University named nation’s greenest campus

After nearly six months of sustainability-themed events, petitions and student activism, the university won the title of America’s Greenest Campus for its high level of student commitment to the environment yesterday.

Winning the contest, which began in April and was funded in part by grants from the U.S. Department of Energy, will bring the university $5,000 for sustainability initiatives. The university was given the top spot for getting the most students to sign up on the Internet and pledge to reduce their carbon footprint— 2,257 — along with Rio Salado College in Tempe, Ariz., which won for having the largest carbon reduction per person signed up . But event organizers said there is no way to determine whether student pledgers followed through, making the contest more about good intentions than concrete practices.

Nonetheless, student leaders said the award can only help further the campus’s green initiatives.

“I think this win provides great publicity for the green movement on campus,” Brady Cunningham, a member of the Student Sustainability Committee, which advises the Student Government Association on sustainability matters, wrote in an e-mail.

Joanna Calabrese, chair of the committee  and the campus coordinator for the effort, said she wanted to enter the university because of sustainability efforts during the past few years and how much student activism has accomplished so far.

“Everyone knows competitions are an incentive to get involved so I thought it was an awesome way to bring it to our issue,” Calabrese said. “A lot of students ask, ‘What can I do to get involved?’ and they always say if they knew what to do they would do it, and this is a good example because it’s interactive.”

More than 470 schools were in the contest, which was judged by Climate Culture — an interactive website that hosted the contest and educates people about how to reduce their carbon footprint. Winners were selected based on the amount of student participation and how much they reduced their carbon footprint. Students would sign up online, and the website would measure their carbon footprint based on their reported daily habits.

Students would then sign pledges to change certain behaviors and reduce their carbon footprint.

“They create it so any student could find their niche and recognize their behavior, for example if you live on fourth floor and take stairs rather than elevator,” Calabrese said. “It lets you input your current lifestyle, and you commit to things and the website follows up to see if you follow up.”

Both Climate Culture and the SCC recognized, however, that student accountability was an issue in the contest, as they could not verify if students’ pledges were kept.

Paul DiPaolo, a committee member who also helped coordinate the effort, said he thought about half of the students who signed up kept their pledges.

“That was definitely an issue and it might have been a fault in the company,” DiPaolo said.
According to an interview with The New York Times’ blog, Green Inc., Climate Culture and SmartPower — an energy marketing nonprofit that partnered with Climate Culture on the project — said they hope they will be able to monitor the energy bills of schools to make sure they are keeping up with their promises next year.

Committee members haven’t yet decided on what to do with the $5,000 prize money.

cetrone at umdbk dot com