The Sustainable University

Thursday, October 19, at 2 p.m., U.S. Eastern time

Anthony D. Cortese is a founder of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education and president of Second Nature, a nonprofit organization that works toward that goal. From 1989 to 1993 he was the first dean of environmental programs at Tufts University, where he founded the award-winning Tufts Environmental Literacy Institute and spearheaded the internationally acclaimed Talloires Declaration of University Leaders for a Sustainable Future, which was signed in 1990. Mr. Cortese holds bachelor's and master's degrees from Tufts University in civil and environmental engineering, and a doctorate of science in environmental health from the Harvard School of Public Health.

A transcript of the chat follows.

Richard Monastersky (Moderator):
    Welcome to The Chronicle's online chat with Dr. Tony Cortese, who will discuss sustainability in higher education. Dr. Cortese just returned from Brazil, where he spoke to 2,000 business leaders about the advantages of making business environmentally sustainable. Please send in your questions. And if you haven't already, take a look at our package of stories on sustainability. (http://chronicle.com/indepth/sustainable/)

Anthony D. Cortese:
    One of the best sources of information on sustainaility in higher education is through the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE). AASHE, which was launched in January 2006, has over 160 college and university members and has one of the richest set of databases on sustainability acitvities around. It also has a free weekly bulletin which the higher education community really likes. The next one is TOMORROW. Go to http://www.aashe.org/lists/lists.php and sign up. Also go to the Resource Center at www.aaske.org.

Question from Will Duggan, Better Days/US Partnership:
    I'd like this question from Dr. Cortese to be a topic of discussion, especially with regard to the impact such plans might have on the news media and other cultural influencers: "Does the institution have a comprehensive communication plan that not only celebrates what it is doing but also connects those activities with the social and economic health of its larger community?"

Anthony D. Cortese:
    Will raises a very important point here. Communication is to sustainability as location is to real estate. It is critical to making sustainability a foundation of learning and practice because sustainability requires constant and different conversations with all sectors of the campus that often doesn't occur - among students, faculty, senior acadmic administrators and business and operational leaders and stff.

Universities have done a lot in better master planning, energy and water conservation, renewable energy, "green" buildings and landscaping, “green purchasing”, better transportation that saves money, is safer, reduces congestion and environmental impact, new curricula, working with local communities, etc. However, universities are notoriously bad at communicating about the past and future efforts to the university and external community. This has important consequences. Students are at a university for 4-5 years. Unless they know the history of what has been done, they have no idea what the university has been done. For example, 99% pf the students and the rest of the people on campus can’t walk into a building and tell if it is a "green" building, nor do they know about the invisible things like a new energy efficient chiller or boiler or the purchase of renewable energy – unless they are told. I have visited 6 new LEED silver buildings on campuses in the last 6 months. Only one of them had information about the fact that it was sustainably designed and what that means to them and to the community. Two were freshman dorms!

Because universities are in the business of education of students, finding ongoing, continuous ways to celebrate and communicate about everything being done by anyone (administrators, business and operations staff, faculty students) that is moving toward sustainability is critical. It will build a stronger sense of community, foster more creative ideas and action, build a stronger more integrated community and identify lots of folks that are interested in and conducting sustainability programs.

My experience is that there are 4-5 times as many people interested and involved in sustainability efforts as the people who are trying to lead sustainability efforts know. They are often operating in isolation and have no idea how what they are doing connects with other efforts or how to connect with the right people to get support and synergy. Using every communication vehicle to students, the campus, alumni and the external community is critical to making sustainability a foundation of all learning and practice. It is also a way of building a better funding base with alumni, individual donors, foundations, etc. while attracting better students and faculty.

Universities need to think like marketers and advertisers – advertising works because it is always in our faces, wherever we go. If universities become the most sustainable model communities and don’t involve the students in making this happen and don’t communicate effectively, they lose 75% of the value of the actions. As you can see from recent articles in the news, many universities are distinguishing themselves from others (especially peer institutions) with marketing their sustainability programs to prospective students and the larger community.

