Scott Boylston, Professor of Graphic Design, has created a pretty comprehensive outline of the steps necessary to make SCAD a more sustainable campus. While I have been lingering on my pet ideas for the last two posts, it’s time to get down to business. Scott recommends a series of incremental steps to get us where we need to go. Like all good plans, it begins not with a series of random moves, but rather the laying of some important foundations.
STEP ONE
Join American College & University Presidents Climate commitment (ACUPCC)
Within 1 year — complete a comprehensive Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory
Within 2 years — develop an institutional action plan for becoming climate neutral
— initiate 2 or more of the tangible actions recommended by ACUPCC
Institute action plan according to our own goals and objectives.
While there are any number of things we could do now to make SCAD more sustainable, a careful analysis will be necessary to determine which of the myriad things we could do, we should do. Once we determine what our level of emissions is, we will then need to determine the primary causes, the corrective actions we can take, and the strategy to get them accomplished.
Joining the American College & University Presidents Climate Commitment sounds easy enough. I am not sure if we have already done this, but I’ll look into it. Doing a Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory sounds trickier as there is a lot of data to gather and I am not quite sure where to access it off hand. However, that is a question that can probably be answered easily enough once we have the right heads together. It may sound a little bureaucratic to some out there on the green scene who might think we should just take action now, but in order to get all the vested parties on board, we have to plan something that is actually manageable and affordable. A little analysis will go a long toward identifying the most cost-effective way to achieve the council’s goals.
Entries (RSS)