What's News Archive

The Evergreen State College Harvests First Crop from Campus Dining Donated Greenhouse
National Dump the Pump Day
Clean Energy Committee – Recently Funded Projects
The Green Team Promotes Earth Week
Facilities Services
Fund for Innovation Supports Campus Carbon Research
First Look: The New Greener Commuting Program
New Green Purchases – Paper & Vehicles
Student Affairs Sustainability Committee - Small Things Add Up To a Big Change
STF Newsletter- Spring 2008 - Sustainability and Justice Curriculum Group
Sustainable Growth in Dining Services Profiling Halli Winstead, Aramark’s Sustainability Intern
Sustainability in Evergreen’s Residence Halls
To See Where We Are Going, We Must First Know Where We Are: AASHE STARS!

The Evergreen State College Harvests First Crop from Campus Dining Donated Greenhouse

The Evergreen State College recently harvested its first crop, arugula, from an organic, on campus, sponsored greenhouse. Storms in December 2006 damaged previous greenhouse structures on campus; ARAMARK, the dining services provider at Evergreen, donated $16,000 that, along with funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, helped to rebuild and expand the greenhouses, dubbed The Organic Farm. The first morning’s harvest produced nearly 40lbs of arugula, which was prepped and served that very day during lunch. More...

National Dump the Pump Day

Thursday, June 19, was National Dump the Pump Day, a day dedicated to alternative commuting.

The goal of Dump the Pump Day was a one day commitment for commuters to:

1. Ride the bus, bike, rideshare, or walk rather than drive yourself to campus
2. Raise awareness that alternative commuting options exist, they are easy to use, and they benefit our environment, our health, and your wallet.

The hope being that commuters would (re)discover alternative commuting and it would become a preferred mode of travel.

Alternative Commuting Options:

• Intercity Transit Bus Service. Every Evergreen community member can ride the bus for free! Doing so will reduce your commuting costs and your personal carbon footprint.
• Students. Your valid Evergreen identification card serves as your bus pass.
• Staff. Permanent and temporary staff and faculty may sign up for the STAR Pass at Parking Services. Getting a STAR Pass is easy. Simply fill out the appropriate form which is available at Parking Services. Your Evergreen identification card with STAR Pass sticker serves as a free Intercity Transit bus pass.
  ***Please remind your colleagues, classmates, employees, and supervisors that they can ride the bus for free. There is concern that far too many people are not aware of this benefit. Additionally, all Permanent-status staff and faculty also qualify for “safe ride home” which is a free taxi-ride home after you sign up for the campus Commute Trip Reduction program. For more information, please see the benefits for staff on our web site www.evergreen.edu/commute.
• Bike. Bicycling is a quiet, clean, efficient, healthy and fun way to travel. Bicycling is a practical way to travel to and from work or school and for doing errands. Combined with transit, cycling can also be a part of a longer distance commute. Learn more: http://www.evergreen.edu/commute/bike.htm.
• Rideshare. Joining Evergreen’s Ridesharing program is an easy way to reduce your carbon footprint, save money, and help the environment. You will also make friends and build community. You can announce the time and starting location of your commute and where you are driving to. Other Evergreen community members respond to your request and you receive a direct email from them. Sign up at: http://www.evergreen.edu/commute/rideshare/.
• Carpool. http://www.evergreen.edu/commute/carpool.htm.
• Vanpool. Intercity Transit has a good program that can provide direct service and is very accommodating. It is easy to set up a new vanpool or you can join an existing one. For specific information check out: http://www.intercitytransit.com/page.cfm?ID=joinVanpool.

We hope to see near empty parking lots. Happy commuting!

If you have any additional commuting questions or concerns regarding parking issues you may contact:

• Susie Seip, Parking Supervisor II at extension 6131, or email seips@evergreen.edu.
• Victor Sanders, Student Transportation Coordinator at extension 5359, or email stuctr@evergreen.edu
• John Pumilio, Director of Sustainability at extension 6913, or email sustainabilitydirector@evergreen.edu

Clean Energy Committee – Recently Funded Projects

A few years back, Evergreen students voted by an overwhelming majority to charge themselves one dollar per credit fee for clean energy. Since then, The Clean Energy Committee (made up of students, faculty, and staff) has been responsible for the oversight of this money.

