World Sustainable Development Teach-In Day

This coming Friday, December 3rd, marks World Sustainable Development Teach-In Day.

Sustainable development is an issue all countries in the world are currently looking at. The degree of emphasis and the level investing resources invested however varies from one country to another; but regardless of whether we are talking about industrialised or developing countries, the quest for environmentally sound, socially just, economically viable and ethically acceptable development needs to be regarded as a priority by all nations of the world.

For many years now, a large number of initiatives have been carried out throughout the world to attempt to stoke up awareness about sustainable development and promote initiatives to achieve it.

The 1987 Report "Our Common Future" produced by the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED), "Agenda 21" produced by the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and the "Johannesburg Declaration" produced following the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002 are examples of the type of initiatives being worked on internationally. These have been complemented by the various "National Sustainable Development Strategies" produced prior to UNCED and after Johannesburg.

As a club committed to sustainability, this marks a great opportunity to learn from others around the world about the myriad faces and facets of this thing called "sustainable development."

What is being developed and what is being sustained? So far, much of sustainable development seems to have been a global corporate-governmental collusion that has served the advantage of the already wealthy and powerful. Looking at just water issues in India, Bolivia, and Africa, the idea and practice of sustainable development might seem an oxymoron. There is no doubt we have a conundrum on our hands if we hope to bring health and material prosperity to 6.8 billion people and counting. Maybe we should be going for what James Lovelock, father of the "Gaia theory" has called a "sustainable retraction" and/or get in on the Transitions Initiatives. Or maybe that's just doomsville.

As teachers, we have a significant role to play. What do hope to sustain? Who do we develop? What and whose purpose does all of this serve? In a world of uncertain futures, how and for whom do we conceive of our teaching? These are the biggest questions we have to answer. Ultimately, we are servants and we have to serve people well.

What should education for sustainable development look like right here at Penn State and in the Centre Region? Where should we go?

Frustration with college rankings

If any of you follow the college rankings by U.S. News and World Report and Princeton Review you might also know that environmental report cards are out there now too. But not everyone is happy about them, how they are tabulated, and what the publicity could mean when the methods behind them are unclear, not to mention time consuming for people who have to fill them out.

The Chronicle of Higher Education has a piece in its current issue about it:

Colleges have been subjected to all sorts of ratings, rankings, and grades on their green sensibilities in recent years—and not all of them have been welcome. Sustainability directors increasingly find themselves filling out surveys from organizations like the Sustainable Endowments Institute, Sierra magazine, and the Princeton Review Inc., each with its own twist on questions about energy use, mass transit, water conservation, and so on. The data collection is becoming a real burden, they say.

Now, in a recent letter to colleges, the Sustainable Endowments Institute has floated a proposal: How would you like to pay $700 for the pleasure of filling out a survey? That money would help the institute render a grade—it could be an A-minus, or maybe a D-plus—for its highly publicized College Sustainability Report Card.

If you find yourself saying, "No, thanks," you're not alone, as the proposition may come at a bad time. Not only are many colleges watching every penny, but sustainability directors are also suffering from green-ratings fatigue. Just ask administrators at Ithaca College, who recently publicized a letter they wrote to the editors of Sierra magazine, explaining that they would not participate in the "Cool Schools" survey because they found the process too time-consuming, opaque, and of questionable value.

Will Penn State be one of the STARS?

The American Association for the Advancement for Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE...what a mouthful) is starting to pilot its STARS (Sustainability Tracking, Assessment and Rating System) program. According to AASHE, the program's goals are:

• Provide a framework for understanding sustainability in all sectors of higher education.
• Enable meaningful comparisons over time and across institutions using a common set of measurements developed with broad participation from the campus sustainability community.
• Create incentives for continual improvement toward sustainability.
• Facilitate information sharing about higher education sustainability practices and performance.
• Build a stronger, more diverse campus sustainability community.

I am both very excited and a tad worried about this. I am excited because this might give us some really meaningful information about programs. However, standards and such can turn into some pretty ugly political sticks. I just like to keep in the back of my mind what "standards" adopted from "a common set of measurement" have done to teachers and students in light of the No Child Left Behind act. I'm cautiously optimistic though.

Guess what. Penn State is one of the early sites for evaluation.

As national and global attention to environmental sustainability increases, many in higher education, industry and government are unsure of how to actually quantify and measure progress in this new area. Penn State is taking a leadership role as a charter participant in the STARS (Sustainability Tracking, Assessment and Rating System) program, a new sustainability tracking system developed by the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE). This year, data will be collected in key sustainability "credit areas," spanning student life, curriculum, research, operations, planning, administration and outreach.

