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Sandie Allen
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Demand — and costs — for environmentally friendly college campuses is up
By Jackie Noblett, Special to Mass High Tech
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Faced with shrinking endowments and an increasingly competitive enrollment environment, colleges and universities are leaning heavily on investments made in energy efficiency and sustainable practices to cut operational costs while attracting environmentally conscious students and alumni supporters.
Higher education traditionally is a leader in green, and New England campuses are no exception. More than 90 public and private institutions in the region signed on to the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment, which commits schools to setting out and executing an action plan to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. Yet the Great Recession of 2009 surprised many college administrators with its double-whammy of steep investment losses and pressure on enrollment, causing many schools to put the brakes on infrastructure investments. But administrators now say they will continue to press forward with green initiatives for the long-term economic and cultural benefits.
“In many ways, corporations and universities sort of have the financial flexibility to make investments in sustainability. We made the commitment to be greener and more efficient because we take climate change and sustainability seriously,” said John Bassett, president of Clark University in Worcester. The university’s goal is to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent by 2015, with deeper cuts by 2030.
One of the most obvious benefits to tackling sustainability, particularly energy efficiency, on campus is financial. With their large real estate footprint, including power-hungry dormitories and scientific labs, colleges and universities in general spend a greater percentage of their operating budget on energy than commercial building owners — reportedly upwards of $150 million in the case of large research universities.
“The needs are acute: old buildings, old infrastructure and customers — students and alumni — that want to see schools take steps to reduce their carbon footprint because it’s a part of their social consciousness,” said Tim Healy, chief executive of Boston energy management firm EnerNOC Inc. “You put $5 (million), $6 million back in the budget, you’re talking a number of jobs, a number of programs that can be saved.”
EnerNOC’s approach to serving schools, with demand-response programs that help schools make money by offering energy-efficiency monitoring services and technology to reduce power consumption, appeals to environmental consciousness as well as the need for a return on investment. The company says it saved one of its first customers, Western Connecticut State University in Danbury, some $322,000 in two years through its energy-efficiency monitoring program as well as providing $100,000 a year in demand-response payments.
Yet the ravaging nature of the recession, particularly its effect on college endowments, has scared some schools away from investments like energy-efficiency monitoring systems.
“Absolutely, the economy has impacted the business. If you have no money at all, you’re not going to spend money on efficiency. But from a purely economic perspective, there really is a lot of motivation to go ahead with these things anyway,” said Jim Lee, chief executive of Cimetrics Inc., a Boston company that provides energy-management consulting and software to universities such as the University of Maine, Harvard and MIT.
Part of the difficulty in implementing efficiency measures is the age of many academic buildings and the deferred maintenance of those facilities. “Why does that maintenance backlog exist? It’s because the facilities people haven’t been able to articulate a value proposition to the financial officers,” Lee said.
At Worcester Polytechnic Institute, the varied ages and needs of its buildings persuaded chief engineer William Grudzinski to push for a comprehensive audit of the entire campus, from small satellite buildings to dining facilities. The goal is to find areas where the school could cut back on energy, water and waste, and then incorporate renewable energy in its facilities. “We’re anxiously awaiting that survey now and will see what our next steps can be,” Grudzinski said.
The building efficiency side, however, is only one piece of the green campus puzzle. Many school administrators are placing equal focus on incorporating sustainability into course curricula, extracurricular activities and overall campus lifestyle. Babson College, for example, has joined forces with neighboring Olin College of Engineering and Wellesley College to develop an inter-campus sustainability program.
“The interest in what goes on in the classroom and what goes on inside the buildings is the same,” said Babson President Leonard Schlesinger. “We have a large number of students who are very interested in these issues and see green jobs as an area of real growth.”
Babson’s efforts in green entrepreneurship are already paying off. James Poss, inventor of a solar-powered trash can that became the core of BigBelly Solar Inc. of Needham, is a Babson MBA graduate and adjunct professor, and Schlesinger is advising the prototype development of an early-stage cleantech company.
Service providers, too, are looking to capitalize on the holistic approach to campus sustainability with both energy management and green program consulting services. Rob Pratt, former director of the Massachusetts Renewable Energy Trust and founder of higher education green consulting firm EnergyClimate Solutions Inc., said programs — from awareness days to green competitions — energize the student body, “adding the cool factor,” as well as persuade administrators to move forward with infrastructure projects.
“Energy is not a president’s issue, but climate and green is,” Pratt said.
Administrators also see benefit in sustainable practices as a way to enhance a school’s image as forward thinking and attentive to the values of its students. But don’t call it greenwashing; many would much rather collaborate on green practices than compete.
“You hope maybe at some point it doesn’t matter, but we market ourselves in terms of our culture and values. And yes, we want students to think of Clark as one of the greenest campuses,” Basset said. “But it will be a lot more effective if it’s not just Clark University doing it.”
Jackie Noblett is a freelance writer in New York.
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