Over the past year, the Committee purchased GreenTags from the Puget Sound Energy Green Power Program that offset 100% of Evergreen’s electricity consumption.

Clean Energy funds have also been granted for student-initiated ideas including:

• Solar powered LED light retrofit at the bus stops at the McCann bus loop
• The Biodiesel expansion project
• Purchase of carbon offsets for Focus The Nation activities.

In the months ahead, the Clean Energy Committee is looking forward to spreading awareness of the possibilities of clean energy grants on campus, as well as expanding our scope to help meet our college’s goal of carbon neutrality by 2020.

The Green Team Promotes Earth Week

April 2008

Evergreen’s “Green Team” did an amazing job during this year’s Earth Week. The “Green Team,” a dedicated group of student interns and volunteers, is part of Evergreen’s new Green Thread Program. These programs were created to help raise awareness and increase future sustainable practices in dining services.

Members of the Green Team created posters, made artistic and informative window paintings, and labeled all local and organic foods. They also advocated a week of going “trayless.”

The trayless program was largely a success. Here are some fun facts to ponder:

• Did you know only 12 trays fit on a dishwasher rack compared to 24 large plates or 36 small plates on the same rack?
• An estimated 2,805 of our trays would have gone through the dish machine last week resulting in 1,048 gallons of water being consumed. If we extend this data to incorporate every week it would be a savings of 36,688 gallons of water for an academic year!
• 150 out of 177 diners surveyed in the Greenery said they were interested in removing trays permanently, especially when told the benefits of removing trays.
• We sympathize with the messy aspects of no trays and we are concerned about the fact that in the US we throw away around 25% of food produced for human consumption (http://www.metro-region.org/).
• We did not see a considerable food waste difference in our compost collection. However, it was noted by the “green team students” that less people had food waste on their plates. It is possible that going trayless, encouraged people to take only the food that they could eat thus saving food.
• If you would like to save water and food waste in the greenery go trayless!

During Earth Week Food Services also collaborated with Residential and Dining Services to provide free battery, printer cartridge, and cell phone recycling in a few on-campus locations. The money earned from cell-phone recycling was put into the housing account with the specification that it be spent on sustainable initiatives, projects and or events. The plane is to make cell phone and battery recycling a permanent option in the future.

Congratulations to the Green Team for making this year’s Earth Week fun and informative. Their hard work and extra effort is taking Evergreen that much closer to a sustainable future!

Facilities Services
By Rich Davis, College Engineer

Sustainability is a relatively new component in a Facilities Services viewpoint that incorporates concerns for cost, level of service, energy efficiency, worker efficacy, accessibility for persons with disabilities, waste and hazardous waste management, personal safety and environmental effects of building materials, cleaners, and maintenance supplies. The goals of sustainability are embodied by an ever-increasing number of Facilities Services staff.

Facilities is upgrading the air conditioning system on campus to a thermodynamic efficiency that was impossible a few years ago. In addition, we are studying our heating system to determine the best approach to meet future needs.

Facilities works with Puget Sound Energy (PSE) and the City of Olympia when installing energy and water saving technologies that result in incentive payments to the college. Examples are water savings incentives from the City of Olympia for the dishwasher in the CAB last year and a pending incentive from Puget Sound Energy (PSE) for air conditioning improvements noted above. An example of leveraging savings into sustainability initiatives is the Facilities Services purchase of plug-in electric vehicles to replace the old vans that are used by trades persons and supervisors. The funding will be the PSE incentive grants from the air conditioning system improvements.

Support for LEED is clearly demonstrated through the certification of the Assistant Director for Project Management, Azeem Hoosein, as a LEED AP (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Accredited Professional). The College Activities Building, currently being designed for extensive renovation, will be LEED NC® rated.

We are working through the Department of General Administration with an energy service company (ESCO), McKinstry, on a heat recovery project for Lab I and II, a cover for the CRC pool, and repair of steam traps. Through our work with McKinstry, Facilities Services will receive a grant to partially fund the installation of a demonstration photovoltaic project to be installed on the roof of the Library. The array will produce enough power to provide the electrical needs of an average Seattle home.

We have installed and encouraged green roofs for Seminar II and the Library to reduce peak storm water flows and encourage a more natural water cycle. Much of the water that does drain from campus goes to Snyder Creek, where Wild Fish Conservancy is working with us to install a fish-friendly culvert over the creek on the road to the Geoduck house.

