From today’s b, the paper

At Goucher College, where students sip from cups made of cornstarch bioplastic and add to compost piles around campus, going green is less a slogan and more a part of daily life.

And Goucher is one of many Maryland schools to take a larger step to heal the environment. In July, Goucher signed the American College & University Presidents Climate Commitment, a nationwide program with a goal of carbon neutrality.

“Goucher definitely has an eye for issues of justice and sustainability, taking more of a general broad worldview,” said senior Lindsey Hendricks, a member of the Goucher Environmental Sustainability Advisory Council, created after the college signed the climate commitment. “Virtually everyone has interest in a standard environmental civic duty.”

Since signing the pact, Maryland colleges, including the entire University System of Maryland, have implemented programs including recycling initiatives and plans for green buildings. They all have agreed to meet several benchmarks.

They must immediately form an internal committee to plan two feasible environmental policies (some chose three, as Towson University did: green buildings, waste reduction and public transportation). After a year, schools must complete a greenhouse gas emissions inventory, and after two years, they set milestones to inch toward carbon neutrality.

The commitment is overseen by environmental nonprofit Second Nature, working with the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education.

GETTING STARTED
At the University of Maryland, College Park, initial steps include a recycling program for home football games and a goal of reducing system-wide energy consumption by 15 percent by 2020. The school signed the pact in May 2007 and recently completed its greenhouse gas inventory, the first in its history.

“We didn’t know that of the energy we buy and generate, about a third [of emissions] came from travel and commuting,” said the school’s director of sustainability, Scott Lupin, who singled out air travel.

Findings were similar at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, where, out of 12,000 students, just a third live on campus, while the rest, plus faculty, commute, said Lynne Schaefer, UMBC’s vice president of finance and administration.

Other Maryland schools mix smaller initiatives, such as bike trails, with larger undertakings such as making buildings LEED-certified, the national benchmark for “green building.” College Park last year opened a large green building at Shady Grove, and Goucher’s under-construction Atheneum is LEED-certified.

Smaller schools that signed the pact are doing their part on a sized-down scale, such as the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, which is outfitting labs with airtight windows to reduce energy emissions. Don Boesch, president of the center and the system’s vice chancellor for environmental sustainability, described the system’s game plan as targeting the “three P’s” — programs, practices and policies.

Boesch said students have played a big role in making sure PCC programs come to fruition. “[The student] role is pretty essential; they have a real passion for this,” he said. “This is their future, and they don’t let us forget that.”

KEEPING THEIR WORD
And there are organized ways students are not letting administrators forget.

The Maryland Student Climate Coalition, formed last year at first to encourage more schools to sign the commitment, now works to hold schools accountable for their agreement and mobilizes student-led environmental efforts.

As the coalition’s university field director, Towson junior Rachel Fauber tracks what different system schools are doing as part of the pact. The group hands out information on campus about environmental policies.

As part of national program Power Vote, the coalition is gathering 40,000 signatures in the state to contribute to a bloc of 1 million young people demanding the U.S. enact real solutions to global warming. Fauber said many students are unaware of the pact and what it means, and her group aims to “break it down” for students.

“We want to live in a future that’s sustainable that we can pass on to our children,” said Fauber, who plans to become a community organizer focusing on environmental issues.

Fauber has been an active advocate for the commitment but also a critic. Last week, Towson University’s student paper, The Towerlight, published an essay by Fauber questioning the school allowing hybrid car owners to purchase parking passes for half price.

Fauber wrote, “By rewarding the rich who can afford hybrid cars and punishing those who cannot, we are not moving forward to a clean energy future that we need for every community.”

Yet Fauber has been supportive of many of Towson’s “Go Green” policies, while still pushing for more during climate coalition presentations before the system’s Board of Regents.
Schools are on the right track with the pact, Fauber said.

But more can still be done.

“We really want to see the bigger initiative, like committing to buying 100 percent clean energy,” Fauber said. “We want strong policies that will actually change the infrastructure at our school.”

Jordan Bartel is assistant editor at b. E-mail him at jordan@bthesite.com

No — or yes with a caveat
Some Maryland schools haven’t signed the commitment or have added a caveat. Towson University President Bob Claret signed with a disclaimer.

In a statement, Claret said, “Towson University has pledged to perform the actions outlined in the climate commitment provided adequate funding is available, as funding for the academic mission will remain our top priority.”

Johns Hopkins University decided against signing the commitment, though last year President William R. Brody sent an e-mail to the college community about fighting climate change.

Dennis O’Shea, Hopkins’ public affairs executive director, said, “We felt it would be inappropriate to make a quantitative commitment before taking a very thorough look at our situation, and so a climate change task force has been at work since last year to do that investigation.”

The school has since implemented many green policies, including having part of its shuttle run on biodiesel and building a power plant on the Homewood campus.

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