Question from Jean, private college:
    How are sustainable universities marketing to potential students? Are there cost advantages for the universities adopting such a strategy? for the students attending such a college? Lastly, how are such principles integrated into the curriculum?

Anthony D. Cortese:
    Many colleges and universities market their environmental and sustainability efforts in a variety of vehicles they use for marketing from websites to catalogs to information on prosepective student tours. Many have regular articles in their alumni magazines and their communication vehicles on campuses. Most are not taking advantage of the opportunity to showcase what they are doing. There are many cost advantages to operating in sync with sustainability principles - these come from energy and water conservation, recycling, reducing dependence on fossil fuels, discouraging driving and promoting the use of public transportation, bicycling and walking. Go to the following website of The Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) which has the most comprehensive compilations on what colleges and universities are doing that advance sustainability (and often save large amounts of money) - http://www.aashe.org/resources/resource_center.php

Question from Kathy Cacciola, University of Virginia:
    Hi Tony, Can you comment on the pros and cons of establishing a centralized position (e.g. Sustainability Director or Coordinator) as opposed to relying upon a multi-stakeholder committee and/or infusion of sustainability initiatives into the goals and objectives of staff and faculty?

Hesitation about hiring a Sustainability Coordinator was expressed in regard to Muhlenberg College (see http://chronicle.com/free/v53/i09/09a01001.htm). I’ve also heard a similar hesitancy from a few other schools.

Thank you!

Anthony D. Cortese:
    This is a complex issue. I believe you need both a multistakeholder process and someone to both coordinate and advocate for keeping sustainability on everyone's radar screen . It is kind of like the old song about love and marriage that go together like a horse and carriage. The best model I have seen is at the University of Florida where the office of sustainability director reports up to the most senior officials in the university. The goal of any sustainability office or coordinator should be to institutionalize sustainability into every facet of the university and to put itself out of business, making sustainability the lens through which all teaching, research and practice are viewed.

Question from Anne Bedarf, UVA student:
    I completely disagree that sustainability is a little understood concept; it is intuitive. The question is how far out do you want to plan. What do you think an appropriate planning horizon should be?

Anthony D. Cortese:
    Sustainability is about meeting the needs of all people now and in the future which can only be done by restoring and sustaining the life support system on which we all depend. We will have to readjust sustainability goals to meet the needs of society. For example, if we don't initiate changes away from fossil fuel use in the next decade, we are likely to cause runaway changes in climate change that threaten civilization as we know it. We have to establish true indicators of sustainability and work towards them as quickly as possible. So the planning horizon is now as well as looking into the future.

Question from Richard Monastersky:
    For an institution that hasn't really started to address sustainability issues, what are the first steps it should take?

Anthony D. Cortese:
    Start with finding a like minded group of people across the students, faculty, administrators and operational staff who are interested in moving sustainability forward. Then do a quick survey to find as many people on campus interested in sustaiability - you will find 4-5 times as many as you initially think. Form a group of champions for the effort. These steps allow you to then begin a number of initiatives. The administration need to know that there is broad support across the campus before it will do something. Then do two things - check out what other universities are doing (see www.aashe.org) and pick one of two initiatives to show early successes. I can provide you with other info later.

Question from Stephen K. Boss, U. of Arkansas:
    To what degree do you think it will be possible to shift global energy consumption from the fossil carbon reservoir to the active carbon reservoir (e.g. rely on biofuels)?

Anthony D. Cortese:
    Necessity is the mother of invention. Global climate change, the disatrous dependence on foreign oil, rising energy costs and unstable energy supplies are combining to get a lot of people thinking about energy conservation (the most important strategy no matter the energy source), moving to renewable energy and redesigning cities and transportation systems. It won't be easy, but the trends are in the right direction. Despite being a small percentage of total energy,solar energy use is increasing 60% annually and wind energy 26%. This will be the most difficult economic transition in human history - I think we can do it because we must for our own good.

