Blog | Second Nature

September 18, 2015

Join the #CleanEnergyU Dialogue this Fall

By Sue Hall, CEO, Climate Neutral Business Network, on behalf of the #CleanEnergyU community

So what does it take to successfully move towards a cleaner efficient energy future? Particularly when, to be effective, many of these clean energy solutions require active collaboration between multiple stakeholders in our communities – from campuses, residents, companies, architects, utilities, non-profit leaders, and beyond?

This fall, #CleanEnergyU, the virtual dialogue which brings together students and faculty from campuses across the country with international clean energy leaders, is asking this question. Campus leaders have considerable insight into how to build this clean energy future in community. They know the kind of leadership qualities that will foster the collaboration and partnerships that are needed. So this fall, #CleanEnergyU is inviting leaders from colleges and universities to join along with their students, faculty and a host of clean energy leaders to discuss campus and community clean energy leadership with the #CleanEnergyU dialogue.

Students at Boston University (BU) first helped convene this #CleanEnergyU dialogue because they recognized that campuses can be powerful innovation hubs within communities to help drive change. However, they also called out the fact that they lacked a virtual forum in which to engage directly with clean energy leaders to accelerate everyone’s efforts by learning and exchanging best practices.

September 3, 2015

Posted in: Second Nature Team, White House Clean Power Plan

It’s Not About You: What the Clean Power Plan reminds us about Leadership

by Timothy Carter, President, Second Nature

The headlines are bursting with clean energy hope these days. From the Pope’s encyclical to the recent release of the White House’s Clean Power Plan, it seems like each morning brings news of a high level initiative that pushes our energy future into areas unthinkable a decade ago. And can we remember 10 years ago? In August 2005? The Energy Policy Act was signed by then-president George W. Bush. Gold star if you remember the major cornerstones of this legislation… If you guessed ethanol, advanced nuclear reactors, and “clean coal” research, then bingo!

August 24, 2015

Posted in: Climate Action, Policy, Second Nature Team, White House Clean Power Plan

What the Clean Power Plan Means for ACUPCC Signatories: Top 5 Areas of Impact

by: Janna Cohen-Rosenthal & Brett Pasinella, Second Nature

The new White House Clean Power Plan is part of the administration's attempts to address climate change. This plan focuses on the greenhouse gas emissions from power plants around the country. The federal government will set specific reduction targets for each state, it is then up to the state governments to decide how best to meet their individual target. The impact to any individual signatory of the American College & University Presidents’ Climate Commitment (ACUPCC) will have a lot to do with their state's policies and history of existing energy and climate policies. The White House provides a list of potential impacts for each state, however, some general predictions can be made nationally.

August 24, 2015

Connect With Us: Upcoming Presentations by Second Nature

by Florencia Bluthgen, Communications and Education Intern, Second Nature

Minneapolis, Minnesota will host this year’s Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) Annual Conference, which will be focusing on the theme of “Transforming Sustainability Education”. From October 25-28, sustainability professionals, senior leaders, students, faculty, staff, businesses, and media will come together to celebrate and inspire campus sustainability innovations.

This year Second Nature will once again be sending a full team to the conference. Timothy Carter (President), Janna Cohen-Rosenthal (Director of Membership Programs), and Brett Pasinella (Senior Manager of Innovative Services), will be participating in and leading several sessions, such as:

August 7, 2015

Posted in: Why We Work

One Experience Can Change Your Perspective in Life

by Florencia Bluthgen, Communications and Education Intern, Second Nature
(This post is part of a series by the Second Nature team about why we do what we do.)

When I was 19 years old, a friend of mine invited me to an activity of the nonprofit organization where she was volunteering: Un Techo para mi Pais (the Spanish for "A Roof For My Country"). We were going for a weekend to build transitional houses with families from low-income communities in Buenos Aires, Argentina. I had seen these types of communities before and had even participated in small volunteering activities in high school, but getting to know them personally and listening to their stories and dreams made something in my head click.

I kept volunteering in that organization and, in 2010, after the earthquake, I was offered the possibility to go help in Haiti. That experience marked a turning point in my life. Haiti was the poorest country in Latin America and the Caribbean even before the earthquake. One of the characteristics of the country is that, in order to pay its debts to other countries, Haiti deforested all the land, making it very vulnerable to any type of natural disaster. There is no humidity there. Crossing the frontier between Dominican Republic and Haiti is a very moving experience; for such a small island everything changes: the climate, the infrastructure, the people, the language, and the opportunities. When I went there, the poverty striked me. People had lost everything and they were living in tents on the ground. Yet, the highest classes had barely been affected. I knew I would never let myself ignore that reality.

August 7, 2015

Posted in: Second Nature Team

California Campus Sustainability

by Steve Muzzy, Senior Manager, Membership Programs, Second Nature

Last month I attended the 14th Annual California Higher Education Sustainability Conference (CHESC), hosted by San Francisco State University. This is an impressive gathering and great show of California's strength and leadership in campus sustainability. I attended three terrific sessions focusing on the following topics; net zero energy planning, fossil fuel divestment, and my personal favorite, student engagement and carbon neutrality.

