Reports from summer research projects have served as reality checks for The Claremont Colleges community.

At the Sustainability Presentations Day this summer, Acting Dean of Faculty Robert Cave remarked, “Questions of energy, conservation and self limitation are entering the public conversation for the first time. That’s scary for us in the West because we are gluttons for energy. We believe that the environment is there to provide us a certain standard of living that it probably can’t sustain. It’s scary, but it’s good, because this is reality.”

At presentations during the summer and in the fall, students described the challenges they found and how they believe the colleges can move toward a more sustainable existence.

Summer presenters reported findings from three initiatives funded by the Council of Presidents and the Academic Deans Council. The deans and presidents sought teams that could design and implement new ideas and approaches for advancing environmental sustainability on the Claremont campuses. Brian Hilton, professor of information systems and technology at Claremont Graduate University (CGU), coordinated the benefits of a tree planting program. Rick Hazlett, professor of geology and director of the Environmental Analysis Program at Pomona College, led a study that examined the consumption and waste produced by faculty and staff at The Claremont Colleges. Both projects included teams of students and staff.

The third project, “Sustainability audits on the Claremont campuses,” was coordinated by Richard Haskell, professor of physics at HMC. A multidisciplinary team of faculty, students and staff from HMC, Pomona, Scripps, Joint Science and CUC worked on auditing each of the five undergraduate campuses, with a special focus on the performance of representative buildings, including electrical power consumption and natural gas use. The data collected will enable the evaluation of the “carbon footprint” for the colleges’ facilities and physical plants, so as to provide a basis for setting goals and measuring progress toward a reduced carbon footprint.

Haskell said he has watched interest in sustainability issues explode at the 5-Cs. Scripps had a well-attended speaker series “The End of Oil” last fall; two student groups formed and began working together on the HMC campus (MOSS and Engineers for a Sustainable World; see their article on page 20); and students from Scripps, Pomona, HMC and CMC studied local and global water usage.

“I began to realize what this was all about,” said Haskell. “This is an issue that is compelling, globally, nationally and locally, but also an issue that is perfect for the mission of HMC and the other Claremont Colleges. All of the student activity is pushing the faculty, but, at the same time, faculty have been organized for some time around these issues. Yet, it hasn’t been a fully organized movement until now.”

The sustainability audit first received funding last spring from HMC’s Center for Environmental Studies, then more students were able to participate with additional funds from the Mellon Environmental Research Fellows Program, from the HMC Shanahan Fund and, most recently, from the Council of Presidents Sustainability Initiative. “The Council of President’s Award was truly significant in the gesture it made,” said Haskell. “It put out a message that this is something that transcended individual college boundaries and it led to strong collaborations of our work this summer.

“It’s very clear that if individual campuses insist upon reinventing the wheel for all of the issues we’re addressing, it’s going to slow progress enormously,” Haskell continued. “This is something that can really unite us in a way we may not have been united in the past. We’re very encouraged and excited about this prospect.”

Research Insights

HMC could increase its electricity efficiency by 30 percent if T12 magnetic ballast lights were replaced with new T8 ballasts. About one-half of the Libra complex still uses magnetic ballasts. (Electrical Power Consumption team: Annika Eberle ’09, Trevin Murakami ’09, Eric Peterson ’09, Naomi Bagdonas CMC ’09, Sam Brunswick CMC ’07.

51,000 square feet of HMC’s landscape has been converted to drought tolerant landscaping since 2001. Another 69,000 sf will be converted, according to the college master plan. The green belt through the center of campus and the Linde field will remain. (Water and Landscaping team: Herbie Huff ’07, Trevin Murakami, Corina Tom ’08)

Even though Sontag Residence Hall is a LEED-certified building, it uses one and a half times more electricity than Linde Residence Hall. The team remarked that the individual HVAC units in Sontag give more control to individuals, and, therefore, may have resulted in the higher usage. (Building Performance team: Lauryn Baranowski ’09. Claire O’Hanlon '08, Eric Peterson ’09)

Each year, HMC produces 400 tons of waste and 50 tons of recyclable waste. (Emissions team: Kelley Hodges ’06, Claire O’Hanlon, Corina Tom)

Team Recommendations and Goals for HMC

• Decrease water usage by 40% by 2020 so that only local sources need to be utilized.
• Decrease electricity usage by 25% by 2012
• Increase recycling to 50% by volume of the waste stream by 2012
• Institute conservation, improve heating systems, and use solar water heating to reduce our consumption of natural gas by 20 percent by 2020
• Generate 10 percent of our electricity from renewable energy sources by 2020
• Install real-time metering for individual campus buildings
• Increase use of recycled and recyclable materials
• Upgrade lighting and HVAC equipment
• Increase community awareness
• Encourage other consortium members to invest in a Rainbird system (HMC, Scripps and Pomona have them) and share the existing weather stations (HMC and Pomona have them)
• Expand composting program throughout consortium (Pomona and Pitzer have one)
• Accelerate and expand HMC’s move to drought-tolerant landscaping and encourage all Claremont College campuses to follow suit

For more information on the sustainability study and the other studies funded by the Council of Presidents’ grant, see www.sustainability.claremont.edu.