Introduction

    While many looked to the COP26 summit as a platform from which to direct international climate change action, the conference failed to mobilize a global initiative to combat the dangers of global warming to the extent required. However, some nations, the US included, have undertaken their own commitments in light of COP26, trying to do their own parts in the hopes of stemming the tide of environmental desolation. But nations are only formed by their residents, and it is clear that we too must do our parts as well, working not only to cut our own carbon footprints and reduce our energy intensities, but also that of the institutions we are a part of. As students at Brooklyn College, we have a responsibility to the college, to the community, and to ourselves, to rectify the college’s less than stellar performance on these issues. Brooklyn College itself is one of the worst CUNY institutions in regards to energy efficiency, carbon footprints, and the use of renewable energy, though we believe this is not an inevitable, immutable reality. By using other campuses across the country as examples, we have sought out and uncovered a variety of innovative solutions proven to work in these other campuses, that we believe can be guidelines for Brooklyn College itself to rise to the occasion. The schools we have chosen as examples are Emerson College, Hobart and Smith Colleges, Carleton College, University of California Irvine, and Princeton University, each of which we believe are useful examples for what Brooklyn College could achieve, should it direct itself properly. This project was done by Matthew Kundla, Clayton MacKay, and Joseph Edelheit with the guidance of Micha Tomkiewicz as well as Rakhee Kewada.

 

Laws

1. 1. Must cut emissions of buildings larger than 25,000 square feet 40% by 2030 (going into effect 2024), and then an additional 40% cut by 2050
   2. Remove all gas and oil heaters and boilers across the city and replace them with electric ones by 2050

 

Abstract

    Based on a wider project to survey Brooklyn College in the context of COP26 and the global effort towards greener futures, we have sought to extrapolate data from more successful colleges in the hopes of finding suggestions to innovate Brooklyn College’s current sustainability initiatives.

 

Methods

• One challenge our project faced was that we had wanted to get more information from the campuses themselves, via their offices of sustainability or other similar contacts. However, while we did hear back from some, a vast majority never responded, and as such we needed to refocus the project on information we ourselves could garner.
• Used the STARS program to find energy usage for each college
• Collected information from offices of sustainability where possible or our own research into each individual campus.
• Converted data we received into usable information
• Examined the qualitative data we had collected to find justifications for our calculated quantitative data, in the hopes of finding clear suggestions.

 

Results

We got our information from the STARS data provided by each college. The units for energy was given in million British Thermal Units. We decided to change this value to Calories. This was done by using the conversion of 1 British Thermal Unit equals about 0.25 Calories. In order to get the carbon footprint, we used the fact that the burning of methane produces 210 Calories of energy per mole of methane. Then we use the mole ratio 1:1 for methane and carbon dioxide to find the moles of carbon dioxide produced. Then using the molar mass of carbon dioxide, which is 44 grams of carbon dioxide per mole, to get the mass of carbon produced.

 

Discussion

Based on the data collected it is clear to see that Brooklyn College is one of the worst energy efficient schools from the ones we have highlighted here. Considering we have one of the smaller square footage of the bunch, amassing 2.4 million square feet, it would seem like our energy usage is absurd.  As seen in Figure 1, Brooklyn College uses double the energy per square foot compared to the other schools. This also leads Brooklyn College to have double the carbon footprint of the other schools, which can be seen in Figure 2. A reason for having more energy use can be attributed to the large population at Brooklyn College, however it is not good enough to say that using double the energy per square foot is justified by having a large population. Amassing an energy usage of 50,529 Calories per square foot and a carbon footprint of 10.5 kilograms of carbon dioxide per square foot in 2018 shows that there needs to be some changes to the energy initiatives at Brooklyn College. To figure out what changes should be made, it is a good start to look at what other colleges are doing.

