Saratoga Associates - develops the Master Plan.  The Master Plan will determine what projects go forward and when.  The plan's horizon is 5- years out, with an annual update. 

Dan gave an overview of the firm selected to do the master plan.  They have associates with expertise in sustainability and residence halls - both central to our mission.  They have received many documents about SLU - drawings, maps, data, etc. - have been downloaded to them.  They may convert our drawings to CAD and use GPS as well so they will be more usable.

A Master Plan advisory committee has been formed with 20 people on the committee.  They will have their first organizational meeting this Tuesday from 10-1.  Dan will report back to this committee after that meeting.  Several other working sessions are scheduled for the month of February with various offices on campus as well.  Saratoga Associates will be on campus the 14th and 15th to meet with various groups.

The suggestion was made that they try to meet with this committee during their time on campus.  They will address the full board on the 24th and sit in on the Building and Grounds in the afternoon.

A charrette will be held on the February 28^th and 29^th.  They hope to get most of their information in this semester.  The suggestion is to put the events up on SLUWire.

Nick suggested they meet with this committee.

Jon asked if they can they plan in climate neutrality?   Yes, they know they have to use this as a guideline.  Jon then pointed out that our charge and role as a committee is to track what they are doing with regards to climate neutrality and the CAP, and to give them feedback.

Dan said we would be informed with updates and that he will keep us posted.

Energy Conservation Competition
A competition with Hobart William Smith, Colgate, Skidmore, and Hamilton are competing will take place from Feb 13^th to March 5^th for energy conservation in residence halls, townhouses, and theme cottages.  Louise needs help getting the interest out there and sustaining student interest.  The men's hockey team plays Colgate on the 17^th.

Help with publicity is needed (posters/facebook /email/Hill news articles/tabling/etc.). Annie, Matthais, and Nick volunteered to help.

We'll reserve some time at our next meeting to work on this some more.

Guest speakers
Jon will contact Eric Williams-Bergen for the February 10^th meeting.
Neil will contact Aileen O'Donoghue will be invited to the February 24^th meeting.