How Green is My House?
Co-operative vs. traditional housing at Smith College
Maggie McCaffrey
EVS 300: Capstone Seminar
Smith College
05/07/2010
Abstract
The Smith housing system — small houses with students from all class years — is one of the school's
greatest assets and sources of pride. But from the point of view of sustainability, it’s inefficient. In this
study, I examined the two types of housing available at Smith — co-operative and traditional — to
determine which is potentially more sustainable, or “greener.” In the co-ops, students are responsible
for cooking; in the traditional houses, students participate in the college meal plan. I hypothesized that
the co-ops would be more sustainable than the traditional houses on the bases of water and electricity
usage and of recycling output. I was able to use data from daily water and electrical meters installed in
seven houses: two co-ops: Hopkins and Tenney; and five traditional houses: Park House, Park Annex,
Chapin, Lawrence, and Morris. For the recycling data, I compared the results of the 2010 Recycling
Olympics, The results of this study showed that although the co-ops are more sustainable when it
comes to water usage and recycling, they consume more electricity per capita than the five traditional
houses. The size of the house and the kitchen appliances in the co-ops are, however, mitigating factors
that may account for these findings. I recommend that Smith convert some of the medium-sized houses
that already have kitchens into co-ops and perhaps opening up co-op memberships to students who live
in other houses as board-only members.
Maggie McCaffrey
EVS 300: Capstone Seminar
Final Project
05/07/10
How Green is My House? Co-operative vs. traditional housing at Smith College
Introduction
The housing system at Smith College is integral to what makes the school unique. Smith’s small
intimate houses afford students close-knit communities and special relationships with fellow Smithies
of all years. Unfortunately, though, a system of many small houses is inefficient and wasteful in many
of the ways considered important for environmental sustainability. Because the “small house” system
is, as of now, unchangeable, it is important for the school to look for ways to improve efficiency as
much as possible. With these constraints in mind, I became interested in the comparison between co-op
living and traditional housing at Smith.
There are only two co-ops at Smith: Tenney and Hopkins. What makes these houses special is
that the student residents do not participate in the college meal plan but are instead responsible for
meal planning, some household chores, and purchasing for the house. In a study done by Wasylishyn &
Johnson (1998) cites co-operative housing as “an environment with the potential to reduce... women's
sense of isolation.” This potential is of particular importance at Smith because it is an all-women's
college where some students can feel isolated by the pressure of the school, whether social or
academic. Noting the importance of co-ops on a social and psychological level, I think it's as important
to evaluate them on an environmental level.
In contrast to the two co-ops, there are 35 traditional houses at Smith for traditional-aged
students and most students participate in the meal plan. In addition, each traditional house has a
housekeeping and kitchen staff who are responsible for all the cleaning and for the cooking in houses
with functioning kitchens. Given the difference in operations, I thought that there would be some
difference in energy and water usage and in waste production. In my investigation I used recycling as a
proxy for waste; because of the way waste is accounted for at Smith, it was difficult to find data for the
specific houses.
To contextualize the information I am going to present I would like to share some general
campus-wide numbers. According to the Sustainability and Climate Action Management Plan put
forward by the Office of Environmental Sustainability (2010), the residential and dining halls use about
37 gallons of water per student per day. In 2008, the entire campus used about 32 kWh of electricity per
student per day, and in 2009, Smith, as a whole, recycled a total of about 196 lbs per student.
My intent was to compare the two modes of housing on the bases of electricity and water use
and of recycling output. I hypothesized that the two types of houses would be different, with the co-ops
being “greener.” With the information I collected I wanted to make suggestions to the college about
ways to improve the system, either by adding more co-ops — as they are in high demand—
or by removing them completely. Although Smith has only these two, rather rigid, housing options,
other schools (such as Oberlin College) have more varied options for residential students that I will be
using as a guide to make recommendations to Smith about how to change their “small house” system
so that it will benefit both students and the environment.
I was able to access daily electricity and water usage data from meters in seven houses: the
two co-ops— Hopkins and Tenney; and the five traditional houses— Park House, Park Annex, Chapin,
Lawrence, and Morris. In addition to the meter data, I compared the performance of the seven houses in
the 2010 Recycling Olympics, an annual two-week recycling contest.