The success of sustainability on campus will be based on developing agreed strategies, leadership in and encouragement of innovation, and constantly looking for opportunities.

Fund for Innovation Supports Campus Carbon Research
By Rob Cole, Faculty

Evergreen’s Fund for Innovation is supporting research this summer of Rob Cole and Dylan Fischer to examine wisdom and feasibility of potentially purchasing carbon offsets as part of Evergreen’s commitment to become a carbon-neutral campus by the year 2020, and to continue the ongoing research of Dylan Fischer and his students into the carbon fluxes in the forests of the campus. Cole and Fischer will be working with students Alexandra Kazakova and Justin Kirsch on the project. Both students have extensive research experience with measuring carbon fluxes over the past two years, having played a central role in the data gathering and analysis of the Evergreen Ecological Observation Network (EEON – http://academic.evergreen.edu/projects/EEON/). Quoting from their website, EEON “…is a long-term research effort involving students and faculty tracking changes in lowland Puget Sound ecosystems and the Evergreen State College forests over time. Our efforts are centered on fifty-one long-term monitoring plots where we are tracking development, growth, and decay of trees, snags, sub-canopy vegetation, and down-woody debris. These data allow us to have a quantitative baseline estimate for carbon stocks and forest structure in our lowland Puget Sound forests, as well as develop and ask interesting questions related to forest structure and diversity. Over-time, these data will allow us to address how forests change, and how climate change is affecting ecosystems.”

A distinguishing feature of this work is that the rate of carbon storage in a growing forest on campus is compared to the rate of carbon production on campus by the burning of fossil fuels. Evergreen’s two largest contributors to carbon dioxide production are the heating and cooling of our buildings (primarily natural gas burning), and transportation to and from campus (gasoline and diesel fuels). The campus electricity usage is not contributing net carbon dioxide to the atmosphere because students voted to purchase “green tags” for electricity several years ago. Electricity purchased with green tags is certified to come from renewable, non-carbon-dioxide-producing sources (primarily wind power at the present). Rob and Dylan’s students in the 2007-2008 Introduction to Environmental Studies program actually computed a carbon production budget for the campus. MES student John Pumilio subsequently computed an even more detailed carbon production budget for his Master’s Thesis.>

One of John’s recommendations for Evergreen was that it consider purchasing carbon offsets as a means of attaining carbon neutrality sooner than the year 2020. A carbon offset is a financial device representing a reduction in carbon dioxide (or more generally greenhouse gas) production from an emissions-reducing project. Typically these projects are renewable-energy (wind power, for example) producing enterprises. The operator of the carbon-reducing project can charge others who continue to produce carbon dioxide a fee that “offsets” the carbon-producing energy with the non-carbon-producing energy. Carbon offsets are relatively new devices, and, as is often the case, are of varying degrees of quality. Some offsets are criticized at outright scams, while others make some degree of sense, at lest in the short run, as nations move away from fossil fuel consumption toward renewable energy consumption.

Rob Cole and Alaexandra Kazakova will be examining carbon offsets and associated markets this summer, attempting to determine whether it makes sense for Evergreen to invest in offsets in the near term. Using results from the research of the EEON group, they may also be able to determine the degree to which our own campus forest represents a good offset to the carbon dioxide produced by campus activities, and whether Evergreen might consider selling any such offsets to others, or simply maintain those offsets as a portion of its own carbon budget.>

In light of global warming, the ultimate goal for the college needs to be the elimination of the use of fossil fuels in its operations. Offsets should be viewed as a short-term component of a longer-term strategy that moves the college away from fossil fuel consumption and in the direction of renewable, non-carbon producing energy.

First Look: The New Greener Commuting Program
By Victor Sanders, Student Transportation Coordinator

The Greener Commuting Program has been busy this year—we’ve changed our name, spearheaded some great new projects, and have had a very successful start to the school year! With help from the Sustainability Task Force and the Clean Energy Committee, we’ve been able to move forward with some great projects. Here is a first look at what is new this year for current and future alternative commuters at Evergreen:

New Ridesharing Program: Starting this spring, we’ve partnered with a new ridesharing service. It is now easier than ever to find carpooling partners. Community members can log in at evergreen.edu/rideshare using their .edu address and look for carpooling partners. Using advanced mapping technology, simplified design, and integration with the popular social networking site Facebook, the new program is sure to be a hit. We’re placing a huge emphasis this spring on carpooling, and look forward to the success of this new ridesharing program.<

Commuter Lockers: The Clean Energy Committee accepted our grant to install new locker banks around campus. This is great news to cyclists who come to campus and need a place to store their goods. The new lockers have been placed in the Seminar II building, which now has lockers in every cluster, except D building. We have over 100 commuter lockers on campus now!