Question from Shana Weber, Princeton University:
    Hi Tony, Can you define what is meant by the term "carbon neutrality"? Where do you draw the boundaries of what carbon an institution is responsible for, in order to truthfully make that claim or set it as a goal?

Anthony D. Cortese:
    Carbon neutrality means having no net build up of carbon emissions in the biosphere. This means reducing the carbon footprint of an institution as well as offsetting carbon emissions by retaininag and expanding carbon sinks such as forests and soils. An institution is responsible for all the energy it uses in electricity, constructing, operating and heating and cooling buildings, tranportation to and from campuses of faculty, students, staff including air travel by an institutions emloyees. While it is difficult, it also should be looking at the embodied energy in products and services it uses as well as the food it buys and consumes. See www.cleanair-coolplanet.org for a carbon calculator that addresses many of these issues.

Richard Monastersky (Moderator):
    We're about halfway through our time with Dr. Cortese. So don't wait to submit your questions. Send them in now.

Question from Laura Hyatt, Rider University, NJ:
    Much of the talk about sustainability is related to infrastructure and spending. At long last, we're addressing what has been called the "hidden curriculum" -- messages our campuses send about priorities based on their structure and operations. Where's the cutting edge on the curriculum side of the equation?

Anthony D. Cortese:
    The cutting edge on curriculum is harder to assess because we don't yet have mechanisms in place to assess them. Many colleges and universities have envirionmental and degree programs (see the most recent at Arizona State U.) but fewer have made sustainability an integral part of the curriculum for all students - the only way that we can turn out sustainably literate graduates. See the work at Northern Arizona University, Emory University, Tufts University and also those of small liberal arts colleges such as College of the Atlantic, the members of the "Ecoleague", Berea college, Warren Wilson College and the faculty development programs conducted by Geoff Chase and Peggy Barlett through AASHE. See their book (go to the AASHE site) and the new book by Bill Timpson of Colorado State U entitled: "147 Practical Tips to Teaching Sustainability"

Question from Richard Monastersky:
    What kind of lessons have colleges learned when they have embarked on this process of becoming more sustainable? Are there common difficulties that they have had to overcome or mistakes that institutions tend to make?

Anthony D. Cortese:
    The biggest challenge is a mindset challenge. On the academic side, the control of the learning agenda by departments and disciplines make it difficult to do the kind of interdisciplinary, systemic teaching and learning to address ways to achieve sustianability in its healt, social, economic and ecological dimensions. On the administrative side it is the precoccupation with economic analysis that emphasizes short term and first costs over long term costs. It is also the challenge of externalizing real health, environmental and social costs. Another challenge is the unwillingness to try new things for a varitey of reasons. All that have made progress have broken down the mental and organizational barriers to one degree or another and have built multistakeholder teams to deal with sustainability challenges. They have also found ways to make sustainability a part of the mission and the vision of their institutions. They have been ablet to get peopl to see that creating a healthy, just and sustainable society is the mission of higher education - its social responsibility.

Question from Becki Walker, Dickinson College:
    Hi Anthony, Dickinson is pretty on-the-ball with sustainability, but our real problem is getting students to be more involved in our initiatives. How can we reach out to those students that just "don't get it" and seem to think sustainability isn't something they need to be concerned with?

Anthony D. Cortese:
    Good question. Connect them up with the 30 student groups that have joined Energy Action to create the CAmpus Climate Challenge to get 750 campuses to take action on reducing greenhouse gases over the next 3 years. That will allow then to connect up with their peers. Send them to www.campusclimatechallenge.org and www.aashe.org to see all the ways that student activism have benefited the learning, operations and the overall student experience at hundreds of campuses across the country. These sites allow students to see why and how students are mobilizing to protect their future. Help them see in their classes that in order to have much of what they want in life, they must pay attention to the sustainability of democracy, communities and the environment on which all life depends.