Method
Electricity and Water
As stated above, the data used for this project were provided by electricity and water meters
installed in Hopkins and Tenney, the two co-ops, with a capacity of 14 and 18 residents, respectively;
Park House, with a capacity of 66; Park Annex, with a capacity of 13; Chapin House, with a capacity of
70 as well as a high-volume dining hall; and Lawrence and Morris, each with capacity of 68. These
data were recorded from December 1, 2009 until April 12, 2010. I was able to adjust it on a per student
per day basis. I then took the overall averages and standard deviations.
For both the water and electricity data, 1-way ANOVA tests were done, in addition to TukeyKramer HSD multiple comparison tests.
Recycling
To compare the recycling habits, I was given access to the results of the 2010 Recycling
Olympics. This contest pushes the residential students to recycle in order to win prizes for their houses.
I used these data because it was the only information accessible to me that conveyed the way in which
waste is treated on a per house basis. Most other trash or recycling data was in the form of campuswide statistics. The results of this contest were recorded as total pounds per week for each house in the
categories of bottles and cans and paper. I converted these results into overall total pounds per student
for each house. Because of the way the data were received it was not possible to run statistical analyses.
Results
Electricity
The results of the comparison for the electricity usage, depicted in Figure 1, show that the two
co-ops used about double the amount of electricity used in most of the five traditional houses. Hopkins
and Tenney each used about 7 kWh per student per day. They were also the most variable over the
observed period, both with standard deviations over 1. After the co-ops, Chapin used the most
electricity at about 4.5 kWh per student per day, with Park House and Park Annex each at about 3.4
kWh per student per day. Lawrence and Morris used the least amount of electricity, about 2 kWh per
student per day. For the five traditional houses, the standard deviations hovered around .5.
The results were statistically significant; they showed that the differences between the houses
were significant (1-way ANOVA: F= 1148; df=6, 924; p < 0.0001). According to the Tukey-Kramer
HSD multiple comparison test, Hopkins and Tenney are significantly different from the traditional
houses but not from each other. Among the traditional houses Park House and Park Annex are grouped
together, but they are different from the other houses and Chapin, Lawrence, and Morris are all
different from the other houses and from one another. This is represented in Figure 1 using letters A
10
9
8
kWh/Day/Student
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
H opkins A
Tenney A
Park H ouse C
Park Annex C
C hapin B
Lawrence D
Morris E
House
through E as representing groups.
Figure 1: Average electricity usage for all seven houses from December 1, 2009 to
April 12,, 2010. The two co-ops are in lighter orange. The error bars represent the standard deviations.
The letters next to the names represent the results of the Tukey-Kramer HSD test, houses not connected
by the same letter are significantly different and those that are grouped by the same letter are
significantly similar.
Water
As you can see in Figure 2, for water usage, Chapin was the “thirstiest” house and also the most
variable, with an average of 34 gallons per student per day over the observed period with a standard
deviation of about 16. After Chapin, Lawrence and Morris had the second highest average water
consumptions at 28 and 27, respectively, with standard deviations of about 10 and 9, respectively. Next
were Park House and Park Annex, Park House residents on average used about 25 gallons per student
per day and Park Annex residents used about 24. Both the Park House and Park Annex averages had
standard deviations of about 11. Hopkins was sandwiched between the traditional houses with an
average of about 27 gallons per student per day with a standard deviation of about 7. Tenney, however,
used the least amount of water. The average for that house was about 23 gallons per student per day and
the standard deviation was about 6.
According to the 1-way ANOVA test, there is a statistically significant difference between the
houses (F=6.81; df=6, 371; p < 0.0001). The Tukey-Kramer HSD test allows us to see that Chapin is
significantly different from all the other houses, except Lawrence, which is both significantly similar to
Chapin and to the other five houses. The co-ops are statistically similar to each other and to Lawrence,
Morris, Park House, and Park Annex. This is represented in the Figure 2 using letters A, B, and a
combination to represent the groups.
