Vermont Campus Sustainability Network

Button Up Vermont is an educational workshop designed to help Vermont homeowners understand the steps they can take to make their homes more energy efficient and comfortable.

Justice and Climate Change Conference

Vermont Interfaith Power and Light presents a Justice and Climate Change Conference at the Vermont Law School on November 6.

Join with members of faith communities and others from across the state to address impacts of global climate change. Learn what we can do individually and as congregations to adapt and help the most vulnerable.

Next VCSN Meeting

January 10, 2012
Vermont Law school
South Royalton, VT

For more information email Tarah Rowse.

A CAMPUS FEATURED: Middlebury Places 4th In Solar Decathlon

(Article adapted with permission from the Middlebury College Communication's Office Press Release)

Middlebury College’s Solar Decathlon team triumphantly climbed the stage a number of times at the Department of Energy’s 2011 Solar Decathlon competition on Saturday, Oct. 1. Middlebury placed first in three categories: communications, home entertainment, and market appeal.  These victories vaulted them to fourth place in the final standings. The three first place finishes moved them past competitors Ohio State and Caltech, and put them just a few points behind third-place finisher Team New Zealand, from Victoria University in Wellington. The winning team was the University of Maryland, and the runner-up was Purdue University.

The Middlebury home, named "Self-Reliance", showcased the best of New England farmhouse architecture designed with a holistic approach. “Self-Reliance left the jury very impressed, eclipsing our expectations across the board in livability and marketability,” said Brad Beeson, market appeal juror. “Middlebury College defined its market carefully—a young family of four with a modest income for the region—and demonstrated the fit for that target market with a very compelling video.”

After the competition the team disassembled Self-Reliance to have it trucked back to campus, where the building will serve as student housing and an environmental outreach center.

Katie Romanov, team communications lead,  summarized the experience well saying, "It was incredible sharing our home with more than 15,000 visitors on the National Mall. Now it's time to bring the house home, where it will continue to be an educational tool that demonstrates the livability and affordability of solar-powered homes."

Read the full article here.

Green Revolving Loan Funds

Richard Donnelly from Efficiency Vermont attended the fall meeting and spoke about green revolving loan funds. Efficiency Vermont provides technical assistance, rebates, and other financial incentives to help Vermont households and businesses reduce their energy costs with energy-efficient equipment, lighting, and approaches to construction and major renovation. Many institutions of higher education, both in Vermont and around the country, are confronted by the challenge of how to finance capital-intensive energy efficiency projects at a time when they are caught between steep budget cuts and rising energy costs. Efficiency Vermont writes, “due to the ‘silo’ approach to budgetary allocations, energy efficiency projects are less likely to receive a funding allocation than specific departments, sports programs, or research facilities.”          

Richard informed the group that green revolving funds classify energy projects as investments, rather than as expenses in the operating budget. By categorizing these upgrades as investments, institutions can capture the recurring monthly savings. This approach enables the initial funding to revolve (hence the name), while simultaneously winning institutional recognition for strong investment performance.

On October 4, Efficiency Vermont along with the Sustainable Endowments Institute held a symposium on “Innovative Investments in Energy Efficiency: Exploring Green Revolving Funds for Vermont Institutions of Higher Education.” The presidents of all Vermont colleges and universities were invited to join with the goal of improving understanding of the unique role green revolving funds can play, and to help explore how each institution might form its own fund. Three Vermont colleges joined with 29 other leading institutions to launch the Billion Dollar Green Challenge. Middlebury College, Green Mountain College and Burlington College have pledged to be part of a $1 billion investment in self-managed revolving funds to finance energy efficiency upgrades on campuses.

- Leigh Corrigan

For more information visit: http://www.efficiencyvermont.com/for_my_business/solutions_for_me/colleges_and_universities/general_info/overview.aspx

Or check out the Times Argus article: "VT Colleges join green challenge"

Bennington Tour Highlights

The Vermont Campus Sustainability Network (VCSN) meets twice a year to facilitate networking and communication amongst sustainability practitioners from Vermont’s institutions of higher education. This fall’s meeting was hosted by Bennington College in southern Vermont and had representatives attending from Middlebury College, Goddard College, Green Mountain College, Champlain College, Marlboro College, Bennington College, and the Universty of Vermont. The newly renovated Cricket Hill Conference Room served as the ideal location for the full day meeting.

VCSN had the privilege to tour Bennington’s state of the art CAPA building. CAPA stands for the Center for the Advancement of Public Action. It consists of three interconnected buildings differing in function from five-star residential accommodations to student lounges with oversized plush chairs. The building’s exterior was entirely covered in marble. Our tour guide, Holly Anderson, informed us that the marble was originally quarried in Rutland and sent to Washington, DC to be used in various projects. The marble was then reclaimed and collected from the project waste and shipped back to Bennington to be used for the CAPA exterior. In addition to the residential accommodations and student lounges, the building had two design labs or teaching spaces. These rooms were non-directional, allowing any direction for teaching and discussion. All the lighting was LED or CFL and a modern, natural design approach was felt throughout the building. The building also utilizes a zero-emissions geothermal heating and cooling system.

