Eating fries from the Terrace Dining Room might not be good for your waistline, but it will soon be good for the environment. A newly purchased Vegawatt, a machine that will convert used cooking oil into electricity and hot water, is one of many new sustainability projects AU embraced recently to achieve carbon neutrality.
The Office of Sustainability announced in May it would have net zero carbon emissions by 2020 through balancing campus-wide emissions reduction and purchases of clean energy offsets.
AU adopted four strategies for the carbon neutrality plan, according to Director of Sustainability Chris O’Brien. These include:
- reducing consumption
- producing renewable energy on campus
- purchasing renewable energy
- supporting offsets for remaining emissions
AU purchased renewable energy credits from wind power for 100 percent of its electricity consumption, O’Brien said.
This move makes AU the sixth largest university supporter of renewable energy, according to the Environmental Protection Agency’s Green Power Partnership.
Campus buildings are currently under inspection to determine which are the most and least efficient and where efforts need to be focused. Age is a factor, but recent renovations will make it difficult to predict which buildings are most efficient, O’Brien said.
The Office of Sustainability has also begun researching options for supporting projects to offset carbon emissions for university travel. These could include projects in D.C. as well as at some study abroad destinations, O’Brien said.
Students can be directly involved in AU’s sustainability plans through the new Green Eagle program, which the Office of Sustainability is launching in collaboration with Housing and Dining Programs, Student Government, the Residence Hall Association and Eco-Sense.
Resident students will be hired as part-time workers by the Office of Sustainability to implement sustainability projects on campus and to teach their peers to do the same, according to O’Brien.
Green Eagles will also help promote the Campus Conversation National competition this fall and RecycleMania in the spring, he said. The competition will be a three week, nationwide residence hall electricity and water reduction challenge starting in November.
In addition, Eco-Sense plans to undertake projects like expanding the community garden in order to grow food for TDR within the next year, according to Eco-Sense President Jennifer Jones.
Jones said the club members will participate in tree plantings and park clean-ups as well as environmental advocacy opportunities in Congress.
The club is also planning discussions and activities related to environmental justice issues, such as mountain top removal coal mining and water privatization, Jones said.
ascalamogna@theeagleonline.com.
