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Virginia Tech Climate Action Commitment

As part of an Environmental Problem Solving Studio class I am part of, we actually had to organize and run a workshop during Sustainability Week.  Although I was active in the research and planning process for the workshop, I did not present during it therefore served in no greater capacity than any of the attendees. I will use this opportunity to reflect on what took place during this workshop, how successful it was in achieving its purpose and possible improvements we can use for future events. 

The title of this workshop was the Virginia Tech Climate Action Commitment.  When President Steger made the decision to refuse to sign the Presidential Climate Commitment (PCC) earlier this year, he instead charged the Virginia Tech community to create a Climate Action Plan (CAP) unique to our campus.  A committee has since been formed between staff and students with the purpose to creating this plan and ultimately presenting it to President Steger.  However, the head of this committee is my professor, Dr. John Randolph, and he has brought the challenge of creating Virginia Tech’s CAP to our class this semester.

For Sustainability Week, we had the task of setting up the framework of a CAP and then presenting it to all those in attendance in hopes of receiving valuable ideas and feedback.  We decided to have five main categories to present on at the workshop that would be major aspects of the CAP; campus buildings, photovoltaics, dinning facilities, alternative transportation and tree canopy.  Each topic was thoroughly researched to present the current status and progress already made by the University, the variety of ways we could continue improve and recommendations that would best fit our campus.  To present, we compiled all of the information into a PowerPoint presentation that clearly outlined the main points of our research and the direction we think the University should take.  Each topic had a different representative present on it that was most knowledgeable.  After each topic was presented, we then started a sort of card storming activity where we took brief 2-3 word comments and ideas from the audience and documented them on paper.  The ideas or comments were not limited specifically to the topics we presented and were then used to focus small breakout groups of about six people that were formed shortly after we collected pages of ideas from the audience.  The breakout groups took a couple of ideas listed from the card storming activity and discussed them in detail, along with any other ideas they may have had.  Each breakout group had a designated person to record what was discussed and then presented that to everyone after the allotted time had past. From there, we posted the records of what was discussed around the room and gave everyone a green and blue sticky dot.  We instructed them to place the green dot on the idea that was most important to them and the blue dot on the idea that was second most important. This concluded the workshop.

From this event, I not only learned about the specific area of research I was assigned to, but also about the importance of public input and how to effectively use it.  It always surprises me to hear the diversity of ideas and opinions from a group of people and when you are formulating plans that will affect such a large constituency, such as a CAP, the varying viewpoints and ideas are extremely valuable to ensure your plan is as comprehensive and as thorough as possible.  After hearing from so many people, I personally felt very motivated to act and continue my effort to develop a CAP for the University because I have realized the support that exists for this within our campus and community. 

Considering the time and resources we had available to us, I believe this workshop was successful in achieving input from the public while informing them our current situation.  The design of the workshop, although a bit lengthy, was well organized overall and worked well.  It provided a range of activities to keep participants engaged and while affording them multiple opportunities to make sure their voice was heard.  If I could make any improvements, it would be to our presentations and making sure we keep them as short and precise as possible.  Also, I think a more structured card storming activity would have been beneficial to consolidate similar ideas from the audience.

VT Climate Action Commitment Workshop

On Thursday, October 23, I attended the VT Climate Action Commitment Workshop for Sustainability Week.  It was a great workshop that provided five different presentations on the progress to-date that Virginia Tech has participated in.  The first presentation was on LEED certification, which I thought was interesting that both new and old buildings can be certified.  I think this is a great opportunity for both new and old to operate more efficiently while being minimizing their environmental impact.

I thoroughly enjoyed the presentation on energy and the different steps Virginia Tech has taken to become more sustainable.  For example, I learned that Tech is in control of net metering over their electric power, which is extremely cost effective and a great give-take process.  Also, Tech has been collaborating with industry leaders and new companies at the Research Center for improving new opportunities for solar energy, especially for the proposed parking garages.  However, there are some obstacles with solar energy that Virginia Tech has been facing.  For example, the delay in financing and pay back periods, as well as tax incentives on the local, state, and federal levels, and tax breaks for homes that use solar paneling.  This presentation was extremely informative and I learned about a lot of different opportunities I can participate in to become more sustainable.