“As citizens of this democracy, you are the rulers and the ruled, the law-givers and the law-abiding, the beginning and the end.”

~ The Adlai Stevenson quote in the CAPA Courtyard

A favorite part of the tour was Bennington’s two year old student garden. Led by the garden’s two student interns, Bryan Markhart and Sofie Sherman-Burton, we viewed the three 30 ft x 30 ft plots that were once the homes of beets, radish, carrots, and currently, butternut squash. The butternut squash was purchased at market price by the Champlain dining services to serve at the upcoming Harvest Dinner during Parent’s weekend. Bryan and Sofie spoke of their involvement with the Dream Program, which involves students pairing with children of low-income housing and teaching them the ways of ecologically friendly gardening.

- Leigh Corrigan

Select Campus Sustainability Updates

VCSN is a platform for stimulating an inclusive dialogue on sustainability efforts within the state. Most attendees of this fall’s meeting listed the campus updates and the discussions that followed as their favorite part of the meeting. Here is a brief recollection of those updates starting with VCSN’s newest member, Marlboro College.

Matt Ollis explained to the group that Marlboro was conducting a thermal energy audit of 44 of its buildings on campus, as well as, a recent expansion of their Student Life. Matt noted that his personal objective is to begin incorporating math into campus sustainability. (He is a math professor after all!). Christina Erickson of Champlain College announced that their Perry Hall has been awarded the prestigious LEED platinum certification, which includes energy-efficient climate control systems, including geothermal pumps using water from adjacent wells. In addition, Champlain is also launching their very own Eco Reps program. Green Mountain College’s Sustainability Coordinator, Amber Garrard, spoke of their recent declaration of climate neutrality. GMC became the second climate neutral campus in the nation and the first to achieve it through a combination of efficiency, large-scale adoption of clean energy, and purchase of local carbon offsets as of May 2011. This year they are focusing on waste management and the idea of social sustainability.

Katherine Cole of Goddard College discussed the installation of energy efficient windows in their dormitories, a biomass heating system, and the concerns of the local community surrounding it. Katherine also mentioned Goddard’s garden, which produces food for their kitchen as well as sells the compost at a reduced rate to staff. Sustainability Communication and Outreach Coordinator of Middlebury College, Clare Crosby, expressed Middlebury’s interest in green revolving loans and their team competing in the Solar Decathlon in Washington, DC. The University of Vermont spoke of their upcoming deadline for electricity climate neutrality (2015) and their Clean Energy Fund’s feasibility study of renewable energy.

Last but certainly not least, the meeting host Bennington College. Valerie Imbruce reported that Bennington has completed their climate action plan and is ready to sign on to the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment (ACUPCC). Bennington will be joining VCSN members and ACUPCC signatories Castleton State College, Goddard College, Green Mountain College, Middlebury College, and the University of Vermont. Challenges were shared, questions were raised, and advice was given. The campus update portion of these meetings is a vital component to the Vermont Campus Sustainability Network.

- Leigh Corrigan

Smart Grid

After a delicious lunch provided by Efficiency Vermont, we were joined by Allen Stamp of VELCO and Ethan Goldman of VEIC via conference call to discuss smart grid technology. They explained that smart grid is an upgraded electric system that uses fiber optic cable and digital technology to relay information back and forth between the customer and the utility, and between the utility and various components of the electric grid. When fully operational, the smart grid will provide a more reliable electric system, with the ability to incorporate renewable energy sources, and to offer customers tools to manage their electric use. We viewed an information-packed PowerPoint presentation, which detailed all the nuts and bolts behind this emerging science. Some of the elements that makeup smart grid include advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) called “smart meters.” These AMIs provide frequent basis of data through fiber optics back to a customer’s home or business and even have the ability to communicate to the appliances in your house!

Ethan stressed, “What is important is how the smart grid can enable new opportunities and the technologies that will benefit consumers. The ‘applications’ are better.” Efficiency Vermont’s focus is on developing smart grid enabled opportunities that will empower consumers to better understand and manage their energy use and costs. Potential benefits from smart grid include increased efficiency activity, behavioral savings, analysis tools for electric usage data, and future innovation such as less expensive measuring technology. Vermont utilities received a $69 million federal grant through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to help build smart grid infrastructure that will extend to most of Vermont over the next three years.

- Leigh Corrigan

Want to learn more about smart grid implementation in Vermont? Check out the Vermont-Sandia Partnership site at http://www.uvm.edu/~vtsandia/ for additional information on short courses and resources.

Newsletter Contributions

Do you have an exciting sustainability effort going on at your campus?  Want to get the word out in the next newsletter? Or are you interested in starting the conversation on an important campus sustainability topic?

Share your campus stories by emailing admin@vtgreencampus.org.