March 5, 2010

by Rima Mulla, Communications Associate, Second Nature

Image courtesy of Fast Company

Second Nature President Anthony Cortese and Senior Fellow Georges Dyerdiscuss “The Campus as Living Laboratory” in their latest web article for Fast Company’s Inspired Ethonomics series. They cite examples of institutions already benefiting from having adopted sustainable practices in their operations, and point to resources developed by Second Nature to move the higher education sector in this direction. Two of the resources highlighted were the Case for Investing in Improved Energy Performance on Campus document, developed in conjunction with the Clinton Climate Initiative, and theCampusGreenBuilder.com web portal, produced by our Advancing Green Building in Higher Education team, which helps under-resourced and minority-serving institutions build green.

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March 5, 2010
Posted in: ACUPCC

by Gina Coplon-Newfield, Director of Communications and Rima Mulla, Communications Associate, Second Nature

GreenBrackets.comThe much-anticipated Division I College Basketball Tournament is right around the corner, and we expect a high percentage of the schools competing in the men’s and women’s division I games to be ACUPCC signatories. If you and others from your school send in enough great photos, videos, and stories about sustainability and athletics on your campus, your school just might win the Green Bracket Competition. The Second Nature team will be posting the best images and stories online in the effort to generate some friendly competition and publicity for green schools as well as highlight progress on the greening of athletics programs.

The competition runs now through April 7.  You do not have to be affiliated with a school that’s in the Division I college basketball tournament or that is part of the ACUPCC to participate. And submissions can pertain to basketball or any other college sport or athletics program that incorporate sustainability. For more on the game rules, click here.

Submissions and questions go to greenbrackets@secondnature.org.  Seewww.greenbrackets.com for more information.

Good luck, and may the most enthusiastic green team win!

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March 3, 2010

by Melinda Ann Farrell, Director, LACCD Sustainable Media

It’s Lights, Camera, Action at LACCD Sustainable Media, the student-led documentary studio of the Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD). Armed with high definition cameras, field recording equipment, big imaginations and one of the largest public sector green building programs in the country as their subject, the talented student auteurs of the LACCD are educating and entertaining their peers on the subject of sustainability and climate neutrality, using the art of documentary filmmaking.

Producing video sustainability stories “by students, for students,” the studio’s filmmakers are turning the camera’s lens on themselves and their colleges to showcase marquee building projects campus by campus and reveal the behind-the-scenes transformation of the Los Angeles Community College District through the voices of the students, faculty, board members, administrators, architects, construction firms and community members who all contributed to the effort. The studio’s original works are posted onlaccdbuildsgreen.org under the Student Video gallery as well as on our Vimeo channel.

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March 3, 2010

by Ben Lowe, Co-Coordinator, Renewal: Students Caring for Creation

Renewala grassroots Christian environmental network active on campuses across the United States and Canada, is proud to present the first-ever report on our growing movement: Green Awakenings: Stories of Stewardship and Sustainability from the Next Generation.

Green AwakeningsNow is a momentous time for our generation; the planet is in crisis and environmental stewardship is a biblical priority for Christians.  The purpose of Green Awakenings is to show what it looks like when Christian students and campuses come together to care for all of God’s creation.   We want to demonstrate the breadth, depth, and diversity of the growing student movement.

As I write this, I am on the way back from speaking at The Kings University College in Alberta, Canada.  Kings is one of over fifty campuses featured in the report, most of which are members of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, but only a handful of which are currently signatories to the American College & University Presidents’ Climate Commitment.  Signatories are identified in the report by the torch logo next to their names.

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March 3, 2010

by Sam Males, State Director for the Nevada Small Business Development Center, University of Nevada, Reno

We accomplish so much more when we forge partnerships in our communities, and that philosophy is an integral piece of our sustainability plan at the University of Nevada, Reno.

As one of the charter signatories to the ACUPCC, we have set a goal to integrate sustainable practices into everything that we do – from the way we construct our buildings, to our energy usage, to our curriculum, to our outreach mission as a land-grant institution. As part of these outreach efforts, our Nevada Small Business Development Center is offering energy-efficiency assistance to small businesses and targeted industries such as retail, food service, grocers and offices, through its Business Environmental Program.

The Center was one of just four small business development centers in the country awarded funding from the U.S. Small Business Administration last year for projects offering energy-efficiency assistance to small businesses. The award provides $125,000 a year for three years for the program.

To stretch these dollars the furthest, we have partnered with NV Energy, Nevada’s major energy provider, and KEMA Services Inc., an energy-management consulting firm, to help provide resources, training and direct assistance to businesses identifying energy-efficiency opportunities. The Nevada Division of Environmental Protection and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have also provided funding for the Center’s Business Environmental Program.