Ridesharing Information Center: With the upcoming renovation of the CAB, the old rideboard will soon be removed from the first floor, next to the Greenery. We were able to secure a grant to revive the essence of the old board by installing a new alternative commuting kiosk on campus. This kiosk will provide information on transit, ridesharing and bicycling to campus. Unfortunately there is just too much moving and renovation on campus to install this kiosk right now, but it will happen soon!

Bike Safety Equipment: About two years ago a former student coordinator secured funding from Thurston County to sell discounted bike safety equipment. We just finished selling all this great equipment, and have seen quite a few students using our helmets, lights and reflective wear on the road, which is a great sight!

Solar Powered Shelters: In the next few months, new bus shelters will be installed at the McCann Plaza Bus Loop. Thanks to a Clean Energy Grant and a partnership with Intercity Transit, these won’t be ordinary bus shelters—they will be solar powered! Panels will be flush mounted to the roof of each shelter and the energy will be used to power LED lights inside the shelters!

Late-Night Transit: The new Nightline late night service runs on Fridays and Saturdays from Midnight to 3AM; Sundays from 9PM to Midnight. The service is financed through a new student fee. The Nightline is run in contract with Intercity Transit, and is open to the public.

New Green Purchases – Paper & Vehicles
By Kathleen Haskett, Purchasing & Contracts Manager

A group organized by Greg Stewart, manager of scientific computing, researched the feasibility of moving Evergreen to using 100% post-consumer recycled content paper for use in campus copiers and printers. Steve Kerr of TSS was in charge of monitoring results as the paper was tested in various printers around campus. State of Washington contractor, Grays Harbor Paper, provided two pallets (800 reams) of paper free of charge for testing. Steve reported that the paper performed as good as or better than the 40% recycle content paper that was being used.

The college's paper policy has been revised to say: "Chlorine-free 100% post-consumer recycled paper is the standard for general campus correspondence including laser printing and copy machine use". The draft revision is in the process of being presented to senior staff and the Board of Trustees for approval. The policy addresses 30% color paper as well as exceptions including wide format and photographic papers. You don't have to wait for the policy to be approved to request 100% paper; several areas on campus have been using it for the past two years and the copy center prints on 100% unless requested otherwise. The product number is: 7530-081-190 and costs is currently $5.89/1-9 rms; $5.66/10-399 rms; and $5.52/400+ rms.

Paper prices have increased over the past year and with the rise in fuel and the present condition of the economy they will most likely continue to increase. 100% recycled content paper currently costs $0.83 a ream more than the 40% recycled content product when purchased in single reams. The campus community is urged to focus on reducing printed matter whenever reasonable and possible; do not print email unless absolutely necessary; print double-sided; and send copying requests to the Copy Center for reproduction.

The college recently purchased four new electric vehicles for Facilities Services. One truck will be used by the campus utility plant, while another truck and two cars will be used by the shops and grounds crews.

Director Paul Smith said funds to purchase the electric vehicles were made possible by a grant the college received from Puget Sound Energy due to a new more efficient chiller that was recently purchased and installed at the campus utility plant.

President Les Purce will soon be driving a Toyota Camry Hybrid. As an American Colleges & Universities Presidents Climate Commitment Charter Signatory and member of its Steering Committee, Les is recognized as a leader in the higher education sustainability arena.

These are very big steps towards reducing our carbon footprint and we look forward to the day when all vehicles used on campus by staff are either electric or alternative fuel.

A new contract has been awarded for 100% recycled content paper towels. Building services has been testing product, along with new dispensers.

Please contact Kathleen Haskett at haskettk@evrgreen.edu if you have ideas, concerns, or want to share information on green products.

