Recent College sustainability initiatives have contributed to Hanover’s recognition as a “Green Power Community” by the Environmental Protection Agency, a designation that recognizes communities that draw between five to 10 percent of their energy from renewable sources.
Dartmouth’s purchase of $50,000 of green energy credits, which buy renewable energy, contributed to the award, associate vice president of facilities operations and management Frank Roberts said.
The credits will not change existing physical energy infrastructure at the College, he said. The College will fund 7.3 million kilowatt-hours of green energy production each year for the next five years, offsetting 10 percent of Dartmouth’s total energy usage.
Credits compensate green energy providers for the sustainability of their product, director of sustainability Rosi Kerr ’97 said. These credits, she said, are the only way to purchase renewable energy.
Other recent steps include replacing the Hopkins Center’s glass windows and swapping Leverone Fieldhouse’s light fixtures.
These initiatives are part of a $16 million grant from the College’s Board of Trustees to improve sustainability on campus, Roberts said. While each project has a different timeline, Roberts said nearly all capital expenditures become profitable after seven years, with the average being around five years.
The College has also focused on sustainable construction, Roberts said. The new Class of 1978 Life Sciences Center, completed in 2011, is a platinum-certified Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design building, the highest offered designation by the U.S. Green Building Council.
The building has three times the capacity of its predecessor, the Gilman Life Sciences Center, while using about one 10th as much energy, Roberts said.
Despite these initiatives, the College still faces several sustainability challenges, Kerr said. Overall, the College is “in the back half of the middle of the pack” of American colleges in terms of sustainability, she said.
In particular, the fuel the College uses to heat buildings, fuel oil No. 6, is especially unsustainable, Kerr said, as it has the highest emissions per energy unit of available fuel sources and is extracted in an unsustainable manner. Working to find other fuel options is a priority for the office of sustainability, she said.
Dartmouth has the highest emissions per student in the Ivy League, which she attributed to the burning of No. 6 fuel oil.
The College’s total oil consumption has decreased over the last nine years, Roberts said, from 125,000 barrels in 2005 to around 90,000 barrels this year. Despite this improvement, he said, the College will still likely be “regulated off” No. 6 fuel oil by 2018.
Facilities and grounds services director Gary Hill said waste management is another prong of College sustainability. Currently, the College diverts nearly half of its solid waste before it hits a landfill, Hill said.
Additionally, around 19 percent of solid waste goes to the zero-sort recycling program, he said.
By 2021, Hill hopes to increase the diversion rate to 70 percent, and the zero-sort rate to 40 percent. Some colleges have even higher targets, Hill said.
“Schools are trying for zero waste — now that’s hard to talk about,” he said.
Dartmouth could invest in local food and create sustainable guidelines for procurement and travel to further improve sustainability, Kerr said.
“Dartmouth students are thinkers that do — people that like to get their hands on problems,” she said. “We can leverage those strengths and our location to be at the forefront of sustainability.”
Across the Ivy League, other schools have taken different approaches to promoting sustainability. Yale University director of the office of sustainability Ginger Chapman said the university has been both “grabbing the low-hanging fruit” — switching to more energy-efficient lightbulbs — and undertaking longer-term projects.
Smaller projects, like changing lightbulbs, become profitable almost immediately, Chapman said. Switching to more efficient heating, ventilation and air-conditioning units — a medium-term project — becomes profitable after eight years, she said, noting that the typical HVAC unit lasts about 15 years.
Offices tasked with sustainability at Brown University, Columbia University and Princeton University could not be reached for comment on Thursday afternoon.
In contrast to Dartmouth’s relationship with Hanover, Chapman noted that Yale has been less successful in partnering with New Haven for sustainability.
“Hanover is a small town and has none of the economic woes we have here,” Chapman said. “There is a large urban poor population, and our city has a lot of financial problems.”
Both large and small-scale changes can create a deep impact at higher education institutions said Stephanie Herrera, executive director of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education.
“It is important for us to remember that all accomplishments in this area culminate in the overall reduction of the carbon footprint of America’s colleges and universities,” Herrera said. “This is what everyone in higher education wants and the world very much needs.”
Noah Cramer ’16, a member of the campus environmental group Divest Dartmouth, said that he was pleased with the changes, although he noted that there is more work to do. Divest Dartmouth works to remove the endowment’s current investments in fossil fuel companies with the largest reserves of fossil fuels.
He said he was pleased with the College’s inward-facing changes, like changing lightbulbs and windows, but noted that real environmental changes come from outward-facing initiatives, like divestment.
“When universities or religious groups, the guardians of public morality, take a stand against companies, it does a lot to damage political influence,” Cramer said.
