ACUPCC

The Alamo Community College District (ACCD) receives Second Nature’s 1st Annual Climate Leadership Award for Institutional Excellence in Climate Leadership. Award recipients were recognized at the 4th Annual American College & University Presidents’ Climate Commitment (ACUPCC) Summit in Denver, CO on October 12th.

Since 2002, The Alamo Community College District (ACCD) has partnered with the Energy Systems Laboratory (ESL), a division of the Texas Engineering Extension Service (TEES) located at Texas A&M University to identify, design, and implement Energy Cost Reduction Measures. This partnership has reduced ACCD’s electricity and natural gas consumption by 16.5% and 41%, respectively. Providing a cumulative savings of approximately $3,950,517, while keeping 37.2 tons of NOx and 33,803 tons of CO2 out of the atmosphere.

ACCD has implemented a district‐wide metering program.  Every Alamo College facility is being equipped with metering devices to monitor electrical, gas, thermal, and water usage. This energy management control system will collect and analyze data to help inform energy use decisions and behavior.

University of Montana President, George Dennsion receives Second Nature’s 1st Annual Climate Leadership Award for Outstanding Individual Climate Leadership. Award recipients were recognized at the 4th Annual American College & University Presidents’ Climate Commitment Summit in Denver, CO on October 12th.

University of California San Diego (UCSD) receivesSecond Nature’s 1st Annual Climate Leadership Award for Institutional Excellence in Climate Leadership. Award recipients were recognized at the 4th Annual American College & University Presidents’ Climate Commitment (ACUPCC) Summit in Denver, CO on October 12th.

Environmental sustainability is part of UCSD’s institutional DNA. In 1957, Scripps Institution of Oceanography‘s (SIO) Director Roger Revelle warned that greenhouse gases from industrialization could endanger the planet. SIO chemist Charles Keeling precisely measured atmospheric CO2, and his Keeling Curve is “the most important geophysical measurement of the 20^th century.”

Warren Wilson College receives Second Nature’s 1st Annual Climate Leadership Award for Institutional Excellence in Climate Leadership. Award recipients were recognized at the 4th Annual American College & University Presidents’ Climate Commitment (ACUPCC) Summit in Denver, CO on October 12th.

Catalyzed by President, Sandy Pfeiffer’s signing of the ACUPCC in 2007, Warren Wilson College’s (WWC) sustainability progress has accelerated significantly in the areas of senior leadership, academics, and work and service.

Highlights of WWC’s climate leadership include but are not limited to the following actions:

Senior Leadership Engagement:

• PAC team formally adopts sustainable decision making
• President receives two grants for sustainability curriculum with 2011 focus on Energy
• Chief Sustainability Official leads 20 faculty, staff, and students to develop CAP
• Provost appoints faculty Director of Sustainability Education
• Human Resources director modifies staff evaluations to assess sustainability actions
• Facilities Director creates student Energy Services Crew, Strategic Energy Management Plan to support CAP
• CFO approves Funds to support CAP
• Trustees approve 5-year Strategic Plan with “Sustainability” as Core Value and CAP as action step
• Dean of Work guides new Land Use Plan that supports CAP; modifies student work evaluations to assess sustainability actions

Campus-wide Learning Experiences:

Delta College President, Jean Goodnow receivesSecond Nature’s 1st Annual Climate Leadership Award for Outstanding Individual Climate Leadership. Award recipients were recognized at the 4th AnnualAmerican College & University Presidents’ Climate Commitment Summit in Denver, CO on October 12th.

President Jean Goodnow has been making sustainability a strategic imperative by integrating it into Delta College’s (MI), educational, administrative, and operational activities. In 2007, President Goodnow signed the ACUPCC and convened a Sustainability Task Force. In 2008, she assembled a college-wide Green Summit during which sustainable concepts were introduced and input from the campus community was invited. As a result, Green Fridays, a four-day work-week, was piloted. Green Fridays has been established as a successful measure of carbon reduction and expanded each year.