The next presentation, which was on Sustainability in the Dining Halls, was equally informative (and more enjoyable in my opinion) because it is an opportunity I feel that I can more actively participate in than the previous.  The presentation was centered on the "reduce, reuse, and recycle," in terms of reducing food waste, the possibility of introducing a "refillable" mug, and providing more opportunities for recycling.  The presenter also emphasized the importance of buying local; Virginia Tech considers "local" to be within a 500 mile radius, and even if they were to cut that a 250 mile radius, the savings on gas and other resources would be tremendous.  Another option for the dining halls to become more sustainable is to provide incentives to not using styrofoam, ie. and % charge for To-go, with a % discount for dining in.  Although the Dining Halls have become more sustainable over the years, there is still a lot more that can be done.

The fourth presentation looked at alternative transportation options within Blacksburg.  Commuting has become such a problem on campus, which the presenter stated could be reduced if students were more willing to carpool.  These passes are cheaper than the regular commuter spots, and Parking Services bases the number of CP spots on the percentage of permits that are issued.  Also, there is a bike sharing proposal that is in the works to make biking more accessible to students, as well as making the BT more student/user friendly.  I agreed with this presentation that more initiatives can be taken to provide alternative transportation to every individual commuting.

The final presentation was on "City Green".  This was the first time I was exposed to this program, which is able to assess an area and determine its canopy cover.  Trees provide a natural storm water draining systems, which reduces the impacts on the man-made systems.  Therefore, as a part of Sustainability Week, 100 trees were planted around campus, which will increase its canopy cover by 2%.  Also, trees are a great investment because they have a good return rate of an approximate saving of $10/tree.  However the only obstacles/drawbacks to this is the continued development and expansion of campus.

Each presentation provided great insight to the different opportunities Virginia Tech is participating in to become more sustainable.  After the presentation, a there was a breakout session in which all attendees and presenters formed six different groups, discussing an area of interest and what they would like to see Virginia Tech do more of in the future. At the end of the session, each group presented their areas of interest.  Everyone was then given a green and blue dot to indicate their first and second preferences, respectively, which would then be used for future proposals.

I really enjoyed the event; it presented a lot of issues and topics I was not aware Virginia Tech was actively involved in, and what challenges the campus faces to become more sustainable.  I learned a lot about the different ways you can produce your own energy, which is extremely cost effective and helps both the producer and consumer.  Learning is a great tool because it teaches something new that you can apply in your everyday life.  I felt motivated to act from the Sustainable Dining Halls presentation because I feel it is something I can start acting now.  I occasionally eat on campus, and when I do I try to eat in the dining hall.  I am a styrofoam user, but after the presentation I have become more aware and try not to do it as much.

I thought the event was very well organized, with smooth transitions from one presentation to the next.  I think each provided something different, which spurred a lot of questions for the brainstorming activity before the breakout groups.  However, I feel that the brainstorming could have been more condensed to have allowed for more time at the end when each group presented their top areas of interest.  The leaders facilitated the event very well, keeping check on the time, and making sure the brainstorming was a thought and not an explanation.  The only recommendation I would make would be to allow time for the presentations for Q&A; I think this is what caused a time crunch at the very end.  Other than that, it was a great event, leaving the participants talking and having the feeling for a positive and more sustainable change for campus.

