Environmental Task force focuses on Sustainability

The Environmental Task Force is in the process of making broad sustainability efforts on all three Olympic College campuses in order to comply with the commitment made by OC President Dr. David Mitchell with the signing of the American College & University Presidents Climate Commitment. According to the ACUPCC Web site, the President's Climate Commitment is a high-visibility effort to address global warming by garnering institutional commitments to neutralize greenhouse gas emissions, and to accelerate the research and educational efforts of higher education institutions to equip society to re-stabilize the earth's climate. The commitment, which was signed December 2006, requires that immediate steps are taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, completing an emissions inventory, integration of sustainability into the curriculum, and setting a target date for becoming climate neutral and making that plan available to the public within two years from the date it was signed. According to OC Shelton Director Dr. Kim McNamara, the task force formed once Mitchell signed the commitment. They put a call out to faculty and staff for any volunteers who had a passion for this topic, and quickly found a group of faculty that were interested. She said some of the faculty and staff were already working towards eliminating toxins in the cleaning solutions and landscaping, and had an interest in recycling. As for the community, McNamara said the college is already doing earth week and lots of community groups and individuals are coming to the college to work with students to gain support. "It's a hot topic, an exciting topic, so the college is kind of a natural place for people to come and have a conversation and work together and collaborate," said McNamara. She said the task force was trying to deal with curriculum issues, climate issues, and earth week as well as with the explosion of sustainability initiatives all over campus. She said they realized the structure wasn't very supportive of the broad campus effort. A meeting was held on Monday to discuss possible changes to the name and function of the task force. She said the idea is to change the name to Sustainability Advisory Committee, which will then have individual task forces working towards the goal of this committee. These task forces will consist of: Sustainable Curriculum Task Force; Operations Task Force; Public/Community Engagement Task Force and Student Engagement Task Force. McNamara, who just finished her dissertation in how to foster sustainability on college campuses, said with something as big as this, no one can really lead or control it, so she refers to herself as a convener. "What you hope to do is foster an environment that supports all of these efforts and communicates," said McNamara. The college has to make decisions about resources, purchasing, and communication, and our job is to help bring those initiatives to the college for support." She said the energy audit was completed on Sept. 15, which puts them in compliance with the commitment. This quarter, the task force will focus on reviewing the energy audit report, and developing a plan and timeline for the college to become sustainable. According to McNamara the Shelton Campus is acting as a pilot-project campus. The Public Utilities District has the funding to do solar education projects and offered to install a solar energy generating capacity on campus with the promise that it will be used as an education center. She said, in time, she hopes the campus will be able to generate most of the energy it needs to run their own operations and possibly give back to the grid. On the 4th Monday of every month, from 3:00-4:30 p.m., the task force holds open meetings to discuss topics. Chef Chris Plemmons said that in a meeting this summer they discussed recycling on campus and its relation to food service. "We are the largest user of recycling products on campus anywhere, when you think about the boxes, cans, bottles, plastics, we are the number one users of those products," said Plemmons, "so we are trying to set the whole thing straight. If we can do it, hopefully we can get other people to do it." According to Plemmons, another sustainability effort this quarter will be creating a reading list for books on sustainability, and adding them to the OC bookstore. "We hope to create a book circle for people to read and discuss ideas about sustainability, raising the consciousness of the faculty and staff and students," said OC Professor Sterne McMullen. He said the books will be available at low or reasonable costs, so that people can afford to buy them. "There is the issue of educating ourselves to become more knowledgeable about the issues of environmental and sustainability functions," said McMullen. "It's more than just consciousness raising, it's learning the available information on it, to be educated, in order to explain your position to somebody else." "A lot of these things can happen without a lot of monetary outlay, although it requires energy, and that is not to be taken lightly," said McNamara. "We have some pretty passionate people on the task force that will make this a top priority."