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Sustainability in the News
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IU Bloomington Greenest Floor Challenge at midway point
The first Greenest Floor Challenge at Indiana University Bloomington is off to a successful start. The competition rewards the floor in each residence that green certifies the largest percentage of rooms through the Green Room Certification Program. The total number of certifications since the competition started is a staggering 149. Currently, two floors are tied for the highest number of certifications on a single floor. Eigenmann's 10th floor and Teter's Boisen C fourth floor both have 11 certifications. Of all the residence halls, Wright has the most total certifications of 35, beating Teter by two. "We are absolutely thrilled that almost 150 students living in the residence halls have green certified their rooms, and we still have a week and a half left in the competition," said Emilie Rex, assistant director of sustainability.
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At the halfway point, fall 2012 IU Energy Challenge is too close to call
The Fall 2012 Indiana University Energy Challenge at IU Bloomington is at the mid-point, and the competition is tight among the buildings in each of the six categories, many leading by only a narrow margin.
Because the campus is now fully metered, registration was open to all campus buildings. This eighth running of the challenge has more participants than ever with a registration increase of approximately 33 percent, for a total of 82 buildings. Such growth has required Energy Challenge organizers to split the buildings into six categories: large academic buildings, academic houses, sorority houses, fraternity houses, residence halls and apartment complexes.
"The marvelous and quite remarkable consequence of this, our eighth energy challenge, is that essentially all of our undergraduates, including our seniors who arrived nearly four years ago, have experienced an energy challenge in each of their semesters at IU," said Ben Brabson, professor emeritus in the Department of Physics.
Read the full article >>
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IU Office of Sustainability names interns for 2012-13 academic year
The Indiana University Office of Sustainability has named 17 interns to focus on sustainability-related projects at IU Bloomington during the 2012-13 academic year.
Building upon the tradition of the Indiana University Task Force on Sustainability, the Office of Sustainability addresses issues concerning environmental, economic and social sustainability in campus operations, academic programs and university-community relations. The graduate and undergraduate student interns will work on a broad array of issues related to sustainability on the IU campus. They will intern under the guidance of IU faculty and staff.
"When people ask how IU Bloomington has made significant progress on campus sustainability, I point to the student sustainability internship program," said Bill Brown, IU director of sustainability. "These innovative leaders of tomorrow manage complex collaborative initiatives in a real campus community, forever changing the university and themselves in the process."
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Bloomington to provide free energy assessments
The City of Bloomington will offer free home energy use assessments to local homeowners through the third-annual Beat the Meter Blitz. Thirty to 40 participants will be chosen through a lottery system and will be provided with a holistic inspection of their home's energy efficiency on behalf of the city's Housing and Neighborhood Development Department. "They look at the house as a whole and try to identify some short term lower cost improvements people can make, but also give them some steps they can use to make the house efficient over time," said Jacqui Bauer, City of Bloomington sustainability coordinator.
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Bloomington named fit-friendly workplace
Julie Ramey, community relations manager of the city's parks and recreation department, said people do not have to be a marathon runner or a body lifter to be healthy. You just have to be active. A vigorous hiking enthusiast, Ramey treks the local trails of Monroe County everyday, rain or shine. This attitude embraces the goals of Bloomington's Be Active program, which received an honorable mention in the American Heart Association ShapeUp Social Wellness Award. On Oct. 26, the city was recognized as a platinum fit-friendly worksite by the AHA for the third consecutive year.
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Commit to a Walkable Campus
By Bill Brown
One of the five key themes of the 2010 IU Bloomington Campus Master Plan is Theme 4: Commit to a Walkable Campus. Walkability was a characteristic of the first 130 years of IUB campus history, well preserved in the historic core of campus around Dunn's Woods. Walkability is returning to the forefront as a key determinant of success for campus and community planning. According to the consultants who wrote the Campus Master Plan, JJR Smith Group:
As the Bloomington campus expanded following World War II, new patterns arose based on automobile travel distances. The principal consequence of this development was the consumption of acreage and campus "sprawl" out to the SR 45/46 Bypass. This led to a time and spatial inequality for those students residing in apartments at the perimeter of campus, and an increase in bus service and automobiles on campus. It also resulted in a lack of scale, pedestrian character, and walkability.
Other key themes reinforce the idea of a more dense, compact campus with a more diverse mix of activities in several "neighborhoods" scaled for walking. The plan also recommends more indoor and outdoor social spaces for the kind of unstructured interaction so important to a rich educational experience. Walkable places are popular places and cities and campuses everywhere are taking steps to enhance their walkability.
The Campus Master Plan also included four Sustainability Principles, including Sustainability Principal 3: Ensure a Range of Transportation Options. Among the recommendations of this principle are:
- Increase the use of lower impact modes oftransportation in lieu of reliance on single occupancy vehicles.