Student Affairs Sustainability Committee - Small Things Add Up To a Big Change
By Sharon Goodman

The Student Affairs Sustainability Committee was created in the fall of 2007 in the early months of my first year here at Evergreen. I knew from our first meeting that this committee will be able to accomplish our goals and to energize the community about sustainability. Our mission is to educate and align the division of Student Affairs with the rest of the college in terms of sustainability efforts.

We first met in the early fall to come up with goals and guiding principles. Our list is below:

The committee will create a plan with sustainability indicators for the Student Affairs to reach the key objectives as stated below. To accomplish this goal, the committee will explore practical and specific ways to:

1. Investigate and identify opportunities for paper use efficiency, reduction, and sustainable purchasing,
2. Reduce single occupancy car travel to and from Evergreen campus for Student Service staff members,
3. Increase student involvement and participation in sustainability-based planning within the division and on the greater campus,
4. Identify ways to reduce outdated and unnecessary electronic equipment,
5. Increase ways to buy food and other products locally,
6. Increased educational initiatives for the community about energy reduction, seeking a goal of 30% reduction by 2010,
7. Create a mindful, sustainable community through education and direct engagement.

Many of our goals will take many years to complete. As we work on our goals we have focused our energy on goal, #7, “Create a mindful sustainable community through education and direct engagement.” This goal has been our focus for the winter quarter and is our current focus for the spring quarter. Also the committee has been sending out weekly tips to the student affairs division. One of our first steps was to create a signature in your email stating “Think Green! Please consider the environment before printing out this email.” I receive emails daily from folks all over the Evergreen campus with this phrase in their signatures and it is nice to see how this tip is spreading!

One of our projects has been to improve our compost and food waste management program on campus. On April 17th we helped organize the Annual Student Affairs Pancake Brunch with the goal of Zero Waste in mind. Our hope was to educate the community about our new Food-Plus-Recycling program by making the brunch “a Zero Waste Event.” The Food-Plus-Recycling program will help us compost and recycle more effectively. For more information on our committee, current projects, and for more sustainable tips check out our web site at: http://www.evergreen.edu/committee/studentaffairssustainability/home.htm

STF Newsletter- Spring 2008 - Sustainability and Justice Curriculum Group
Martha Rosemeyer and Lin Nelson

The Sustainability and Justice group (S&J) is a highly interdisciplinary clustering of faculty united by their commitment to "just sustainability", an emerging concept that reminds us to think about how sustainable practices can be developed with a dedication to mitigating inequality of disparate economic and environmental impacts, creating inclusive solutions and ensuring democratic participation. We want to strengthen the interactions between academic programs and the broader community (on campus and in the region) so that we enrich our teaching/learning experience and become more effective in the changes that are needed. The S &J group has united a number of previous faculty initiatives (see STF Newsletter 2007) around connecting sustainability and justice so that we become more intellectually, ethically and practically deliberate and effective. As we became more familiar with each other's disciplines and ways of thinking during the 2007-08 academic year, three main activities captured our attention: summer faculty development institutes, faculty hiring and the linkage of programs with each other and the community in this coming year.

Sustainability and Justice Institute Summer 2007. September 11-14, faculty and staff participated in a Sustainability & Justice workshop. A major focus was on collaborations with local community organizations, especially with a focus on food systems, housing and popular education. Community partners helped lead workshops and hosted us during a wandering tour of downtown Olympia. The workshop also assessed our history at building S&J themes into the curriculum and developed plans for further enrichment of these themes into our teaching and for connecting academic programs with campus daily life and operations.

Faculty hiring. During fall and winter quarters, new procedures for faculty hiring necessitated much focus and energy in the development of and support for position descriptions with broad interest to S&J. This involved building consensus across planning units and governance groups. The following four unranked positions were submitted with support from S&J and are awaiting a decision by the Hiring Priorities DTF:

Sustainable Design (joint proposal with Expressive Arts and Environmental Studies) Sustainable Agriculture (joint with Environmental Studies) Communications/Journalism (joint with Expressive Arts and Culture Text and Language) Climate Justice (joint with Native American and World Indigenous Peoples Studies and Environmental Studies)

Cross-campus sustainability potluck. A potluck began a cross-campus conversation on sustainability. Some 35 attendees consisted of mostly undergrads, but also MES students, faculty and staff attended. Motivated particularly by Focus the Nation, we heard about activities of student groups including the Cascade Climate Coalition and others.