Net Impact is an international nonprofit with a mission to inspire, educate, and equip individuals to use the power of business to create a more socially and environmentally sustainable world. They recently ran this inspirational story about Net Impact member - Clayton Snyder - championed the cause for the Monterey Institute of International Studies to complete their climate action plan for the ACUPCC - with a target of eliminating net greenhouse gas emissions by 2016.

"All this carbon neutrality work has been our [Net Impact] chapter’s biggest accomplishment,” Clayton says. “And personally, leading the project allowed me to manage sustainability policy for an organization. I never would have gained skills in GHG auditing or carbon planning without the Campus Greening role."

The impact of the energy efficiency, conservation, and behavior change efforts that will help MIIS achieve climate neutrality are important - but Clayton's experience, which he is now bringing to his professional career at EcoMedia, an organization that allows advertisers to support municipal environmental projects to make them feasible.  In the Net Impact article, Clayton goes on to encourage more students to take an active role in their campus's sustainability planning:

By Michelle Dyer,  Chief Operating Officer, Second Nature

(This article appears in the October, 2010 issue of The ACUPCC Implementer)

After the ACUPCC Climate Leadership Summit in Denver I will be stepping out of my role as Chief Operating Officer of Second Nature, to join Intersection Partners, a private equity investment firm that builds sustainable businesses, as Principal.  I joined Second Nature to support Tony Cortese and the Second Nature team through a time of significant growth and to build the organizational capacity to advance its mission.  With the excellent team now have in place, and the phenomenal success of the ACUPCC and the Advancing Green Building in Higher Education Initiative, the time has come for me to move forward.

This opportunity came quite unexpectedly as I was conducting early research into potential next steps in my career path.  I knew it would be rare to find an investment company with the supportive atmosphere and committed team I have enjoyed during my tenure at Second Nature, not to mention difficult to make a transition given the current state of the economy.  I was blessed to connect with my new partners, who understand sustainability deeply and feel a vocation to create meaningful, positive businesses.

By Georges Dyer, Vice President of Programs, Second Nature

(This article appears in the October, 2010 issue of The ACUPCC Implementer)

A core concept in the field of systems thinking is that in any system, “the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.”   The relationships between the components of a system are vital to understanding the system as a whole, and it is impossible to really understand a system by only studying its components in isolation from one another and in isolation from other systems.

This concept is illustrated through the ACUPCC network.  This group of over 670 colleges and universities with top-level commitments to promote education and research on climate and sustainability, and ‘walk the talk’ by pursuing climate neutrality in their operations is poised to have a great impact on humanity’s quest to break our fossil fuel addiction and preserve a safe, livable future.To date, 535 institutions have submitted greenhouse gas inventories and 320 have submitted climate action plans - all publicly available so students, faculty and staff can learn about where their institutions stand and what strategies other institutions are trying.  As the results of preliminary analysis of this data become available, some trends are emerging.

By Vanessa Santos, Advancing Green Building Intern, Second Nature

Last Tuesday evening at Old South Church in Boston, MA, you couldn’t turn around without seeing bright white signs that read “Put Solar on the White House!”

This is Bill McKibben’s clear and simple message. Mr. McKibben, with the support of 350.org, the students of Unity College, as well as many local and national environmental groups, has successfully brought this message from Maine to Boston, judging by the crowd of people that was present at the church to support the movement on September 7, 2010. The team then continued this ”Solar Road Trip” to disseminate this same message to New York City and eventually to Washington D.C. Hopefully this message will prompt President Obama to take action on 10/10/10, the day when organizations, politicians and people around the world will get to work to mitigate climate change.

Traveling with one of the very solar panels that President Carter put on the White House in 1979 (which Reagan removed during his presidency), Bill McKibben and some Unity College students made their first stop in Boston, as they rallied to get President Barack Obama to return this solar panel, and other donated solar panels, to the roof of the White House.