Minutes
sustainability group
Thursday, October 13, 2005 • 2:15 – 3:45 pm • Building 5, Room 206

Attendees:
Gail Baker, Science
Ellen Cantor, Language, Literature, and Communications
Tony Cortese, Second Nature
Susie Cousar, Health and PE
Barbara Dumbleton, Science
Jennifer Hayward, College Operations
Brian Kelly, Foodservices
Philip Martinez, Social Science
Marie Matsen, College Operations
Bob Mention, Facilities Management and Planning
Joseph Newton, Science
Amanda Poston, Conference and Culinary Services
Margaret Robertson, Advanced Technology
Mike Ruiz, Facilities Management and Planning
Joe Russin, Science
Anna Scott, College Operations – Energy Conservation
Jennifer Steele, College Operations
Rick Venturi, Specialized Employment Services
Jennifer Von Ammon, Service Learning
Judy Walton, Education for Sustainability Western Network
Ken Zimmerman, Language, Literature, and Communications

Minutes:

Introductions
Hayward introduced guest participant, Tony Cortese. Dr. Cortese is the President of Second Nature, a nonprofit organization with a mission to catalyze a worldwide effort to make healthy, just, and environmentally sustainable action a foundation of all learning and practice in higher education. Dr. Cortese was formerly the Commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection. As the first dean of environmental programs at Tufts University, he spear-headed the award-winning Tufts Environmental Literacy Institute in 1989.

Members introduced themselves.

Discussion

Cortese discussed critical aspects of a college sustainability program. College sustainability programs should not only address the environment, they need to address the following four dimensions of sustainability:

• Human health;
• Social justice & equity;
• Economic opportunity for all; and
• Ecological integrity & diversity.

He also noted that teaching, operations, and community relations should be integrally linked.

Dr. Cortese outlined steps or actions that a successful college sustainability program should include:

• Conduct sustainability assessments. They will help decision makers look at costs over time.
• Lay out strategies, a set of programs, and a set of steps. Next steps should be oriented around a set of principles.
• Conduct workshops that would allow operations people and faculty come together so that they can learn from each other, learn how they can help each other, and make positive changes.
• Offer faculty development that would encourage faculty to integrate sustainability across disciplines.
• Purchase locally. Products coming into the college should be based on sustainable system. Harness purchasing power with other local organizations.
• Communicate, communicate, communicate. Cortese noted that communication is to sustainability like location is to real estate.
• Educate the college community about what you are doing. Everything that is being done that contributes to a healthy, just, and sustainable society should be broadcast in every communication vehicle that we have.
• Make invisible impacts visible. Create transparency and visibility of assumptions on which our values are based.
• Obtain buy-in from the college community.
• Frame the message in a way that is non-threatening and that doesn’t ask people to take on one more thing. Stress that there are better ways to live.
• Involve faculty and students. This shouldn’t be a purely college operations driven initiative.
• Make an assessment of all of the people at the college are who are working on one or more of the aspects of sustainability.
• Create a critical mass of people who want to create positive change.
• College community members need a shared vision.
• Do a workshop this spring (50-70 people). Do an assessment of interested people, do marketing, and make it interactive. Ask how you create economic opportunity for everybody, communities that are healthy and secure.

Robertson asked whether a good strategy for jump-starting a sustainability program is to go for a big project. Robertson suggested building and operating a Center for Sustainable Living. Cortese responded that other institutions have done this with success, noting that the Kresgy Foundation grants funds for sustainable building. Cortese suggested an alternative big project be focused on green house gas emission reduction. Cortese proposed that Lane make a public goal of reducing green house gas emissions by 50% in 10 years. He noted that it is important to pick projects that require the full integration of the campus community not just facilities or just instruction.

Next Meeting: The next meeting will be Wednesday, November 2 from 3:00 to 4:30 pm in Building 16, Room 211.

Minutes prepared by: Jennifer Hayward
Date: 1/9/06