Top Three Free Ways to Improve Sustainability

One of the great joys of my job is that I get to talk to diverse campus and community groups about sustainability and learn what is important to them and how the IU Office of Sustainability can help. I had the pleasure of having a stimulating conversation with the Bloomington Professional Council on April 21^st, and they asked some excellent questions.

For example: What are the top three free ways to improve sustainability?

I have never been asked this question before, so it required some thought. Here's the top three free ways to improve sustainability I came up with on short notice:

1)    Turn things off when you are not using them

2)    Spend less time in your car

3)    Go paperless

I expanded on each of those, and, in case you missed the meeting in the lovely daylit penthouse conference room of the Kelley School, here is a repeat.

1) Turn things off when you are not using them

This applies to lighting, computers, monitors and other electronics, water fixtures, idling vehicles, fume hoods (each of which uses three times the energy of an average home) and the little darlings of the phantom load underworld - chargers. Turning corded devices off is facilitated by plugging them into smart strips, which can be switched off with one pinky. Computers can be set to automatically power down when idle for a period of time and University Information Technology Services (UITS) is working with departments to roll out a software routine that does this automatically after two hours of inactivity (the Go-Green Gadget), yet still allows them to be awakened for service or remote login.  A pilot study of this program, conducted by the School of Education, revealed average savings of 48%, without having to think about it. A true no brainer, which would save the university upwards of $500K/year if fully implemented.

Lighting can also be switched off manually (free) or automatically (not free, but more reliable) when spaces are unoccupied or when ample daylight is sensed. The faster we can install occupancy and daylight sensors in every building on campus, the faster we can reap a high rate of return on investment and spend the windfall on more important things, like educating students. Everything else requires forming new habits, which is why things like prompts, social norms, Green Teams and month-long Energy Challenges come in handy. Energy Challenge 2010, completed on Earth Day, saved over 2.5 million gallons of water and over 1 million kilowatt hours of electricity, just by making people more aware of their energy and water consumption. We hope these new habits persist.

2) Spend less time in your car

Alternatives to Single Occupancy Vehicles (SOVs) abound on our campus. You can walk across campus and smell the spring blossoms, have chance meetings with your friends, listen to students having conversations with their roommates on their cell phones, feel the sun on your face and get vigorous exercise on the hills - all for FREE! This elevates your quality of life, melts away that extra fat, and saves time you would have spent waiting in the queue on 7^th Street to find that elusive parking spot next to the front door of your building. If you live further away from campus, you have another fitness option, riding your bike, which is quite the in-thing in Bloomington, home of Breaking Away, the Little 500, and geeks like me with our right pants leg stuffed in our socks to avoid sprocket cuff.

If you live outside the easy walking or biking range of campus, there are still other options to help you avoid your rolling isolation. One is our fantastic bus system that (if you mention my name and wink three times) is free to all faculty, staff and students. If you commute from beyond the bus lines, there are still other options. For example, the best-kept secret on campus is the outstanding Carpool or Ride Share program through Parking Services. Here's the deal. If three or more employees conspire to ride together, they get their own premo marked spot in the lot or garage of their choice, discounted A pass, free F passes, and guaranteed rides home for emergencies (such as your child is excused early from school). Another option is that you can rent a Zipcar, parked right on campus, for $8 bucks an hour, including gas, if you just want to run out to the mall or the doctor's office, then rejoin your carpool for the ride home. Please don't tell anyone about this stuff. It is a secret.

Just last week, IU Student Association (IUSA) announced yet another program, Zimride, a computerized, social-networking-based ride-sharing system for faculty, staff and students. In the first two days, over 850 people signed on to this free service subsidized by IUSA for $7500 per year. This is yet another free service to you that somebody else is paying for! Combine this with the Carpool program and I know you will feel like a band of pirates when your gang rolls into your personalized marked spot.

Bottom line, Hoosiers don't let friends commute alone. Getting out of your car will save you money and improve the quality of your social life and health, not to mention the quality of our air.

3) Go paperless

IU uses 84 million sheets of copy/printer paper each year. To give you a better picture of this, that would be a stack 5.3 miles high!  Over 70% of that paper is virgin paper with zero recycled content. This involves an unimaginable amount of trees, water, bleach, energy and transportation to get it to your office - then it involves an unimaginable amount of printer ink, printer energy, supply storage, staff filing time, and paper waste going to the landfill.

Fortunately, the paper tide is turning rapidly. The Registrar's office has eliminated several hundred thousand pages of paper forms in the past year, replacing them with digital forms that don't have to be printed, filed or transported. No longer must students trudge around campus and wait in line for these forms to be processed. No longer must workers finger through physical files to find the documents, they can just search online. Reclaim your office space! Throw out your five-drawer filing cabinets! What paper forms are you using now that can be digitized? What would work better in dynamic electronic form than it does in paper form (think phone directory, encyclopedia, dictionary, class catalogue, your class, etc.). Go paperless! Tell us how you did it. Over 9 million pages of paper on campus became obsolete in 2010 so far! Join the stampede. We have 5.3 miles to go before we sleep.

I would love to hear YOUR top three free ways to improve campus sustainability.