Question from Paxton Marshall, U. of Virginia:
    Your intro focuses on the greening of campus operations, but does not address incorporating sustainability as a central focus of the educational mission of a college or university. Have any institutions moved in this direction?

Anthony D. Cortese:
    Sorry for the misinterpretation. My belief is that sustainability must be the goal of EVERYTHING that colleges and universities do. The social responsibility of higher education is to create the knowledeg and graduates for a thriving and civil society. It means to me that sustainability must be the context and goal of all learning and practice - seemlessly woven throughout the entire educational experience. This includes everything in the classroom tied to the operation of the campus and work with the local communties to improve from a health, social, economic and ecological standpoint. My belief is that we need a transformation of all education and practice that is so integrated that students will not even recognize that they are learnin something new. That to me is what we need to strive for. We must teach students that continuing to create and unhealthy, inequitable and unsustainable society is not in their best interest of that of other humans and other species.

Question from John, Private College:
    Are considerations of sustainability for a small, 'tuition-driven' institution that is barely maintaining itself even worth considering, or is the perspective being presented here regarding sustainability more applicable to an more affluent institution?

Anthony D. Cortese:
    It is applicable to every institution. A lot of the sustainability challenges occur because we are wasteful in the use of people and resources. The potential for poor institutions to become more financially solvent through sustainability practices is huge because of avoiding the cost of waste, water and energy consumption and the possibility of attracting better students, faculty and staff to the institution. Many institutions have found ways to take saving s from these activities and out them back into means of taking the next and more high leverage steps. See www.aashe.org. See the EcoLeague and Warren Wilson College.

Question from Frank, small college:
    A sustainability coordinator in the Chronicle story said that sustainability wasn't about social issues. Why should sustainability efforts at colleges pay attention to social issues?

Anthony D. Cortese:
    Sustainability as we discuss it comes from the UN Commission on Environment and Development definition of sustainable development - meeting the needs of current generations without compromising meeting the needs of future generations. It is about meeting human needs now and in the future and in order to do that sustain the life support system. It is not just about protecting the environment. You can't have a stable society or protect the environment unless we have strong, secure and thriving communities, economic opportunity for all - not just the top 20% of the population. All four dimensions - health, social, economic and ecological - are needed to address sustainability. We don't have environmental problems, per se; we have negative environmental consequences of the way we have organized society from a political, social, economic and technological standpoint. Unless we find a way to meet people's basic needs and some of their wants (can't meet everyone's desires) we can never achieve environmental sustainability.

Question from Dan Garofalo, The University of Pennsylvania:
    Large research institutions are enormous cooperative ventures, with decision-makers distributed among schools and their deans, central administrators, long-term bureaucrats, trustees and powerful alumni, and so on. Any advice on communicating sustainability issues across these various constituencies?

Anthony D. Cortese:
    Great question, Dan. I think the most effective way to communicate about sustainability is to open dialog about what they currently do and what the goals of what thye do are. By trying to listen to what their goals are you can help them see the often invisible consequences of what they do and engage their help in thinking about and moving toward sustainability.

Richard Monastersky (Moderator):
    This ends our discussion with Dr. Anthony Cortese. I’d like to thank him and the people who sent in questions for the chat.

As a close, Dr. Cortese wanted to tell a little bit about himself and why he considers sustainability such an important issue for higher education.

Anthony D. Cortese:
    I am president of Second Nature, a nonprofit organization with a mission to catalyze a worldwide effort to make healthy, just, and environmentally sustainable action a foundation of all learning and practice in higher education. I am also the co-founder and Co-Coordinator of the newly formed Higher Education Associations’ Sustainability Consortium (www.heasc.org).

I am also a co-founder of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education and a co-founder and project manager for the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment initiative of AASHE - an initiative to get 200 college and university presidents to lead their campuses and society toward climate neutrality.

I was the first dean of environmental programs at Tufts University and spearheaded the award-winning Tufts Environmental Institute in 1989 and the internationally acclaimed Talloires Declaration of University Leaders for a Sustainable Future in 1990. I was formerly the Commissioner of the Massachusetts Dept. of Environmental Protection.