Summer Institutes 2008. Planning is now underway for three summer institutes that focus on sustainability and justice: Curriculum in the Bioregion (July 9-12) facilitated by Jean MacGregor, Sustainability and Justice: Local Issues/Curriculum Development (July 15-17), facilitated by Laurie Meeker and Rob Cole and Dialogue for Democracy: Community Based Service Learning (Aug 11), facilitated by Ellen Shortt Sanchez. If you are interested in attending or exploring the theme of just sustainability, contact the facilitator(s).

Extending the theme to students. The 2008-09 catalogue contains the following sidebar to identify programs highlighting sustainability and justice. Note also the list of S&J affiliated programs offered in 2008-09. Join us in our meetings and summer institutes to determine the shape of our collaboration among our programs and between them and the community!

Studies in Sustainability and Justice
Insist on the rights of humanity and nature to co-exist. —William McDonough and Michael Braungart

At Evergreen, we take a “seven generations” approach to questions of how to sustain human life and community in harmony with the planet. This is a cross-generational, ecologic ethic that has descended to us from the Haudenoshaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy[1]. We offer students who embrace this ethic the opportunity to design a curricular pathway that focuses on issues of sustainability.

In this catalog, you can find programs in environmental studies, social justice, the humanities and the arts, to help you build the background, skills and vision needed to make change in areas that count—climate change, food systems, cultural survival, environmental justice, media and communications, applied ecology, green business and beyond. In addition, the college’s Center for Community-Based Learning and Action works with programs to involve students in community-based work with a wide range of service, study and governance organizations in our area. Students also have chances to apply their studies to Evergreen itself. Our Sustainability Task Force works with food services, purchasing, facilities, heat and power—even parking—to reduce our environmental and social impacts and enhance the health of the college’s land and people, and its presence in the wider community. If you’d like to focus your education on issues of sustainability, look into these programs:

• Climate Change
• Conceptualizing Native Place
• Environmental Health: Science, Policy and Social Justice
• Food, Health and Sustainability
• Food, Place and Culture
• Green Studio
• Legacy of the American Dream: People, Power and Nature
• Mediaworks in Context: Sustainability and Justice
• The Olympic Peninsula
• The Pacific Northwest: History, Culture and Environment
• Practice of Sustainable Agriculture
• Toward a Sustainable Puget Sound: Place, People and Policy
• Venezuela: Building Economic and Social Justice

Tagline for programs:

“This program offers significant support for students pursuing Sustainability and Justice studies. To find out more about studies in Sustainability and Justice at Evergreen, and to see a list of participating programs, please turn to page x in this catalog.”

[1] The Haudenoshaunee, whose historical lands and continuous home is in what is now the Northeast US/Southeast Canada. consist of the Mohawk, Oneida, Tuscarora, Onondoga, Cayuga and Seneca Nations, and continue to provide leadership in educating people in how to conceive of planetary stewardship and ensuring the health of human and animal populations.

Sustainable Growth in Dining Services Profiling Halli Winstead, Aramark’s Sustainability Intern

The Evergreen State College has long embraced the concept of being a learning laboratory for sustainability that allows a student's education to fit a specific area of interest. Halli Winstead, Aramark’s Sustainability Intern, is a case in point. Halli’s effort – along with the dedication of dozens of staff and students – have done a remarkable job of increasing sustainable practices as they relate to Dining Services.

During Fall Quarter 2007, The Market began shifting their disposable ware to 100% compostable products. Forks, knives and spoons are Spud Ware that is made solely of compressed potato. The plates and bowls are made of bagasse, which is a bi-product of the sugar refining process. Cold cups are made of cornstarch and the Tully's coffee cups are made of 100% compostable paper products. These products are managed as compost as opposed to being sent to the landfill. This allows the Evergreen community to divert landfill waste to create more fertile soil.

In Winter Quarter 2008, the Greenery supported the campus wide Focus the Nation event by providing a Local Organic Lunch for the community to enjoy. Halli led an effort that succeeded in sourcing an entirely locally produced lunch for the wintertime event. Though there a few items were not made locally (i.e. salt, vinegar, pepper, brown sugar and cornstarch), participants enjoyed locally produced butternut squash soup, a cook-to-order breakfast of eggs, bacon and fresh hash browns as well as roasted spaghetti squash, borsche and roasted assorted potatoes. According to many reviews, the meal was a hit and diners were encouraged by Halli’s effort that helped provide a 99% local meal in January! Next year, Focus the Nation will be in February and there has already been talk of planning another Local Lunch to support the event.