IVAW Event

I attended the event of ex-marine Adam Kokesh who served in Iraq from 1999-2006 and is now a member of the Iraq Veterans Against War.  The event was sponsored by Amnesty International Virginia Tech, Global Justice Alliance Virginia Tech, and Coalition for Justice.  Adam decided early in life it was his duty to serve and honor this country and he did so by enlisting into the marines after he graduated from school.  After boot camp he was sent to Iraq for one term and then reenlisted for a second term.  After many years in Iraq and then back in the states he decided his calling was the IVAW (Iraq Veterans Against War). Adam gave an excellent speech; he is very well educated in war, government, and politics.  His speech was very personnel with a lot of emotion involved, which made for a very intense speech, which definitely held the attention of the audience.  I learned a lot about what really occurs in the Iraq war.  People devise their own reasons on what this war was really about, possibly oil?  Though after we created a huge mess over there with the early air flight attacks, it was time to clean up our mess and help the people of Iraq and reform their government.  After serving in Iraq, Adams sense of serving his country for honor was lost through certain acts he witness, acts he thought he would never do, and such acts he didn’t do, but some what participated in.  Adam stated that life is cheap, “when we kill an Iraq civilian we pay the family 2,500 dollars and when a US troop gets killed in action, their family receives 400,000 dollars”, but supposedly our troops die with honor and pride, that’s all bullshit, their nothing but a tool to get the job done for the US government.  Adams intent to help the Iraq people was inaccurate and soon found out the American troops did nothing but create a bigger mess and create more enemies extending the war further and possibly creating a war on our on turf in the future after our troops leave Iraq.  Adam stated that during his second enlistment term, “the US troops had no pride or passion for helping the Iraq people; it was all about staying alive”.  After Adams return to the states, he had anxiety attacks, withdraw symptoms from not having weapons with him at all times.  He applied for VA treatment but was denied because certain aspects could not be proven, like whether for not he was crazy before he went to war.  I’m pretty sure anybody who enlists into the marines is some what crazy.  This incident gave him the last push he needed for his anti-war involvement and has being traveling the world since then giving speeches.  Adam wears a white arm band signifying that he doesn’t pay income taxes and personally told us, if we were against the war to stop paying income taxes, but I’m pretty positive jail time will be issued if taxes are not paid.  Adams talk was formal speech making, then he took questions and answered them.  I thought it could have been a little more informal discussion, since it was such a small group of people there.  This event could have been publicized more by advertisements in the papers, online, and newspaper ads to help get the word out about the event.  The leaders done all the organizing for this event and they did a good job.

Town of Blacksburg Sustainable Workshop

I was one of the presenters for the Town of Blacksburg Climate Action Plan Workshop on Thursday, October 23. This is part of my grade for Climate Action Plan Studio with Dr. Randolph. There are three parts to the workshop, presentations (60 minutes), brainstorming (25 minutes), and small group break out (60 minutes). There are six different topics that were presented: Town and Commercial Building, Residential Energy, Renewable Energy (I presented on this topic), Transportation, Tree Canopy, and Water and Recycling.

I learned a lot about Renewable energy sources from the research that my group and I did. There are so many technologies out there that have been developed recently. We used Wind Power, Biodiesel, Geothermal, and Photovoltaic Arrays as our examples for alternative renewable energy sources. There are a lot more available. But these can only become more of a norm among the Blacksburg community of there were more incentives and policies that would encourage and/or help people to be able to afford them.

But beside that, from the presentation of one of my fellow presenters, I was impressed with the impact that recycling has on the environment. The data that was presented really makes me want to do a better job at recycling. And composting is another thing that I would like to be able to do more. My kitchen produces tons of waste. If everyone started a composting bucket and only compost 25% of their waste that would otherwise end up in landfills, it could reduce our geological footprints significantly. Sarah, the presenter for this topic also suggested that the town gives out a sustainable kit, which includes 2 low flow shower heads, one low capacity toilet tank, and one air bag to go into the toilet tank. If everyone uses these efficient upgrades in their houses, the town would be able to save so much water and energy that would have to go into treating waste water.

The Town and Commercial buildings together with Residential Buildings sessions were also very helpful for me to understand better the concept of building efficiency. We would be a lot more sustainable if everyone is more aware of how easy it is to do little things such as turn off the water, the lights, ect. when you leave a room. I became a little more aware of how wastefull I am with water. I usually let the tap run the whole time while doing the dishes or brushing my teeth when there is really no need for the water to be on.

The Brainstorming session was also very informative. This time was dedicated to go around the room and let the audience participate in contributing to our climate action plan for the town. Many ideas were tossed around. Most of these participants are students and faculties. This really gave them a chance to express their ideas to help the town achieve a more sustainable goal. It also helped us, as a class, to get more suggestions and incorporate them into our working plan for a more sustainable Blacksburg. And we also learned a lot about Sustainable Blacksburg, a program that the town has put together, from one of our participants.

I think the Workshop was very well organized. I could be biased since I was one of many people who put it together. The different topics worked well together. All the speakers did a good job of consolidating their data to eight minutes and were very opened to the comments that were made by the audience. Dr. Randolph made sure that the meeting was on target. I think he was very efficient at keeping the meeting flow smoothly. It was rather hard for us to be able to end on time without Dr. Randolph keeping the pace.