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February 25, 2010

Gaby Rigaud recounts her experience as she wraps up a year of interning with Second Nature’s Advancing Green Building in Higher Education program. We’ll miss you, Gaby!

by Gaby Rigaud, Advancing Green Building Intern, Second Nature

Gaby Rigaud, Second Nature InternWe all have moments in our lives when we’re forced to adjust and make difficult decisions that we hope will change our lives for the best. One such moment for me came at the end of 2008. At that point, I had spent nearly four years working as a civil engineer at a Fortune 500 consulting firm in Boston, and I found myself at an impasse. Lacking both variety and a sense of purpose in my daily activities, feeling unsupported, I began to be unfulfilled in my professional life. My initial remedy was to go to graduate school to broaden my knowledge; I quickly found, though, that this would not be sufficient. I reevaluated the situation, asking myself the usual questions: “Where do I see myself in 5-10 years?” and “What am I passionate about?” This exercise resulted in a decision that most people who know and are close to me saw as irrational. My future was presented to me in a new light, and putting up new condo buildings and underground parking garages for the next 40 years was not part of it.

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February 23, 2010
Posted in: ACUPCC

by Georges Dyer, Senior Fellow, Second Nature

Bill Gates gave a TED Talk last week about how if he could have just one wish it would be to get to zero carbon.  Even with all of his understanding, passion and work on the issues of health, poverty, sanitation, disease and so many of the world’s urgent and interrelated problems – his wish, if he only had one, would be to get the big innovation breakthroughs that will make clean, carbon neutral energy affordable and safe.  This is because climate disruption is the problem we face today that will make all of the other problems so much worse.

It is incredibly exciting to see the country’s colleges and universities leading the way on this push to zero.  With 667 institutions committed to publicly reporting on their progress through the ACUPCC, and many more taking very similar steps, they are driving the innovation needed, educating the leaders who can make the breakthroughs, and serving as role-models to show that we can do this in ways that make good business sense.

In the talk, Gates lays out a simple equation: CO2 = P * S  * E  * C

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February 16, 2010

by Georges Dyer, Senior Fellow, Second Nature

A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to visit Unity College – “America’s Environmental College” – in Unity, ME, where I met with about a hundred of the students in the Environmental Challenge class.

My talk – part of the Lapping Lecture Series – focused on some of the national and international trends we see in Education for Sustainability (EfS) from our perspective here at Second Nature.

I emphasized how there is a strong trend in society toward making a sustainability perspective a prerequisite for competent leadership. I described some of the steps that colleges and universities across the country are taking to ensure that our graduates are equipped with an understanding of sustainability principles so they’re not left at a competitive disadvantage when they enter the global workforce.

I focused quite a bit on the American College & University Presidents’ Climate Commitment (ACUPCC) and the importance of both top-level commitment from the president as well as the need for leadership to emerge from all levels of the organization if institutions are going to be successful in implementing the Commitment, achieving climate neutrality, and providing the education and research needed for the rest of society to do the same.

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February 12, 2010

by Rima Mulla, Communications Associate, Second Nature

Fast Company has published two compelling web articles written by Second Nature President Anthony Cortese and Senior Fellow Georges Dyer:

Higher Education’s Purpose: A Healthy, Just, and Sustainable Society. This excellent introduction to the concept of Education for Sustainability argues that higher education can and must play a transformative role in leading society toward a more sustainable future.

Making a Sustainability Perspective Second Nature in Education. This article cites several examples of higher education institutions tackling sustainability in the curriculum and addressing one of the most important questions of our time:How can we as a global society continue to develop and prosper on such a small planet?

Watch for two more articles from Tony and Georges, all of which are part of aFast Company series entitled Inspired Ethonomics: Actionable Insights for World-Changing People and Businesses.

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February 11, 2010

by Michelle Dyer, Chief Operating Officer, Second Nature

On January 21, 2010, I joined a wonderful group of colleagues to present a workshop “A New Generation of Sustainability Leadership: The Role of Higher Education in Building a Green Economy” at  the National Council for Science and the Environment’s  (NCSE) 10th National Conference on Science, Policy, and the Environment in Washington, DC.

Jim Buizer (Policy Advisor to the President; Director for Strategic Institutional Advancement, Arizona State University), Anthony Cortese (President, Second Nature), Paul Rowland (Executive Director, AASHE), Mitch Thomashow (President, Unity College), and I presented about the converging challenges of species extinction, the loss of biodiversity, the gap between rich and poor, a struggling economy, and climate destabilization.

A green economy is a response to this planetary emergency. This calls for a radical reshaping of the role of higher education in preparing a new generation of sustainability leadership. This is much more than providing technical training. It demands a new educational paradigm for integrating life cycle analysis, ecological concepts, ecological economics, and earth systems science into all aspects of higher education.

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