During Winter Quarter 2008, Halli began selecting produce that was eventually planted in the new greenhouse at Evergreen’s Organic Farm. That produce was sold to Aramark further contributing to the amount of locally grown organic food served on campus. It is important to note that Aramark provided part of the funding to build the new greenhouse. Additionally, it is within the agreement between Aramark and Evergreen that a bigger greenhouse will be installed so an even larger portion of the greenhouse produce could be sold to Aramark for use in the Greenery. Over multiple discussions the Executive Chef, Farm Manager and Halli compiled a list of crops that would best suit the Greenery's needs. Due to the fact that students are away during peak growing season, crops were chosen based on early and late season availability and compatibility with Greenery demand. By mid-March, Halli had planted arugula, spinach, kale and radishes that were enjoyed by the students during the final weeks of Spring Quarter.

Also during Spring Quarter 2008, the Director of Dining Services worked with Halli to form a group of student volunteers to further advance issues of sustainability. The group, better know as the Green Team, implemented an outreach and education program that informed students about composting, food waste, recycling, eating local and eating organic along with many other relevant topics. During Earth Week the Greenery went “tray-less," meaning that no trays were available to stack plates and cups on. The goal of the initiative was to reduce water usage to clean the trays, which utilize a lot of dishwasher space and water. This was the second collaborative effort between Evergreen and Aramark to decrease water waste in Dining Services. Last year the College installed a dishwasher that saves 5,000 gallons of water per day via grey water recycling in the Greenery.

Dining Services is dedicated to moving toward sustainability and will continue to work collaboratively with students like Halli and the volunteers of the Green Team to further promote a sustainable campus environment.

Sustainability in Evergreen’s Residence Halls
By Katie Taylor

Residential and Dining Services’ mission states we are working together to achieve “a Sustainable community that values, cultivates and maintains its human, natural and physical resources.” In January, I was hired as the Sustainability Intern for Residential and Dining Services (RAD) and have been working to align the department with its mission ever since. RAD has been working hard on many fronts to reduce Evergreen’s carbon footprint and operate in environmentally responsible ways. The office has cut their vehicle fleet in half and added an electric cart, reduced the number of printed pages per resident at check-in from forty-five to one, and is replacing all building light bulbs with full spectrum CFL’s.

In addition, significant attention is being focused on making the infamous year end check-out as close to zero waste as possible. This check out is traditionally a high-waste time on any residential college campus as students frantically move out and realize all their belongings don’t fit into their cars. Evergreen’s RAD Services began combating this issue three years ago when residents were asked to drop off unwanted items to portable storage units staffed by temporary student workers. The items were then sorted, cleaned, and donated to various local charities. Each year this program has been growing and was complimented in the winter of 2008 by the RAD Free Store, a space where residents can drop off unwanted items and pick up things others have donated. This is a great space for residents to learn about responsible consumption and reuse of goods.

Since the inception of my position, I have been focusing on developing programs that will make it easier for residents and RAD employees to reduce waste resource consumption. My two major projects have been establishing a cell phone recycling program in partnership with an external company. The company will purchase our used cell phones and refurbish them for resale. The profits we make by selling our cell phones to this company will be saved in an Evergreen account and used to help fund environmental projects in the future.

The second project I am working on is testing a new waste management system in freshman housing. Often considered the biggest challenge area for keeping various recyclables and trash separate, I secured Clear Stream containers through a grant-funded county program and have installed them in the common spaces of our four largest residential buildings. Clear Stream containers are reportedly highly effective at keeping waste streams separate due simply to their design. The containers sport lids with cut out holes- a slot for paper, a circle for cans and bottles- and clear bodies. Because the contents of the container are visible at a mere glance, the need for signage that is often overlooked or confusing is decreased. Also, the contents of each container are less likely to be contaminated because any incorrect items placed in a container will be on public display. This social pressure encourages users to dispose of their items appropriately. If the prototype works in freshman housing, we will work on implementing the system throughout the campus.