50
45
Gallons/Day/Student
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
H opkins B
Tenney B
Park H ouse B
Park Annex B
C hapin A
Lawrence A,B
Morris B
House
Figure 2: Average water usage for all seven houses for February 26th, 2010 to April 20, 2010. The two
co-ops are in lighter blue. The error bars represent the standard deviations. The letters next to the names
represent the results of the Tukey-Kramer HSD test, houses not connected by the same letter are
significantly different and those that are grouped by the same letter are significantly similar.
Recycling
The co-ops, Hopkins and Tenney, are far and way the best recyclers according to the results of
the 2010 Recycling Olympics. Tenney was the gold medal winner with a total of 59.8 pounds per
student over the two weeks, more than double that of all the other houses looked at in this study.
Hopkins came in second at 27.7 pounds per student. Morris was first among the traditional houses with
a total of 19.2 pounds per student, Chapin second with a total of 15.8 pounds per student, Lawrence
close to Chapin at 14.7 pounds per student and Park Complex (combined data for Park House and Park
Annex) in last place with only 10.6 pounds per student in total. The standard deviations were not
determined because the data available were already in overall totals for the two weeks. This data are
clearly presented in Figure 3.
70
Total Pounds/Student
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Hopkins
Tenney
Park Complex
Chapin
Lawrence
Morris
House
Figure 3: Results of the 2010 Recycling Olympics for all seven houses in total pounds per student. The
two co-ops are in lighter green.
In order to paint the clearest possible picture, I also looked at recycling in the houses in the
categories of paper and bottles and cans. This is to account for any unfair advantage given to the co-ops
because of increased volume of recyclable bottles and cans. In the Figure 4 you can see that although
the co-ops recycle more bottles and cans than the other houses, Tenney recycles more paper than bottles
and cans, making their paper recyclables the reason for their total lead.
40
35
Pounds/Student
30
Total Paper/Student
Total Bottles &
Cans/Student
25
20
15
10
5
0
Hopkins
Tenney
Chapin
Park
Lawrence
Morris
House
Figure 4: Results of the 2010 Recycling Olympics, with the categories of total paper per student and
total bottles and cans per student.
Discussion
The data I received painted a picture that at times, contradicted my hypothesis and at other times
supported it. An important point to note is the timing of the data. The period observed included both
winter vacation and January terms, which drastically alter the number of students in the houses and
therefore the energy and water uses. (This does not have any effect on the recycling data as the period
of observation is different.) I believe that because this change in composition of inhabitants is across
the campus, it should not affect the ability to compare the houses. Although these results are still valid,
it would be interesting to see how much the numbers might change over a longer observation period
with less emphasis on these disruptive times.
In addition to timing, the houses available for comparison were limited to the houses with
meters. Given the opportunity to choose which houses to compare, I would not necessarily have chosen
these seven houses.My choice was a product of where the meters were placed. In fact, I would have
preferred to choose houses that were closer to the co-ops in size and houses with a smaller dining hall
as well as a larger one.
Electricity
The results for the average electricity usage were surprising and unfortunately don't fit
my hypothesis that the co-ops would be more “environmentally friendly” than the traditional houses.
But I think there may be some mitigating factors involved that must be taken into account when
looking at these findings. First, because of the added responsibility of cooking for the houses, the coops have industrial kitchen appliances, like coolers and sanitizers that require a large amount of energy.
Although Chapin has similar appliances, the energy required is averaged over 70 people as opposed to
being averaged over 14 or 18, as in the cases of Tenney and Hopkins. This means that per capita these
co-ops appear to use more electricity.
In addition to the additional burden of those energy hungry-kitchen appliances, I believe
that the size of the house affects the efficiency. Because each house has certain required energy uses,
like constant hall lighting, the fewer residents, the larger the average per student. Take for example,
Park Annex: although it is five times smaller than its counterpart, Park House, it uses the same amount
of energy, statistically speaking, per student per day (Tukey-Kramer HSD multiple comparison: q= 2.9,
alpha=0.05). This supports my theory that the size of the house affects its efficiency. I think it is due,
primarily, to these two factors that the two co-ops appear to be so energy inefficient.
