Really..... How Sustainable Is Our Campus?

For this blog assignment, I was told to consider and explain how I would assess how “green”, or sustainable, our campus is. In the process of assessing how sustainable Riverside City College is, I would specifically focus on the following factors:

1)   How much waste is created throughout the school monthly –specifically in the restrooms and cafeteria.

2)   How much grass and trees does the campus have, and how much water is given to them.

3)   How much energy is used throughout the campus.

4)   How active is the recycling program, if there is one.

5)   How frequent and available is public transportation.

6)   How do supplies and food get to the school, and are the characteristics of those supplies environmentally friendly.

7)   Is all the space on campus effectively used.

8)   Does the school operate via the web and electronics, or paper.

9)   Is there any type of solar energy used.

Considering these factors, other schools have already assessed their sustainability. After conducting some research, I discovered that Dickinson College had already heavily considered these assessments, and they even earned an overall “A” on their sustainability report card. http://www.greenreportcard.org/report-card-2011/schools/dickinson-college

     Which you can read more about after clicking the link above!

   In fact, Dickinson College got an “A” on every section of the sustainability test, meaning they were proactive in administration, climate change and energy, food and recycling, green building, student involvement, transportation, endowment transparency, investment priorities, and shareholder engagement. I found the most notable aspect of the colleges involvement in going “green” to be how involved everyone was with the program, meaning shareholders, students, and employees.

For the last part of this assignment, we were told to choose one of the factors we listed above, and devise a detailed assessment plan for it. For this portion of the assignment, I decided to pick Riverside City Colleges’ water use for grass and plants. To begin this assessment, I would most likely speak with a member of Riverside City Colleges Green Initiatives. More specifically, I would speak with Ray Maghroori, who is a part of the Green Committee’s district team, and who is also a provost and vice chancellor of educational services http://websites.rcc.edu/greeninitiatives/. After speaking with him, I would try to set up a meeting with the rest of the Green Initiatives members, from both the district team, and the Riverside City College team. During this meeting I would try to persuade them that the amount of water used is wasteful, and if observations were done to determine how much water is wasted on plants, it would be environmental beneficial for the school. After that, I would discuss with them various methods we could take to measure the water supply, and alternatives to water usage. We could contact an administrator, and research how much water is put out through our water systems each day for watering. We would then calculate these measurements for one month, to discover how much water is used on plants and grass per month, which obviously, there would be no labor. If the water output is unknown for every month, research on RCC’s watering system can be done to discover how much water the sprinklers put out per minute, then, after some math, we can roughly calculate the amount of water used. I could also get help accomplishing this through contacting Ralph Perez, the Director of Facilities Maintenance and Operations.

After discovering how much water is used (which wouldn’t require much permission to do), we could observe just how much water is actually needed to water and sustain the plants, trees, and grass that we have on campus.

Beyond The Assessment-

Eventually, we could even work towards making some areas of the campus having more less-maintenance features, such as cactus, or even rocks. Though this may not sound appealing at first, after water cutbacks occur, it may catch on!

Obviously, this is not an easy task, but it can be done with the volunteer work of various clubs and organizations at RCC. It is most definitely achievable!