Several factors have brought sustainability to the forefront on college campuses in recent years, including the former vice president Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, the American College & University Presidents Climate Commitment, and the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification process. The Climate Commitment and LEED are part of a larger set of environmental requirements we face in facility operations each day on the Hamilton College campus. Our success in implementing green and sustainable actions hinges on our integrating new ideas into our routine operations and on how well the facilities department can work with the campus community to understand the impact of our unified efforts.

In advance of Hamilton’s signing the Climate Commitment, the college reviewed its work on environmental programs and sustainable actions during the previous 10 years. We were surprised by the breadth of what we had already accomplished, most of it in individual changes, not as part of any broad, collective effort. A number of these changes came about because they were required by federal and state law. These include compliance programs for wastewater, storm water, boiler emissions, refrigerant recovery and inventory, solid waste and recycling, PCB’s, hazardous material and waste minimization, biomedical waste, pesticide minimization, and recycling programs for various waste streams (electronics, batteries, used oil, mercury, and fluorescent bulbs).

While it is may be easy to establish policy, it is harder to implement change and inculcate those changes within the daily routine. We have a long way to go. The challenges come from all directions, but two stand out — how to take accurate measurements to assess progress, and how to communicate effectively with the campus community about the importance of their support and feedback.

We have had some success with measurement, because all our buildings are metered. We are completing a system for tabulating the monthly data in a format that is useful for the campus community, but it will not provide immediate feedback to building occupants. In the past year, we have been working to provide real-time feedback with an energy dashboard designed by the Lucid Design Group. The dashboard provides a visual image of electrical use for 15 campus buildings, and it includes renewable-energy production from our wind turbine and two photovoltaic solar arrays. Hamilton’s student environmental group was able to hold a dorm-energy competition using the Dashboard system, further raising student awareness.

Recently, Hamilton’s facilities department began working directly with the residential advisers and individual students to manage temperature settings in the 29 residence halls on the campus. Because Hamilton has no central heating plant, each building has its own unique system and set of controls. Students have been responsive to working with facilities to report over- and under-heated areas, but the variety of systems tests our ability to explain to students how the systems operate. Having the occupants understand how their building operates provides them with more knowledge on how they can improve the efficiency of their living space. This educational endeavor will be our greatest opportunity to reduce energy use.

Education and feedback must be major priorities for the facilities department. This sustainable effort will mark our achievement as an organization. —Steve Bellona

Steve Bellona, the Buildings & Grounds January guest blogger, is Hamilton College’s associate vice president for facilities and planning. You can read his previous posts here and here.