In addition, I am working with representatives from the Organic Farm, Dining Services, and Thurston County to help improve our composting program within residential areas of campus and beyond. We are hoping to incorporate a new composting system in the CAB to dispose of our Dining Services food waste more responsibly. The program should be integrated before the conclusion of the 2007-08 school year, and, if successful, will be introduced to the residence halls and potentially the rest of campus.

I have talked with representatives from other colleges who are pioneering sustainability projects on their campuses, and I’m happy to report that Evergreen continues to lead the pack on some fronts. Where other custodial staff members are so opposed to using environmentally friendly chemicals they smuggle bleach in to the work site, RAD Facilities has historically gone out of its way to purchase only the safest cleaning supplies. Where other campuses are grudgingly beginning to acknowledge environmental concerns in their policies, Evergreen is hiring students and staff to focus solely on creating sustainable programming, projects, and policies. Like everyone, we have a long way to go, but I am honored to grow in such a nurturing and enthusiastic climate full of individuals doing their part to make positive change.

To See Where We Are Going, We Must First Know Where We Are: AASHE STARS!
By Lindsy Wright

My time as Coordinator of the Sustainability Task Force has me delving into arenas of advanced education that I never even dreamed of. Specifically, AASHE STARS has me putting on my thinking cap. If Evergreen has taught me anything at all, it has taught me that knowing and not taking action is the same as not knowing. So how do we go about taking action to reach higher levels of sustainability here on Evergreen’s campus? Well, as an institution, first we have to know where we are! This is where AASHE STARS becomes critical.

What is AASHE?
It is an acronym, which stands for Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education. AASHE is a united front of colleges and universities in the U.S. and Canada who are working to create a sustainable future. Their mission is to promote sustainability in all sectors of higher education through communication, research and professional development. They aim to accomplish this through AASHE STARS, which is a Sustainability Tracking, Assessment, and Rating System. It is a voluntary, self-reporting framework for gauging relative progress toward sustainability for colleges and universities. STARS is designed to do several things:

• Provide guidance for higher education to advance sustainability
• Enable comparisons over time and across multiple institutions by establishing a baseline for measurement of sustainability
• Create incentives for continually improvement toward sustainability
• Facilitate information sharing about sustainability practices and performance
• Build a stronger, and more diverse campus sustainability community by promoting comprehensive understanding of sustainability; including social, economic and environmental dimensions

This is exactly what is being taught in Evergreen’s Masters of Environmental Study Program here at Evergreen. It would be powerful for the institution that honors and hires faculty to teach these values to support this movement by practicing them in every facet of operations. However, the first step is to continue progressing towards establishing our baseline. We must know where we are to see where we are going.

How Do We Assess Where We Are?
We can accomplish this by participating in the AASHE STARS Pilot Program. The new Director of Sustainability and Task Force chair, John Pumilio, Task Force co-chair, Nancy Parkes, and former Task Force chair, Steve Trotter, and I have been participating in focused conference calls to contribute to the assessment system AASHE is constructing. Currently, over 90 colleges are uniting to provide feedback to AASHE that will inform future versions of this sustainability tracking system. Below is a link to the Guide to Pilot Phase One: http://www.aashe.org/stars/STARS_Pilot_Phase_One_Guide.pdf

How Does STARS Work?
STARS is comprised of two levels of credits; one tier that is based on sustainability outcomes, and another tier which offers credits that are relatively less because they generally recognize strategies that institutions can adopt to move toward sustainability. STARS is expected to include a process for rewarding innovative sustainability practices that are not covered under the existing credits. Basically, we get credits for all the work we are doing in sustainability, and the pilot program ensures that we have a say in how we are being assessed towards earning them.

Evergreen’s Continuing Annual Carbon Inventory
John Pumilio completed Evergreen’s first comprehensive greenhouse gas inventory in June 2007. His inventory took into consideration the carbon emissions from sources all over campus, including electrical consumption, space heating, transportation, agriculture, fertilizer, solid waste, and space cooling. He used a widely used method called the Clean Air-Cool Planet Carbon Calculator to determine that Evergreen emits about 22,112 metric tons of Carbon Dioxide Equivalents annually.

His calculations determined that commuting is responsible for about 24% of overall emissions, while electricity was about 41%, and space heating was about 28%. Commuting was responsible for about 78% of Evergreen’s transportation related carbon emissions in 2006, while institutional air travel was about 16%.