- Create pedestrian and bicycle priority on campus.
- Develop new separate and safe bike routes and furnish covered and protected bike racks liberally throughout the campus.
- Develop and implement Transportation Demand Management strategies to reduce future parking demand-parking pricing, bicycle sharing, marketing for carpooling and Guaranteed Ride Home programs, and car sharing.
The Campus Master Plan points out that, "while 90 percent of undergraduate students, 75 percent of graduate students, and 57 percent of faculty live within 3 miles of campus, almost half of all campus users drive to campus alone each day."
Following the recommendations of the Campus Master Plan, a transportation demand management (TDM) study was commissioned last year, conducted by the consulting firm Vanasse Hangen Brustlin, Inc. (VHB).
Part of the process for this study was to survey all faculty, staff and students about their transportation preferences and over half responded. They also analyzed the location of the residences of all faculty, staff and students to determine proximity to campus and to campus and city bus routes. The results of the survey combined with the location information provides evidence that there is a considerable opportunity for improvement in more active forms of transportation, such as bus transit, walking, and bicycling, as the Campus Master Plan suggested. If IUB could get 10% of current single-occupancy drivers to take more active transportation over the next ten years, the results would be less traffic congestion, less air pollution, less demand for expensive new parking structures, fewer surface lots in the center of campus, a more beautiful campus, and a healthier workforce, which would help control spiraling insurance costs.
As it nears completion, it is not yet clear how the Transportation Demand Management study will be presented, but it is certainly worthy of consideration as IU Bloomington walks the talk to achieve its commitment to a walkable campus envisioned by the Campus Master Plan.
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Profiles in IU Sustainability
This feature profiles a student, faculty member, staff member, IU alum, or community member who has inspired us as a sustainability leader. We hope you enjoy these stories, and we encourage you to send along your own! View this and past profiles at http://www.indiana.edu/~sustain/profiles/archives.html
Sara Minard is this month's featured sustainer:
Minard 101
Time at IU: Four years and currently working towards a PhD in Food Studies/Anthropology
Hobbies: Cooking, collecting mid-century modern furniture, foraging, staring into trash bins, teaching my new kitten Wendall how to fetch
Favorite Spot in Bloomington: Sitting around a bonfire at my friends Steve and Sarah's house - we always have a good time, and who doesn't love staring into a fire?
Favorite Green Tip: Rethink your showering habits. I've moved from an everyday shower to a ... well, I will keep that to myself. A washcloth and a bit of soap does the body good and saves you both time and a TON of water.
Tell us a little about yourself
I'm really into garbage AND I love clothes and fashion - my icon is Iris Apfel, and in homage to her I am typically wearing a fair amount of jewelry and really, really big glasses. Before entering my PhD program I bought and sold second hand couture clothing, which taught me to afford my habit. To this day, most of my possessions are second hand - I find that what I find is more unusual, better made and much, much cheaper than what you see in most retail stores.
What does sustainability mean to you?
Oh boy, this is a tough one. People spend their lives trying to figure out what this means. At the individual level, one aspect of sustainability is deeply considering one's resource appropriation, use and disposal and implementing more conservative practices into daily routines - this falls in line with my showering tip, which is one example of how resources might be used more sustainably. I suppose I might also say that I don't see "sustainability" as something that can be definitively achieved, like "Hey look everyone, we are finally sustainable - drive over in your Hummers and break out the Styrofoam plates and the burgers!", but more as a mindset that fundamentally realizes that human action is radically reconfiguring our planet. Although this has been true throughout human history, now the impacts appear to be mounting at an accelerated rate in ways that do not sustain countless flora and fauna species and may not sustain the human species. So perhaps broadly speaking, sustainability is orienting human action towards sustaining all manner of life forms on Earth.
What role do you play in supporting sustainability initiatives at IU?
I have had the awesome opportunity to work as an IUOS intern and - along with Christine Barbour and Bruce Jacobs - coordinated the first annual Big Red Eats Green festival in 2011. That first year we were able to introduce students to local foods in and around campus as well as some of the area's growers responsible for producing those foods. In the spring semester of 2013, I am teaching a course on garbage at Collins Living and Learning Center, in which I will be asking students to think about the "hidden" world of garbage and how ecological waste cycling is similar to and different from the ways in which humans deal with their myriad wastes. My hope is that students will start seeing and thinking about garbage and waste in new ways.
What do you see as the biggest challenge for sustainability at IU?
The inertia of habit. People are very accustomed to using resources in routinized ways. Designing effective institutional interventions that may help to derail these habits involves an expenditure of both time and money, however, I believe that as teaching institutions, universities are the most fundamental and powerful places for instilling sustainable behaviors.
How do you practice sustainability in your daily life?
