A Sustainable Movement

By Michael Gaworecki, WireTap. Posted December 18, 2002.

It may look like a simple log cabin set against a wooded hillside, but the EcoDorm being built at Warren Wilson College is on the cutting edge of a new movement to make universities friendlier to the environment. And in most cases it is the pupils, not the teachers, who are paving the way.

Along with other students at Warren Wilson, Olja Milenkaya, an environmental studies major, felt that there was an incongruity between the concepts she was learning in classes -- including conservation and sustainable development -- and the way her university actually functioned. "We are at an educational institution and learning about the environment, yet not able to live the values that we are developing," she says. Last year, she and a few others began working with their college administrators to design a new dormitory that would use natural resources such as sunlight, shade, and breezes more efficiently while implementing eco-friendly technologies like photovoltaic panels for electricity and solar space and water heating. According to Olja, the EcoDorm is a great opportunity for her, and the thirty-five other students that will be living there when it opens next fall, to "live out those values more fully."

Warren Wilson is one of many schools across the nation that have begun experimenting with renewable energy sources and energy-efficient building materials in their own facilities. Because universities are among the biggest energy users in the world, college and university campuses could save a lot of money by finding alternative means of generating their energy, while producing a lot less waste and pollution at the same time. In doing so, universities can become catalysts in their local -- and even global -- communities by demonstrating the benefits of sustainable development.

The positive effects could be far-reaching. According to the U.S. Department of Energy's website: "If only 10 percent of homes in the U.S. used solar water-heating systems, we would avoid 8.4 million metric tons of carbon emissions each year."

		"If only 10 percent of homes in the U.S. used solar water-heating systems, we would avoid 8.4 million metric tons of carbon emissions each year."

While environmental concerns are paramount to students like Olja, however, economics play a much larger role in administrators' decisions to implement sustainable development plans on their campuses. "If you look at it up front," she explains, "some of the materials are more expensive. If you look at it through the life-span of the building, it will prove to be way more inexpensive, because of how much energy and water you save."

Max Harper, a junior at Colorado College, is spearheading a similar push for sustainable housing at his school. Last year he and several other students operated a sustainable living theme house; activities at the house included, among other things, replacing individual refrigerators with more energy-efficient models and converting many lights to use compact fluorescent bulbs. The result was that the house's energy consumption was reduced by 33 percent compared with the previous year, according to Max.

Largely due to the success of the theme house, this year the college approved a proposal put together by Max and other students and has granted them use of a 6- to 10-bed house that will be retrofitted with environmentally friendly features. Although the administration supports sustainable development in theory, it certainly has its own vested interest in the results.

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