The student engagement focus on carbon neutrality is particularly exciting because it aligns with institutional strategic priorities and collaborates across administrative, faculty, and staff departments, all while being student centered. So who is doing it? The University of California Office of the President (UCOP) has set an aggressive target of achieving carbon neutrality by 2025 (Scopes 1 & 2) and has formed a Global Climate Leadership Council, comprised of University of California administrators, faculty, staff, students and outside experts to provide recommendations for eliminating operational GHG emissions by 2025.

August 7, 2015

Posted in: Climate Action, Policy, Second Nature Team, White House Clean Power Plan

Inside the White House Clean Power Plan

by Anne Waple, Vice-President and Chief Innovation Officer, Second Nature

In this blog over the next few weeks, we will break down what the White House’s finalized Clean Power Plan means for us in higher education, and what it means for the country at large.

While we, at Second Nature, are not politically partisan and do not engage in political advocacy, we are, of course, supporting leadership in and aggressive action on carbon reduction and also recently on climate resilience. The new White House announcement illustrates that nationally too, aggressive action on climate change is warranted and possible. We fervently support this new announcement and the actions that have been taken over the last several years to get here.

We invite you to view the videos that the White House produced around the announcement as well as their infographic that steps through the impacts, the plan, and the recent progress that has been made nationally. We encourage you take a look at this information, and we will follow up with more details on what it might mean for us in the coming weeks.

July 1, 2015

The Renewables Clock is Ticking

by Gary Farha, President and CEO, CustomerFirst Renewables
CustomerFirst Renewables is a corporate partner of Second Nature

As more large electricity end users – including Higher Ed institutions – are considering securing dedicated large-scale renewable energy solutions, we are increasingly asked about the timing of when they should act. The question posed is whether purchasers should execute contracts prior to federal and state tax credits going away (which is currently slated to happen for solar and wind projects at year-end 2016 when the federal tax credit for solar goes from 30% to 10% and the “grandfathering” of the expired wind federal tax credit runs out) or whether they should wait – essentially gambling whether renewable energy costs will decline fast enough to offset the cost of diminished tax incentives.

This is akin to the question we grapple with whenever a new technology comes to market (e.g., personal computers, flat-screen televisions, smart phones). We know that prices will come down in the future at the same time that product benefits increase, which makes deciding on when to enter the market a tricky question. Particularly when, in the case of renewables, the size and term of contracts (millions of dollars, up to 25 years or more) are much more significant than buying the latest electronic gadget.

June 26, 2015

Ramping Up Renewables: 3 Reasons to Make the Switch

by Chris O'Brien, Director of Higher Education Programs, Altenex
Altenex is a corporate partner of Second Nature

The time has never been better for colleges and universities to make the switch to renewable energy, for three reasons:

Economics

First, the costs of renewable energy have plummeted, making them financially attractive on a wide-scale for the first time ever. For example, between 1977 and 2014, the price per watt of silicon photovoltaic cells has dropped from $76.67 to a mere thirty-six cents. Meanwhile, the cost of wind energy in the U.S. has dropped, on average, from 55 cents per kWh in 1980 to five cents per kWh at the end of 2012, resulting in unprecedented growth in both industries.

June 11, 2015

Posted in: Why We Work

Energy Systems and Social Justice on the Global Scale

by Rachael Moreland

(This post is part of a series by the Second Nature team about why we do what we do.)

In 2012, as a part of the Environmental Studies curriculum at Northeastern University, I enrolled in a course called, ‘Environment and Society’ which delved into the environmental injustices experienced by under-resourced and minority populations throughout the world. Prior to taking this class, I was struggling to find a deep connection to my major. I always found Environmental Studies to be an interesting topic, but I never felt passionate about the subject. Little did I know that my entire perspective would change after taking this course. The environmental consequences and health disparities experienced by the effected populations, for reasons that could have been prevented, made me sick to my stomach. Throughout the semester, my desire to help this cause increased enormously. I had developed a purpose and started drawing out my future plans.

The following semester, I enrolled in the course, ‘Sustainable Development.’ This course led me to discover Dr. Daniel Nocera’s invention, the ‘Artificial Leaf,’ a unique design of the hydrogen fuel cell for cleaner and cheaper energy production, inspired by the naturally occurring process in plants—photosynthesis. Not only was the engineering behind this design intriguing, but I also found Dr. Nocera’s overall goal of mass-producing these devices in order to aid developing countries to be inspiring. However, understanding the exact mechanics behind this device proved to be challenging to a student of soft sciences. At this point of my undergraduate career, I started toying with the idea of going to grad school to study renewable energy systems in order to gain that deeper understanding that I so desired.

Economics

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