Virginia Tech Climate Action Commitment Workshop

As part of Sustainability Week, I attended the Virginia Tech Climate Action Commitment workshop on Thursday. The workshop’s goal was to present progress to-date toward developing the VTCAC, identify opportunities and strategies to reduce green house gas emissions on the Virginia Tech campus, identify obstacles and constraints to potential action strategies, and discuss other sustainability initiatives such as green buildings, dining hall waste reduction, and planting more trees on campus.

I first part of the workshop was a general overview of sustainability programs on campus, and how student organizations and the new sustainability task force had progressed on drafting the VTCAC. The VTCAC is basically a plan being worked on by various student, faculty, and Blacksburg groups that would make Virginia Tech “carbon neutral”. These plans have been implemented by other universities across the country with much success. Normally the school’s administration would work to develop the plan, but when President Steger didn’t sign the Presidential Climate Commitment last December, the task was placed on the students and faculty of the university.

The second part of the workshop involved a brainstorming session which lasted about 25 minutes. During this time anyone in the audience shouted out ideas that would Virginia Tech reach its carbon neutral goal, and scribes kept tract of them on pieces of paper. I feel as if this portion of the workshop was very effective, because it allowed everyone attending to become involved with developing the VTCAC. After the brainstorming session was over, we counted off into numbered breakout groups for about 25 minutes. In these small groups we discussed the ideas we liked from the brainstorm and how we could make them happen. My favorite ones were a carbon cap and trade program between departments, a bike share program, a green student fee, requiring environmental courses to be taken during your stay at VT, and using local food in the dining halls. Each group then presented their favorite ideas to the other groups, and the workshop was over.

A lot of what the workshop covered wasn’t new to me. The Environmental Coalition has been very involved with developing the VTCAC and has worked hard to raise awareness of environmental issues on campus. However, the workshop did introduce me to new alternatives that the school could implement in order to reduce emissions that I hadn’t thought of before. In the small groups I was also very motivated to act. Being around others that are interested in sustainability on campus and actually working on developing this historic campus policy really made me excited about the direction this university is taking on this issue.

The entire workshop felt a little rushed, and the workshop’s facilitator (John Randolph) was a little TOO determined to stay on schedule. He kept interrupting people speaking to speed things up, and I feel as if this hurriedness stifled conversation a bit. If I were to hold this workshop again I would probably stretch it just a bit longer in order to ensure that everyone that wants to give input could. The waning minutes of the workshop (the breakout group presentations) were too important not to allow adequate time for discussion.

However, for the most part the workshop went well and was very informative.

Sustainability Week Event

The Sustainability Week event that I attended was the VT Climate Action Commitment Workshop on Thursday, October 23, 2008.  At this workshop, the large group was given presentations on 5 topic areas concerning sustainability at Virginia Tech: LEED Building Certification, Renewable Energy (more specifically solar), Dining Hall Sustainability, Alternative Transportation, and the campus’s Tree Canopy Cover. Each topic talked about what is currently being done at VT and what opportunities Tech should use to become more eco-friendly, and also what obstacles Tech faces in these areas.

During each topic, certain facts stuck out to me: For the LEED presentation, it was pointed out that if one person wrote a $40,000 check, then a building can be built to meet LEED certifications.  In the grand scheme of things about how expensive buildings are, that seems like almost nothing.  I know not everyone can write a $40,000 check, but with the number of eco-conscious alumni that exist, that money could be easily raised.

During the Energy discussion, what stood out to me was that the

US

has the best solar resources in the world, yet we have done so little to embrace it.  The Dining Services department has been doing the most to take strides to educate students about sustainability. Since it is one of the largest energy consumers on campus, they are trying to establish ways to reduce the waste.

The alternative transportation presentation focused on three main goals that they are trying to implement here at VT: incentives for carpooling, a bike share program, and trying to increase the BT ridership.  The Tree Canopy cover presentation discussed how it used CITYGreen, which is an ArcGIS program that helps calculate canopy cover and costs/savings.  With more trees planted, the school could save upwards of $1 million.

