Applied Sustainability Class 4: Campus Sustainability PB Fisher Spring

Sharp, The Quest for Sustainable Campus  Two waves of campus sustainability  1. early 90s: need for campus to incorp innovations to reduce enviro impact: waste and energy systems, local org food, etc  2. early 00s: need for strong organizational transformation  need to go beyond cases/projects  “Perhaps the most important legacy of the movement to date is the discovery that universities (like large orgs) operate with a substantial degree of unconscious habit and irrationality and that very few people, at even the most senior levels, actually know how they truly function. This is in large part the result of the compartmentalization inherent to the large hierarchical orgs.” 1

The Sustainable University Chapters 1 and 2 2

Core Problems on Campus Sustainable University-- Foreword  “many institutional problems have been created by failures to think about sustainability in both OPERATIONS and CURRICULUM.”  -problems: deferred maintenance, leadership, long-term planning, discipline learning, silo structure, no training programs, shrinking govt support, inefficiency, energy…  “Today the greatest need is for graduates who have the ability and the willingness to approach the vexing problems of society with interdisciplinary experience and systemic thinking.”  2 Roles for higher education  1. providing graduates with greater ops  2. advancing knowledge creation 3

Chapter 1: Need to Move Forward  Campus Sustainability is now about:  1. setting priorities  2. achieving organizational transformation  3. creating cultural change  4. Fisher: Transforming understanding of problems  Why has sustainability to date fallen short?  “writers continue to define sustainability as simply environmental, scientific, or technological, rather than as an element of the core mission of higher ed: to produce graduates who will shape a thriving, civil society. Presidents, trustees, and many academic VPs and Deans are now realizing that generations of undergrads have come and gone with very little understanding of the importance of aligning their personal and professional lives with sustainability principles, much less the action steps to accomplish this. Sustainability is increasingly strategic, and perhaps the most persistent wrong that presidents and provosts much now address is that sustainability initiatives are ‘off to the side’ when strategic plans are developed for their campuses.” 4

4 challenges  1. Institutionalize sustainability thinking –  we have “de facto systems design failures”  Disciplines and silos are hurdles  Need lots of “soft skills”  2. develop & implement effective system of sustainability benchmarks  3. implement a flexible and accountable budget model to support sust goals  -not just lack of funding, but way budgets are organized  4. engage trustees in the campus sust agenda  “for trustees, the takeaway message…is sustainability is a central consideration acrosse the board in univ business decisions. Passing a tipping pt, it has become a pivotal focus of management.” 5

4 myths  1. Sustainability is about instit ops : energy performance/consumption.  2. Sustainability raises (or lowers) cost  “allowing key sustainability goals to be reduced to the money Q…becomes problematic.”  3. there is a common path to sustainability  4. LEED is the answer 6

Sustainability Leadership  “overwhelming majority of graduates know little about the importance of sustainability or how to lead their personal or professional lives aligned with sust principles.”  Transformation of higher ed is still not enough  Need a new mindset  based on integrated and holistic processes and approaches.  Higher Ed is reinforcing these unsust paths!  Culture & Values (before Science)  Campus Sustainability Leadership   need horizontal rigor (with vertical);  change to context of learning (values);  process of education (experience);  higher ed as model;  new forms of partnerships. 7