 

Other Colleges

• Emerson College:

1. 1. 1. Four of the five buildings that make up Emerson College are LEED certified
      2. Emerson gets all electricity it uses from purchasing wind power.
      3. Very strong movement to recycle
         1. Recycle bottles, lightbulbs, and have college-wide efforts to donate clothing, electronic equipment, etc… so as to not stuff landfills.
         2. Have refilling stations to incentivize multi-use bottles
      4. Have distinct bicycle parking areas

• Hobart and Smith Colleges:

1. 1. 1. Have two solar farms on site
         1. All other energy they use is bought from external renewable sources
      2. Compost all food waste
      3. Strong support for cleaner transportation
         1. Have a college-owned shuttle to transport people
         2. Zip-Cars can be rented from the college
            1. As can bicycles, which can be rented for an entire semester.

• Carleton College:

1. 1. 1. Has a wind turbine on site
         1. Gets all other energy from renewable sources
      2. Has a 100 year plan for further renewable innovation
         1. Maybe Brooklyn could observe their planning so as to make it easier to direct our goals towards similar objectives
         2. Is a well-documented sustainability initiative spanning decades, with clear goals and objectives, and a document that could be quite useful as a comparison as CUNY completes its own 10-Year Sustainability Plan

• University of California, Irvine

1. 1. 1. Have multiple cross-consortium efforts to get students more involved in sustainability
         1. Likely could help Brooklyn College and CUNY as a whole, as this could lead to greater involvement with students as well, given both are urban schools.
      2. Plan to have 50% of all natural gas be produced by biomass burning
      3. Multiple buildings are LEED certified

• Princeton University

1. 1. Has invested heavily in thermal storage and geo-exchange, helping to save energy, as heat from the summer is saved to be used in the winter
   2. Uses a hot water heating system instead of steam, which requires less energy
   3. Added insulation and other refurbishments can and do help make older buildings comply with greener standards
   4. Better energy distribution lines so that energy does not go to waste, never arriving at its destined location

With all this information laid out, it is clear that there are some commonalities between the schools. One of them is LEED certified buildings. It seems that it would be worthwhile to look into LEED and get some insight into how buildings are crafted and organized to create a greener environment. Secondly, it can be seen that the colleges prefer to use alternative energy sources to coal and natural gas. Some of these campuses have structures like wind turbines on sight. As seen in Figure 3, Brooklyn College does not have the space for any large scale infrastructural changes such as adding a wind turbine. Since this is not possible, an alternative would be to either have an offsite, CUNY owned alternate energy location; or more simply; we can buy our energy from an already existing alternate energy location. We can also attempt to use as much space as we have to incorporate a source of renewable energy such as solar panels, although it will not sustain the entire college’s energy needs. It is important to remember that any little bit will help in the goal of decarbonizing Brooklyn College. 

 

Conclusions

1. Get LEED certification on buildings
2. Move our investment portfolio away from fossil fuels and invest in greener energy sources
3. Obtain energy and heat from renewable sources
4. Incentivize public transportation to a greater extent (although this is a scope 3 issue which will not solve the long term issues of decarbonizing the school, it is an important step to take)

 

References

1. LEED rating system | U.S. Green Building Council (usgbc.org)   
2. DRAFT Brooklyn Plan (InDesign Version) (cuny.edu)
3. https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy18osti/71822.pdf
4.  https://reports.aashe.org/institutions/participants-and-reports/ 
5. https://www.cuny.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/page-assets/about/administration/offices/fpcm/departments/capital-budget/31-Statistics-2017.pdf
6. Hobart and Smith Colleges AASHE report
7. Carleton College AASHE report
8. Emerson College AASHE report
9. University of California, Irvine AASHE report
10. Princeton University AASHE report
11. Carleton 100 Year Plan
12. Carleton Office of Sustainability
13. Princeton’s Net-Zero Campus
14. Hobart and Smith Colleges Office of Sustainability
15. Hobart and Smith Colleges Solar Farms
16. University of California,Irvine Sustainability Resource Center
17. Emerson Sustainability
18. Climate Change Fork: Campus Sustainability