After the presentations, there was a brainstorming period, where the group threw out ideas about topics and/or issues they’d like VT to address.  The ideas ranged from green roofs, more bike racks (pedestrian/biker safety), sustainability education, energy usage (possibly a cap and trade program between departments), water conservation, and even eliminating coal usage by 2015.  Once a main list was created, the large group was divided into smaller breakout groups to discuss what we felt was the most important. My group discussed creating a Sustainability Office in order to coordinate and overlook all the sustainability efforts that go on on campus. It would also help in finding/applying for grants that are difficult for small groups to get.  We also discussed fueling issues and ridership issues of the BT. I actually had a BT employee in my group, and was shocked to find out that the buses only get 4 mpg and the hybrids only get 6 mpg. We discussed the problems and advantages of increasing the bio-diesel usage and what type should be used, and how to get it.  After all the groups presented, we each got a green and blue dot that we placed on our first and second choices for what we felt was the most important of those topics.  While there was no final decision made there, from what I saw, the most dots were on creating a Sustainability Office and including sustainability education during freshman orientation.

I consider myself an environmentally conscious person, but I am definitely not as “into it” as a lot of people are (not saying that’s bad). So going to this, I knew a lot of what was being talked about, but not necessarily into the detail, so it was a great learning experience for me.  I don’t know much about bio-diesel, so to have someone in my breakout group be able to explain it to me was great.  Also, just seeing the energy from the people who are really passionate about sustainability was great. I know a lot of times, people get labeled as “radicals, hippies, etc” but these people didn’t give me that “impression,” they were just truly concerned about the environment and their passion showed through by the extremely thought-out ideas that they had. They also recognized that not everything could be done at once, that small steps needed to be made first, so it definitely wasn’t a “radical” type situation.  This was important for me personally because we find ourselves so often slipping into the easy “let the stereotype stand” lifestyle that it’s easier to believe that people have some crazy, unachievable ideas, but when you sit down and listen to people, it can change your perspective (like the Kettering article talked about).  While it didn’t necessarily motivate me to take part in the effort to persuade the school to change, it was a good reminder to keep doing what I’m already doing, and upping the anty a bit more, because there are so many little things that I can do that really add up. Also, I will strongly support ideas put forward to the school, just not necessarily actively participate in the proposal.

I think the workshop was extremely well organized.  I would say, however that it would have been nice to have more time in our breakout groups, so my only recommendation would be to maybe shorter the presentations to 4, not 5, because those extra few minutes makes a difference. The organizers were extremely professional and well organized.  While they needed no help getting people to talk, they kept quiet most of the time, allowing people to speak, but also adding their opinions and ideas in as well.  I think it was overall a great workshop, leaving people feeling like they accomplished something and that some good changes may be coming to Virginia Tech.

My Event- Building Greet at VT (Sustainability Week)

Today (October 22, 2008) I went to the Building Green at VT event for Sustainability Week. Green building and green design is something that I am very interested in and hope to do after I graduate, so I found this event very informative and interesting. I had class until 11, so I missed some of the first speaker, John Lawson, from Perkins & Will. What I did catch on the tail end of his presentation was a bit about the LEEDS program, which stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. It’s a nationally accepted rating system for buildings. Since I just caught the last fifteen minutes or so of his presentation, I’ll discuss LEEDs further in the following sections since each of the following presentations also discussed it fairly extensively (except for Mama Earth, but that’s another story…).

The next presentation was by Lance Lipponscott (?) who is working on VT Center for the Arts that will be built in the Shultz vicinity over the next few years. This building is going to be built to obtain a LEEDs silver certification (subordinate to gold and platinum) which will require getting 33 points by incorporating sustainable design/technology/materials/standards into the building in six categories: sustainable sites, water efficiency, energy and atmosphere, materials and resources, indoor environmental quality and innovation and design process. He then went on to discuss in what ways the performing arts center building would incorporate features to obtain those 33 points.

It gets points in the sustainable site category because it is not in a 100 year floodplain, it is not farmland, its near alternate transportation etc. Furthermore, once it is completed, it will have bike storage and changing rooms, give preferred parking to low emission vehicles, maximize open space, minimize impervious surfaces, have storm water management, a green roof, etc. In the water efficiency category, it gets points by landscaping with native, drought tolerant species, will use rainwater for irrigation, low flush toilets, etc.

