Penn will produce, in September 2009, a Climate Action Plan to tackle campus sustainability – from academics to transit to energy to recycling (as this summary report shows). Next year, Penn will start implementing its plan for carbon neutrality, with a combination of improvements on campus and wind power purchases. The UA and the Penn Environmental Group will be there every step of the way, making sure that changes to campus are in line with student needs.

Check below the fold for more details about what Penn’s doing in sustainability.

Academics

• Courses involving sustainability have been flagged in the Penn Course Search tool for convenience.
• In conjunction with SCUE, the University is set to announce a Sustainability Minor for undergraduates.
• Ecology, Technology, and Design and Architecture and Ecology: Dimensions of Sustainability are new courses in Penn’s Design School, whose faculty includes William Braham, a global expert on sustainable architecture, and the PennPraxis project, which works directly with the City of Philadelphia on its new, state-of-the-art, pedestrian-friendly waterfront area.
• The Biosphere at Kings Court/English House is an active student experience designed to enhance the interaction of College House residents with their environments, especially in relation to food and nature.
• The Initiative for Environmental Studies houses programs and faculty in environmental research from a wide range of perspectives, focusing on: Environmental Policy; Environmental Engineering; Environmental Toxicology; and Earth, Ecology, and Ecosystems.
• Toward Environmental Sustainability on Penn’s Campus, an Ideas in Action course in Fall 2007 funded by the Provost’s Office, directly involved Penn students in creating reports to the administration on the best methods of advancing the University’s sustainability goals.

Energy

Penn has been a national leader in wind power purchasing:

· In 2001, Penn purchased 20 million kilowatt hours of wind-generated power per year for three years.

· In 2003, Penn extended its wind power purchase to a 10-year commitment, providing sustained funding that led to the construction of a new 12-turbine wind farm in Pennsylvania.

· On April 28, 2008, Penn purchased an additional 80,000 megawatt hours per year, bringing its total annual wind energy purchase to nearly 200,000 megawatt hours, which accounts for 46 percent of Penn’s total energy use.

· Penn has ranked consistently as one of the nation’s top 25 green-power purchasers since the EPA began ranking institutions in 2005.

Penn has also surged ahead in energy conservation:

· Penn saves more than $5-million annually in energy costs through state-of the-art central monitoring and control of utilities.

· Campus buildings are fed from a central chilled water loop completed in 2007 which freezes water at night when energy costs are low to provide cheaper and more sustainable air con.

· The University has commissioned the School of Design’s TC Chan Center to provide both a building-by-building campus energy model, and a comprehensive greenhouse gas inventory.

· Each fall, the Penn Environmental Group (PEG) offers replacement compact fluorescent bulbs to students for use in their on-campus residences. In 2007, over 1000 incandescent bulbs were replaced by students in their rooms and common spaces, resulting in significant energy savings.

Recycling

Penn is slowly but surely making recycling ubiquitous across campus, and more and more students, faculty, and staff are starting to recycle.

· Recently Penn rolled out a number of Big Belly recycling bins around the core of campus.

· In 2007, Penn diverted over 1600 tons of recovered materials from landfills – about 20 percent of the total campus waste including an average of 400 pounds of “no value” mail each month.

· Penn participates in RecyleMania each year, which helps focus campus wide attention around the issue of recycling.

· Penn is working on GreenIT Initiatives including recycling used computers (as well monitoring computer energy use). To learn more about how to dispose computers, click here.

· People living on campus can recycle their CFL lights and batteries by placing them into specially-labeled white buckets located at each House Info Center.

· Penn Dining has gone Tray Free in the dining halls in order to reduce food waste and the associated environmental footprint.

· Working with a local construction waste management company, Penn salvages valuable materials from construction project sites, including carpet scraps, metals, ceiling tile, and drywall. When demolition of older buildings is necessary, deconstruction procedures salvage light fixtures, railings, carved stone, and windows for reuse on campus or sale.

· 100 percent of the leaves from Penn are composted on campus – over 650 cu yards annually – and used in university gardens, planting beds, and fields, saving both the cost and energy to dispose of the leaves and to bring compost to Penn.