Archives for Getting to Green

Regional AASHE Conferences

I am the Executive Director of a virtual “regional” AASHE affiliate (we are a member of AASHE) called the NJ Higher Education Partnership for Sustainability (NJHEPS). We have 47 NJ colleges and universities as members (many of which are also AASHE members) and we hold workshops on clean energy, green design, sustainable education, climate change management and sustainable purchasing (12 workshops last year!) for our member institutions. We also seem to attract attendees from PA, NY, CT and DE to our events, so we are in some way already doing what you suggest in terms of regional meetings. We also recently co-hosted with Princeton University in late October the Northeast Campus Sustainability Consortium (NECSC) 5th annual conference, entitled “the Sustainability Puzzle: Putting the Pieces Together, which attracted 150 attendees from Maine to Maryland (and even presentations from the University of Toronto and the National University of Singapore!). NECSC also has a monthly conference callto discuss best practices, besides the annual conference. So in many ways, higher education sustainability leaders in the Northeast are already filling in the space between the biannual AASHE conferences with meetings requiring less long-distance travel! regards,John Cusack, Executive Director, NJHEPS, & NECSC steering committee member

John L. Cusack, Executive Director at NJ Higher Education Partnership for Sustainability, at 9:05 am EST on November 18, 2008

Dinosaurs

Another dinosaur trait is our habit of driving with all our car windows up. At the peak of gas prices (and complaining about them) this year I spent time at street corners in Ann Arbor twice — counting cars go by with all their windows up.

Mind you, this was on a street with a speed limit of 35 mph (so no worries about windows down hurting high-speed streamlining of cars) and temps just high enough that driving with windows down was comfortable (to me) but windows closed would heat a car up enough to require air conditioning for comfort.

Results both times were more than 60 percent of drivers had all their windows closed. Which must mean that some of them are driving on a very nice day, at low speed, with the AC on — no doubt on their cell phones complaining about gas prices at the same time.

I wonder sometimes if we have raised a generation of people who are frightened of fresh air.

Terry Calhoun, SCUP, at 12:00 pm EST on December 2, 2008

green choices

This is a really good question, especially as a government entity trying to support better choices. We train people in industry and institutions to take a fresh look at what they are buying and using, understand the use (even diagram this), and consider alternatives from a safety, energy and performance angle. Product life cycle assessments are good if you have access to them, but they are expensive to undertake from scratch. To help, we have undertaken alternatives assessment studies for certain problem chemicals and certain uses, and we have a performance testing service. Basically, I think we all need to train our staff and our children to be more discriminating in today’s world. Employers also need to value this knowledge in hiring new staff.

Janet Clark, Toxics Use Reduction Institute, at 10:10 am EST on December 10, 2008