This building will also have no CFC refrigeration and optimize performance and will get points in the Energy and Atmosphere category for doing those things. The building could get more points in the material and resource category; however, he does not think much of the materials in Shultz will be able to be reused. Furthermore, because of Blacksburg’s “semi-remote” location, there isn’t as large of a market for recycled construction materials as there would be in a larger metropolitan area, so that makes getting points in this category hard as well. However, they will try to reuse 50% of their construction waste, incorporate as much recycled steel and concrete as possible, use regionally made goods, and use rapidly renewable materials like bamboo and cork etc. to get points in this category.

Another challenging category to get points is the indoor environmental quality because of the nature of a theater (it’s a huge box of slowly moving air) so ventilation becomes an issue. They’ll try to combat this problem by (and also get points for) using airflow monitoring equipment, flushing building with outdoor air for ten days before occupancy and having all entries capture dirt and particles. Because of a time schedule, he could not elaborate on many more points. This presentation did give me hope that green building is not that hard to do if you take a little time to think about making your building efficient and sustainable, it can easily be done!

The next presentation, well, show is a more appropriate term, was by a lady who called herself Mama Earth. She sung us songs that taught about the environment. For example, one songs chorus went “choose a little, use it a lot, only choose what you need”. So that was a fun little break from the seriousness of LEEDs and Green Building. It definitely got the audience laughing and participating.

The final presentation was by two gentlemen from an architecture firm based out of Denver (I believe). Their presentation was called “Beyond LEED: from code compliance to sustainable design and beyond”. They mainly discussed the Living Building Challenge (LBC), which is the next step in sustainable building after LEEDs. They discuss four levels of building, conventional, green, sustainable, and regenerative. They talked about how conventional building is “barley legal” since it is built to a standard that just complies with a minimal code. The second level they discussed is green. They defined this level as better than conventional in that is it “less bad” (so it’s not necessarily good yet…). This is where LEEDs is. The fact that LEEDs is almost becoming a standard within itself is a good sign that the market is ready to accept a move into more sustainable buildings. They define sustainable as having neutral or zero impact; so it is “100% less bad” Finally, regenerative is building in a way as to actually benefit the environment from human occupancy. An example they used was compost.

The Living building Challenge (LBC) aims to have each building operates as a flower (self sufficient and beautiful). Its categories are similar to LEED’s, but LBC takes “green” to “sustainable”. LBC says there should be limit to human growth, so the site should be a redevelopment, and we should have to work with what we already have. The building should also be energy neutral and should only use the energy that it can produce; reducing the amount of energy used is the biggest factor in doing this. They talked about a project in which they mounted wind turbines on the roof of the EPA building in Denver in order to supply the building with the energy it needed.

LEED’s has a red list of toxic materials that should be avoided. However, LEEDs only evaluates the toxicity of these materials when there are in the building and does not take into account the hazardousness of the production process. LBC looks at the entire process and aims to use only materials that are not toxic or hazardous at any stage. LBC also aims to have zero net water consumption, so to accomplish this you need to use storm water or recycle wastewater. LBC also sets standards for cleanliness of runoff water leaving site, which LEED’s does not monitor. In one of their buildings they actually put a “living machine” (an assortment of plant life that acts as a wetland to clean the water) in the lobby of an office building. In a LBC building there needs to be a connection to nature, views of the outdoors and daylight. Furthermore, it also requires that a building have beauty and inspiration, which LEED does not require. Furthermore, Living Building is operational and performance based while LEED is evaluated beforehand, procedurally.

The next step after LBC is to find a way to build and evaluate buildings that are regenerative.

I liked this event because I really like the topic discussed. I learned a lot about LEEDs and Living Building Challenge that I didn’t know before. I did already know about a lot of the green techniques they discussed but it was still interesting to hear. I guess I felt excited about getting involved with green building after listening to the presentations. More importantly though, and it made me feel hopeful, like there’s real potential in green building, and it’s catching on!

My procedural impression of the event was that is was middle of the road, nothing bad, nothing extraordinary. The event was pretty well organized, one person would come up and talk, there was a five minute break, then Mama Earth performed, then another break and another would speak. I don’t think it could have been improved. There was no real leader, except for the man who would introduce each of the speakers.