Following is why I do this work.

Higher Education has been granted a unique role by society. It has been granted tax-free status, the ability to receive public and private funds and academic freedom in exchange for educating students and producing the knowledge that will result in a thriving and civil society. Higher Education is facing its greatest challenge in living up to its responsibility because humanity is at a crossroads. For the first time in human history, humans are pervasive and dominant forces in the health and well being of the earth and its inhabitants. We are the first generation capable of determining the habitability of the planet for humans and other species. No part of the earth is unaffected by humans and the scale of our impact is huge and growing exponentially. (The Innuits in Alaska have the highest level of PCBs and DDT in their bodies in the world, despite being 1000 miles from any industrial activity.) Despite all the work we have done on environmental protection, all living systems are in long term decline and are declining at an increasing rate according to all international scientific, health and policy organizations. This is happening with 20% of the world’s population consuming 80% of the world’s resources. How will we cope in a world that will have 9 Billion people and that plans to increase GWP by 500% by 2050? This is an awesome ethical responsibility for us, especially in higher education.

What if higher education were to take a leadership role, as it did in the space race and the war on cancer, in preparing students and providing the information and knowledge to achieve a just and sustainable society? The education of all professionals would reflect a new approach to learning and practice. A college or university would operate as a fully integrated community that models social and biological sustainability itself and in its interdependence with the local, regional and global community. In many cases, we think of teaching, research, operations and relations with local communities as separate activities; they are not. All parts of the university are critical in helping to create transformative change in the individual and collective mindset. Everything that happens at a university and every impact, positive and negative, of university activities shape the knowledge, skills and values of the students. Future education must connect head, heart and hand. The educational experience of graduates must reflect an intimate connection among curriculum and (1) research; (2) understanding and reducing any negative ecological and social footprint of the institution; and, (3) working to improve local and regional communities so that they are healthier, more socially vibrant and stable, economically secure and environmentally sustainable.

A campus would "practice what it preaches" and make sustainability an integral part of operations, planning, facility design, purchasing and investments, and tie these efforts to the formal curriculum. The university is a microcosm of the larger community. Therefore, the manner in which it carries out its daily activities is an important demonstration of ways to achieve environmentally responsible living and to reinforce desired values and behaviors in the whole community. These activities provide unparalleled opportunities for teaching, research and learning. By focusing on itself, the university can engage students in understanding the "institutional metabolism" of materials, goods, services and transportation and the ecological and social footprint of all these activities. Students can be made aware of their "ecological address" and they can and would be actively engaged in the practice of environmentally sustainable living. It is widely known that for long-term retention of knowledge, we retain 80 percent of what we do and only 10-20 percent of what we hear or read. Moreover, this is one of the most effective strategies to build a strong sense of collaboration and community throughout the institution – a long-standing central goal for college and university administrators and trustees. Operations staff and the way in which the university operates are as important teachers as faculty.

Colleges and universities have an obligation to support local and regional communities, making every action lead to community improvement. Colleges and universities must change their view to see them selves OF the communities in which they are located not IN the communities. They must see the mutual interdependence with the communities. Higher education institutions are anchor institutions for economic development in most of their communities, especially now that the private sector moves facilities, capital and jobs frequently as mergers, acquisitions and globalization become the norm for corporations. The 4,100 higher education institutions in the United States are, themselves, large economic engines with annual operational budgets totalling $317 billion in 2003, according to the Chronicle for Higher Education. This is 2.8 % of US GDP and is greater than the GDP of all but twenty-five countries in the world. Imagine the economic leverage if universities were modeling sustainability by purchasing sustainably preferable products and services and how much greater the benefit could be if they were doing joint purchasing with local communities. Utilizing faculty and students to conduct the research as an integral part of the learning experience would greatly enhance their education and promote a strong sense of connection to and caring for the local communities and to the ecosystems of which they are a part.