I'm just going to give you my top seven ways:
1. Shower only when necessary.
2. Eat very little meat.
3. Buy second-hand clothing.
4. Grow as much of my own food as possible.
5. Compost.
6. Refuse to mow or water my lawn.
7. Wear layers in the fall, winter and spring - I turn my heat to 60 at night, and 65 during the day. If I leave the house, the heat gets turned down to 60.
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Events and Opportunities
Full event listings can be viewed on our calendar, while the latest news and opportunities are viewable on our blog
Events This Week:
Diabetes: Are You At Risk?
Tuesday, November 13 When: 11:30 am -12:30 pm Where: Indiana Memorial Union, Redbud Room Description: This FREE 16-week is designed to reduce the risk for developing type 2 diabetes. It is designed to create awareness of the causes of the disease. This class will be led by Susan Woods, Lifestyle Coach. For more information and to register, click here.
Striding Towards Healthy Communities: Indiana's Active Transportation Conference (Mobile Workshops)
Tuesday, November 13 When: 12:00 - 3:00 pm Where: Indianapolis, Indiana Description: Registration is now open for Striding Toward Healthy Communities: Indiana's Active Transportation Conference. The conference overview, session and speaker info, and numerous other details are available on the conference website. To go to the website click here. Email [email protected] with questions or for more information. Sponsorship opportunities remain available, too.
Striding Towards Healthy Communities: Indiana's Active Transportation Conference
Wednesday, November 14 When: 9:00 am - 3:00 pm Where: Hilton Indianapolis Hotel & Suites Description: Registration is now open for Striding Toward Healthy Communities: Indiana's Active Transportation Conference. This is the full-day conference. The conference overview, session and speaker info, and numerous other details are available on the conference website. To go to the website click here. Email [email protected] with questions or for more information. Sponsorship opportunities remain available, too.
Indiana University Campus Sustainability Awards
Wednesday, November 14
When: 7:00 - 8:00 pm Where: Neal-Marshall Black Culture Center - Grand Hall Description: Come help us celebrate the people and teams that have helped to make Indiana University and the surrounding city of Bloomington a greener place. Join us for a night with fellow peers who care about the same environmental issues. Make a reservation for the night by clicking here.
Best Practices for Self-Care
Friday, November 16
When: 12:00 - 12:30 pm
Where: Indiana Memorial Union, Sassafras Room Description: In this session, you will be able to learn about managing your lifestyle and preventative care, in addition to learning about common illnesses and at home treatments. We will discuss how to respond to certain emergencies and how to overall achieve a higher quality of life. This program is facilitated by Patty Hollingsworth, Director of Healthy IU. To learn more about this class and reserve a seat, follow this link.
Upcoming Volunteer Opportunities:
Tuesday, November 13
Dunn's Woods Restoration Project When: 4:45-5:45 pm Where: Dunn's Woods, meet at Herman B. Wells Plaza on IU's campus Description: Come learn more about Dunn's Woods, and help remove the invasive Purple Wintercreeper species and plant native wildflowers. All tools and gloves are provided. For more future dates, times, and locations click here.
Tuesday, November 13
Campus Garden Workday
When: 4:00 - 6:00 pm
Where: Hilltop Garden and Nature Center
Description: Description: No need to sign up ahead of time, just show up ready to play in the dirt and grow food for the campus community! Gloves and tools are provided. Email [email protected] with questions. For more information, visit the IU Garden Blog.
Friday, November 16
Campus Garden Workday
When: 4:00 - 6:00 pm
Where: Hilltop Garden and Nature Center, 2367 E. 10th St
Description: No need to sign up ahead of time, just show up ready to play in the dirt and grow food for the campus community! Gloves and tools are provided. Email [email protected] with questions. For more information, visit the IU Garden Blog.
Tuesday, November 20
Campus Garden Workday
When: 5:00 - 7:00 pm
Where: Hilltop Garden and Nature Center
Description: Description: No need to sign up ahead of time, just show up ready to play in the dirt and grow food for the campus community! Gloves and tools are provided. Email [email protected] with questions. For more information, visit the IU Garden Blog.
Friday, November 13
Campus Garden Workday
When: 9:00 - 11:00 am
Where: Hilltop Garden and Nature Center, 2367 E. 10th St
Description: No need to sign up ahead of time, just show up ready to play in the dirt and grow food for the campus community! Gloves and tools are provided. Email [email protected] with questions. For more information, visit the IU Garden Blog.
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About Us
The mission of the Indiana University Office of Sustainability is to advance sustainable human-environment interactions within the Bloomington campus and community by facilitating collaborative academic and operational initiatives.
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Contact Us
IU Office of Sustainability E-House
704 E. 10th St. Bloomington, Indiana 47408 812-855-1822
www.sustain.indiana.edu
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