Another important thing to note about the data concerns Park House. Park House was
recently renovated and since it was the first house to be renovated after the inception of the Office for
Environmental Sustainability, it is structurally the greenest house on campus. With that in mind, you
would expect it to have the lowest energy requirement. But it has an energy burden unlike any of the
other houses on campus: it uses forced hot water heat. The other houses on campus use steam heat,
where the steam travels passively through the radiator systems in the houses. The forced hot water heat
in Park House uses hot water rather than steam. That water must be pumped through the system so it
requires energy. What it requires in energy, in makes up for in precision, the heating can be regulated
more easily with hot water than it can with steam, making it ultimately more efficient. (Park Annex
does not use this type of heat.)
Overall, the results of the average electricity usages of these seven houses paint a very
complicated picture. Although it appears that the co-ops may not be as environmentally friendly as I
have previously posited, there are confounding variables that make the data less straightforward. I
believe it is truly the size of the co-ops that is affecting the results so drastically.
Water
Unlike the results of the electrical data, water usage was more in line with my original
hypothesis. The Tukey-Kramer HSD multiple comparison shows Chapin, the largest house with a highvolume dining hall, as significantly different from the other houses (aside from Lawrence) and Figure 2
shows it as the thirstiest house and all the other houses as statistically similar. It's important to note that
although it may look as if the co-ops are just “keeping up with the Joneses” they are in fact doing better
than all the other houses because they have the added burden of cooking and washing dishes and
kitchen implements. Thus they require more water for their day-to-day operations but are somehow
able to use their water more efficiently than the other houses. This is especially evident when you
compare Tenney to Park Annex. They are similar in size, Tenney has a capacity of 14 and Park Annex
has a capacity of 13, and they, statistically speaking, use identical amounts of water, Tenney with a
daily average of 22.9 gallons per student and Park Annex with 23.7. But Tenney is using water in a way
that Park Annex is not, to cook and to clean dishes and the kitchen.
In conclusion, unlike the data for use of electricity, the daily water averages seemed to be
more positively correlated to size. The smaller the house, the less water used. But keep in mind, the coops are doing better because they are able to fit into that scheme despite having additional water use
pressures.
Recycling
Although the recycling data fits my hypothesis, it is rather problematic as an indicator of
waste production in general and may be unfairly biased towards the co-ops. Because of the food
preparation requirement of the co-ops, it's possible that they generate more recyclable waste than other
houses on campus. Although the paper data from Tenney seems to indicate that they are recycling more
than just their bottles and cans, such is not really the case for Hopkins. In addition to this potential bias
toward the co-ops, the results of the Recycling Olympics are not necessarily ideal as a proxy for the
average way in which the houses handle their waste. I was unable to get data for the individual houses
for daily trash or recycling, so because of these constraints I used these results and assumed that
although the numbers may be inflated from their normal levels, they at least represent a general
commitment by the house to recycling and managing their waste properly. Another possible problem is
the idea that maybe increased recycling is not actually an indication of “green-ness” but really a
representation of a house that actually produces more waste. Although I can't say that I believe that, it
is a possibility.
Because of these confounding variables, I think it would be important in a further study
to look at the daily waste production in these houses. I'm not sure how that data would be collected.
Maybe by taking account of the garbage in each house by oneself or by asking the garbage collectors to
record the number of bags. Another option would be to ask the houses to self-report; I think this would
be most effective in the co-ops.
Something that ties into all these results is the potential effect the behavior of the house
members has on the results. It's possible that the members of co-ops are inherently “greener,” or maybe
the members of some traditional houses are. It would be interesting to accompany this study with a
look into the behavioral aspect of “green-living” in the two modes of housing at Smith. I've included a
potential survey in the Appendix (Appendix A). This survey would ask the individual members of the
houses what their habits are. Another interesting offshoot would be a comparison of foods from the
traditional dining and the co-ops. My hypothesis would be that the co-ops are using more locally and
organically produced goods than the traditional dining halls, but it would be interesting to test this
hypothesis. Tenney is an all vegetarian and vegan house, so it would be especially telling to compare it
to Northrop-Gillett, the vegan and vegetarian dining hall on campus.
