Collegiate Times

The Virginia Tech Board of Visitors has set higher goals for the future environmental sustainability of the university campus as it prepares for Sustainability Week Oct. 11-17.

"You can have lots of great ideas," said Denny Cochrane, sustainability program manager for the Office of Sustainability. "But getting it into university policy means the university will support it."

The university's new commitment comes in the form of a 14-point Climate Action Commitment and Sustainability Plan, approved by the BOV and University Council in the spring.

The plan includes a broad range of goals, with the first stating that Tech "will be a leader in campus sustainability." Many of the goals have tight deadlines, including an increase of recycling on campus to 35 percent and the drop in emissions from 316,000 tons to 295,000 tons by 2012.

"If we can take those things we can knock out quickly that can turn our energy consumption down, that is the best way to tackle the greenhouse gas issue," Cochrane said. Other points will require the purchase of Energy Star equipment - which means they meet energy standards set by the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of energy - and another requires the creation of an office and virtual school dedicated to sustainability.

Another major goal includes pursuing LEED Silver certification, an environmental building rating system created by the US Green Building Council, on all new buildings and renovations.

"In many cases some of our buildings meet the standards but we've never gone through the process of certifying them," said Mike Coleman, chair of Tech's Energy and Sustainability Committee.

The recently renovated Henderson Hall and the new Black Box theatre will become the first projects to be formally recognized as a LEED silver project.

"We're pretty excited," Cochrane said. "It sends a huge signal to the town that this is an important thing to us."

Tech plans to combine energy savings along with loans, funds from the Educational and General program budget, and a Green Development Fund to pay for the plan, but one additional point of funding will derive from a proposed student green fee.

The pricing of the proposed fee is projected to go up for a vote in the SGA elections to take place in spring 2010.

"We have students on campus who would love to see a $15 green fee, but we have others who can't afford that and would rather pay something closer to $1," said Angie De Soto, senior environmental policy and planning major and intern in the Office of Sustainability. Currently the proposed fee would fall in the range of $3 to $5.

The upcoming Sustainability Week will feature a progress report of the plan.

"This will be an open floor for a discussion of what students want to see on campus," De Soto said. "We're trying to keep ourselves responsible, even though it's only been a couple months since it passed."

Tech's sustainability efforts have been reflected with improved rankings from the Sustainability Endowment Institute's Campus Sustainability Report Card.

"Though we passed (in 2007) we didn't do very well," Cochrane said. "We thought we were poised to see the overall grade go higher." Tech's ranking improved from a C- in 2008's report card to a B- for 2009, which was announced Sept. 2008.

Cochrane projected that Tech's grade would rise to a B for the 2010 report card.

"With all of the effort we've done over the past year, it would send another signal that we're heading in the right direction," Cochrane said. The B- grade put Tech in second place among 10 Virginia schools involved in the survey, behind rival University of Virginia.

Despite Tech's recent progress, there's a lot of work ahead of the university.

"It's the right thing to do," Cochrane said. "We don't have an inexhaustible supply on resources."