Research Project Winter 2005
Robin Fenske & Mark Retzlaff
Energy Systems, TESC

Introduction – What if?
• What if the intrinsic value of the biosphere, its operations, and its interactions with human health and well-being were recognized by the current mode of operation?

The current mode of operation
• Natural resources  energy
 human services
• Energy consumption is the primary way to increase human services.
• The result is a reduction in the effectiveness of natural processes as resources are depleted.

The Environmentalists’ Response
• Sustainability is the answer; curb natural resources use.
• A standard definition of sustainability
– meeting the needs of today while allowing future generations to meet their own needs

Our Response
• The environmentalist definition of sustainability describes a set of values, but not a framework to actualize them.
• Our project is an attempt to surface a framework of sustainability.

Winter question and hypotheses
• What energy consuming technologies and behaviors can be modified to increase sustainability of on-campus housing at
Evergreen?
• The winter portion of our project is an anaylsis, not an experiment

Spring Question
• What is the most effective and feasible program to achieve this increase?
• This question will be explored through a pilot program in housing.

Winter Methods
• Measure and Organize
• Explore/Map Exchange of Resources
• Identify Feasible Points of Change

Measure and Organize
• Measuring and calculating individuals’ energy use
• Organize energy use into the following catagories:
– Electricity
– Air Heating
– Transportation
– Food (in upstream energy cost)

Explore/Map system of resource exchange
• Develop a qualitative map of the interactions between resources for some of the major categories of energy uses.

• Capital is a quantitative measurement of something’s worth. In our project we will be using these four types of capital, described in the book Natural
Capitalism.

The Four Capitals
•
Human capital: labor and intelligence, culture, and organization
•
Financial capital: cash, investments, and monetary instruments
•
Manufactured capital: infrastructure, machines, tools, and factories
•
Natural capital: resources, living systems, and ecosystem services

• Capital (usually natural and financial)
 energy
 energy use
 capital
(usually human or manufactured)
• Sustainability is increasing the effectiveness of capital exchange, not efficiency of energy use.

Points of Ineffectiveness
• Sustainable change is most feasible where
– capital loss is the greatest
– the capital exchange system fails to meet the needs of the community
• Peter Senge’s The Fifth Discipline

The Move Towards Sustainability
• A program will be designed and implemented in Spring quarter using the analysis of capital exchanges.