As the academic year comes to an end, many of the yearly diagnostics regarding sustainability are becoming finalized. Many of these numbers, including the state of sustainability, the green house gas inventory, Recyclemania numbers, and the college energy report were presented to the Campus Sustainability Council.
Senior Lily Biggar, the Residential Life Intern for the Office of Sustainability, presented the results of Recyclemania, a nationwide competition in which many schools measure their rates of diverting waste from the landfill.
Although Colorado College continues to do well in relation to other colleges, some of the numbers regarding recycling and composting indicate a net decrease in recycling and composting rates. This year’s diversion rate was 44.8 percent, a very slight increase from 2013 (44.6 percent) but a significant decrease from 2014 (47.6 percent). CC ranked first in compost rates last year, but this year ranked fourth.
Another confusing element of the Recyclemania results is the discrepancy between the weeks that were measured. The diversion rates varied greatly from week to week, and some weeks that were likely to yield low waste like Spring Break, for example, yielded unexpectedly high rates. However, total rates of waste went down in 2016, which is a positive indication for the future.
“I think a big part of getting these numbers to be better in the future is figuring out what causes the variation between weeks,” said Biggar.
Senior Kendall Kultgen, the Office of Sustainability’ Sustainability Tracking, Assesment and Rating Systems (STARS) Intern, reported on the current state of sustainability according to the 2016 STARS report. Although there is some more work that must be done to ensure that the calculations for the STARS report are accurate, the current numbers indicate that CC placed in the Gold category this year. The highest rating, Platinum, is one level above Gold.
This rating can be attributed to several factors. More points were earned than last year in the areas of curriculum, public engagement, air and climate, buildings, energy, transportation and coordination, and planning and governance. There were decreases in the categories of campus engagement, dining services, waste, water, and investment.
“Although there was a decrease in investment this year, I think that one of the ways we can recover from this is through proxy voting,” said Kultgen. “There is now a document online that walks you through the steps to proxy voting.”
In addition to points in the normal categories, CC earned four points for innovation for a project that lists all of the volunteer hours logged, the net zero library design, and the Beer with the Chaplains initiative.
Senior Katy Dupree, the Office of Sustainability intern for greenhouse gas inventory, reported that Scope one numbers, which is everything CC owns and operates, decreased by seven percent this year. Scope two numbers, which include purchased electricity, decreased by two percent, and Scope three, which is emissions resulting from our campus’ presence, decreased by 43 percent.
Finally Campus Energy Manager Mark Ferguson presented on the year’s campus energy report.
“Energy cost and use indicated that trends are down for energy use,” said Ferguson. The avoided cost between using less energy and adding Renewable Energy Credits came to 3.4 million dollars.