New Report Highlights Barriers to Sustainability and Ways to Get Around Them

The Rocky Mountain Institute has released a guidebook that outlines various efforts to reduce carbon emissions on campuses, and details some of the best practices. The report, “Accelerating Campus Climate Initiatives: Breaking Through Barriers,” is available free on the institute’s Web site.

As the title suggests, the report addresses various “perceived barriers” to progress on reducing emissions: “Campus leaders think energy management systems are prohibitively expensive” or “Most students pay little attention to campus climate initiatives,” to name a couple. Then the report offers advice on how to get around those barriers.

For example, the report mentions a common barrier concerning the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program: “The administration regards LEED certification as an unnecessary expense.” The report says sustainability advocates should argue that the LEED program is not a checklist, but rather encourages a better design process. Additionally, the report argues, how can college administrators know they are getting a high-performance building without the checks that come with LEED certification?

Interestingly, a photo of a LEED-gold student center at Colorado State University illustrates this section of the report. Administrators at the institution have been on the record in the past saying that LEED is an unnecessary expense.