Conclusion
I believe that, overall, the co-ops have more potential for environmental sustainability
than do the traditional houses, for many reasons, some of which are represented in this study and some
of which can be inferred from these findings. Obviously the co-ops use their water more efficiently
and seem to be more successful recyclers. These are promising conclusions and indicate that the houses
are acting sustainably. The variable they have less control over, electricity, shows that the size of the
house may limit their potential for sustainability in that respect.
Comment [PMcC1]: Do you mean
co-ops here or all houses?
Because the co-ops have greater potential for sustainability I want to make some
recommendations to the college for additional co-ops. Rooms in co-ops are in high demand and I think
Smith would be smart to add more, but perhaps it would be more efficient to install co-ops in larger
houses. For instance, Duckett, which has a capacity of 37 and a fully functional kitchen, could serve as
an excellent co-op. The operations would differ from those of Hopkins and Tenney since Duckett is
more than twice their size, but other schools with houses much bigger than that have done it. For
example, Oberlin has co-ops with as many as 64 residential members and an additional 45 board-only
members and as small as 15 residential members but that feed an additional 70 students. It is from this
system that I would like to propose another way to increase the sustainability of the co-ops on the
Smith campus. I think it would be an interesting idea to take a page from Oberlin's book and open up
co-op memberships to nonresidential students, meaning that students can still be boarding members of
a co-op without actually living there. The co-ops could then remain in these smaller buildings and
Smith might not even have to put in too much money to alter the houses that participate. But more
students would have access to the environmentally friendly atmosphere of the co-ops plus would they
would be able to help offset some of the costs — economic and environmental — of the electrical
inefficiencies of the small houses.
Smith has proposed a space reduction plan that would close two houses, Parsons and
Dawes, that could perhaps be converted into co-ops. Dawes is a perfect candidate for such an operation
because it houses the Kosher Kitchen, a student-run kitchen much like the kitchens in Hopkins and
Tenney. Dawes could be the first co-op on campus to have members living in the house as well as
members living in other houses. I believe that co-ops are important for Smith students as they provide a
space for Smithies to work together to achieve day-to-day goals as well as to learn meal planning,
interpersonal skills, cleaning and cooking techniques in addition to creating a safe social environment
to foster close relationships between students of all years. This is why I would like to see Smith explore
the options I have put forth: creating co-ops from larger houses and extending the membership to
Comment [PMcC2]: Is this what yu
mean?
nonresidential members. I think Smithies are ready for a change in our housing system and they are
certainly interested in living sustainably and co-operatively.
References
1. Wasylishyn, C. & Johnson, J.L. (1998). Living in a housing co-operative for low income women:
Issues of identity, environment and control. Social Science & Medicine, 47:7:973-981.
2. Committee on Sustainability (2010). Sustainability and Climate Action Management Plan (SCAMP).
Retrieved from: http://www.smith.edu/green/docs/SmithCollegeSCAMP.pdf
3. Oberlin Student Co-operative Association (5/4/2010) OSCA Homepage.Retrieved from:
http://osca.wilder.oberlin.edu/
Appendix A: Sample survey to determine individual house member's commitment to sustainability
1. How often do you turn off your lights when you leave your room?
a. Always
b. Often
c. When I remember...
d. Never
2. How often do you throw paper into your trash instead of recycling?
a. Always
b. Often
c. More than I should
d. Never
3. Plastic items?
a. Always
b. Often
c. More than I should
d. Never
4. How often do you keep the water running when you wash your face?
a. Always
b. Often
c. More than I should
d. Never
5. Brush your teeth?
a. Always
b. Often
c. More than I should
d. Never
6. How often do you take longer than a 20 minute shower?
a. Always
b. Often
c. More than I should
d. Never
7. Do you keep your printer plugged in when you're not using it?
a. Yes
b. Sometimes
c. No
8. Do you have a mini-fridge?
a. Yes
b. No
9. If so, do you turn it off on breaks?
a. Yes
b. No
c. Depends
10. Do you use fluorescent light bulbs?
a. Yes
b. No