St Louis Community College
Going Green “for real”
Presented at MCCA Conference
5 November 09
Peggy Moody, Ph.D.,
District-wide Sustainability Coordinator
Projects Across the College
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Paper Reduction Efforts
Energy Efficiency
Energy Audit (GHG inventory)
Professional Development
Community outreach
Already Green
STLCC has been going paperless
• Online registration and catalogs
• Direct deposit for employees and
electronic payment to contractors
• Board Agendas and Policy and
Procedures are available
electronically
• Instructors using BlackBoard for
syllabi, educational materials, and
online testing (web classes)
Rethinking Paper
• Despite good efforts of using
paper with 30% recycled content,
we are burning through 28
million sheets of 8x10 per year
• Paper audit — to change, we
must know where and how we
use paper — as our IKON copy
rep said, “Where there is
mystery, there is margin.”
– Student Labs?
– Faculty?
– Administration?
Using Less Paper
• Raising awareness—creating options
for using less paper
– Assessing how we use paper for our
work
• Student papers—can they be submitted on
line?
• Faculty handouts and testing—can more
faculty use Blackboard?
• Administration—can we handle job
applications electronically? Have bids into
engineering via CAD?
Changing Paper Behaviors
• Training to use electronic tools like
Blackboard and shareware like OneNote or
Illuminate
• Having assistance from copier contractors
to install pop-up suggestions to print with
the most conservation (central copiers vs
desk-tops)
• Trying out new strategies for ONE MONTH
to see if habits to print can be changed
Making It Real
One strategy—
“Please consider me before you copy and
print.”
Each season, employees
and students submit their
image for the posters, thus
engaging users in this
paper conservation effort.
Energy Efficiency
STLCC is nearing a 50 year history in
conservation. Long before LEED
strategies were common practice,
the college was:
• weatherizing buildings;
• installing CFL lighting, room occupancy
sensors and water sensors in
bathrooms
• replaced boilers, cooling towers, and
chillers
• replaced roofs with white surfaces
Making Efficiency Real
• Before Leadership in Energy
and Environmental
Design(LEED)-• South County University and
Education Center—
– Natural lighting from the
architectural design helps cut
electricity, as well as
providing a sense of wellness
with views to nature.
– Ventilation allows for more
access to outdoors, rather
than artificial heating and
cooling.
– Technology uses Energy Star
Even More Real
Gold LEED Buildings:
• Wildwood (as per President
McIntyer’s presentation)
• Harrison Center
Silver LEED:
• The Bio-Research,
Development and Growth
(BRDG) Park at the Donald
Danforth Plant Science
Center—building to be
shared with other
companies
Green House Gas (GHG) Energy
Audit
• President Marcia
Pfieffer, at the
Florissant Valley
campus, signed the
Association for the
Advancement of
Sustainability in
Higher Education
(AASHE) President’s
Climate Commitment
in October, 2008.
Making It Real
• This semester at FV, a
carbon assessment is
underway involving
facilities staff, the
campus sustainability
committee, and
students measuring:
– direct emissions,
– emissions from purchased
sources,
– emissions associated with travel.
4.bp.blogspot.com/
More Carbon-Free For Real
• Two campuses now use
GEM electric cars.
– Wildwood Grounds Crew and
– Florissant Valley Police use their
cars
• Biofuel exploration—
Florissant Valley is
converting kitchen oil waste
to power their lawnmowers
• One district-wide hauler for
Recycling program
Professional Development
• Center for Teaching and Learning
– Visioning sessions identifying
sustainability as one of 4 LT goals
– Green building: one woman’s journey
• Professional Development Day
– It is easy being green (’07)
– Presentations on using Wildwood as a
learning lab; Fair Trade; OneNote and
Illuminate as paperless meeting
strategies; green presence on our
website (09)
Future Collaboration
• Partnering with St. Louis County
Health Dept for Recycling
luncheons
• St Louis University “Water
Matters” spring 2010
Community Outreach
• Steve Long for WCD—RCGA
presentation (9/09)
– job development via
collaborations and partnering
with USGBC as a provider of
green building courses
– http://stlworkforce.org/green
ing-of-stlcc/green
• Green Homes Festival
(STLCC as Silver Sponsors)
• Crowder College visit
(10/09) learning about
alternative energy
curriculum
Green Learning For Real
• At FV Green fairs—Phi Theta Kapa
students raise awareness via “consumer
consequences” tool
http://sustainability.publicradio.org/cons
umerconsequences/
• At Meramec—Eco-lition student groupOct 26th & 27th held Environmental
Activism Days creating a sculpture that
represents the needs of the
environment, both built and natural.
• Special School District graduates work as
our Recycling Technicians
Going Green is a Journey
• Moving towards alternative energies
• Moving toward integrated green jobs
training and curriculum
• Continuing collaborations with
regional partners
• MEASURING our environmental
impact
• Sharing our successes
Our commitment
• St. Louis Community College
considers environmental
stewardship an integral part of
our mission to expand minds and
change lives. We are committed
to assisting our region in fostering
awareness and development of a
growing green economy and
society by incorporating
sustainability concepts into our
academic and business practices.