"STARS will provide Penn State with a key missing link in our efforts," said Erik Foley, director of the Campus Sustainability Office, "comprehensive baseline sustainability performance data. AASHE developed the tool over three years and tested it on 70 institutions, so we feel it is a well-tested, rigorous tool for supporting Penn State?s sustainability efforts."

As a charter participant in STARS, Penn State will have an improved ability to measure progress, make better informed resource allocation decisions, benchmark performance with other similar institutions and be a leader in the development of sustainability metrics. Early participation also will position Penn State to be an active contributor to the evolution of STARS, which is expected to evolve as universities continuously expand the adoption of innovative sustainable practices.

Read the whole story here. I really hope this goes well.

Accountability for the PSU sustainability movement

"It is my firm conviction that the great universities of the 21st century will be judged by their ability to help solve our most urgent social problems."
—William R. Greiner, President, State University of New York, Buffalo,
Universities and Community Schools, 1994

Three weeks ago Penn State held its Educating for Sustainability conference. I just want to follow up on that and show people a little bit about what came out of it in the form of voluntary commitments.

We decided on some "Top priorities" as follows:

1) Multi-pronged marketing (including social networking) to shift the culture, internally and outward to society.
2) University-wide Sustainability Council to promote systemic change and culture shift.
3) Shifting curricula - throughout the disciplines and in the general education core.
4) Professional development required in sustainability for faculty and staff.

These four seemingly simple things will take some time to accomplish but we need to not drag our feet. As a group we are part of 1, 2, 3, and 4. We hope to change our culture and its values. If there is to be a council on sustainability, then as a group we need to make sure that our voice is represented and that we participate responsibly. As future teachers we have to be concerned about curricula that we are being taught and will be teaching. Finally, as professional educators, the systems of rewards made available to us and that we develop should reflect our values and good practices that emphasize sustainability.

In an article I've just read, Ira Harkavy of the University of Pennsylvania wrote:

If colleges and universities are to fulfill their potential and really contribute to a democratic devolution revolution, however, they must function very differently from the way they do now. To begin with, changes in “doing” will require colleges and universities to recognize that, as they now function, they constitute a major part of the problem, not a significant part of the solution. To become part of the solution, institutions of higher education must give full-hearted, full-minded devotion to the hard task of transforming themselves and becoming socially responsible, genuinely engaged civic universities. To do that well, they will have to change their institutional cultures and structures and develop a comprehensive, realistic strategy.

And that means, foremost, sustainability. What universities are "doing" right now through our curriculum, operations, purchasing, development, missions, and culture is educating the future graduate to be the neediest, most consumptive, wasteful, parasitic organism that has ever lived on planet Earth. I don't say this because I believe people want to be this or that this is the only effect of a college education. But it is the most important ecological outcome that has profound economic and social effects as well. Harkavy's "genuinely engaged civic universities" should use the term "civic" to be a comprehensive environmental term such that the university helps to shape culture that addresses needs and not wants, obligations not entitlements, responsibilities and not whims.

I think it's our duty to make the quotation that opened this post true. We must judge our institutions by how well they help us solve the greatest problem humanity has ever faced - climate change. So keep your eyes peeled on these matters because we have to move the Penn State juggernaut toward more and more sustainable practices. As part of the conscience here, we have to act as it and hold it accountable.

Our own Alex D'Urso in Inside Higher Ed

Our own Alex D'Urso was featured in a story on plastic water bottle reduction in Inside Higher Ed earlier this year. For some reason, I don't think we ever posted it. Well, here is the opening. You can read the rest at the first link.

Habits die hard.

“A concern for some people is they can’t imagine what they would do without bottled water,” said Alexandra D’Urso, a Ph.D. student in curriculum and instruction at Pennsylvania State University who’s involved with a new campaign to ban bottled water on campus. “It’s hard to believe that we’ve gone from a point 15 years ago when no one carried a plastic water bottle, that now no one can imagine how we would live without them.”

To borrow from John Lennon, imagine. That’s what student and faculty activists are asking on a number of college campuses where efforts to cut down on the use of bottled water, or restrict its sale -- all for sustainability’s sake -- are gaining momentum.

And on that last point, I've been talking to people at Food and Water Watch and the momentum is really gaining. This October 14th, we'll be part of a Take Back the Tap day of action on which students, faculty, and staff at colleges and universities around the U.S. will be lobbying their institutions to drop single-use bottles. As our own Jared pointed out last semester - Refill! Not Landfill! And as Alex said, it is hard to believe that we've gotten to this point.

This issue connects to my last post - that there are a web of considerations in our commodity production and purchasing decisions that have simply been ruled out of bounds by narrow profit interests. It is high time to claim and act upon virtues that recognize and promote broader and better interests.

Where does our trash go?

The Boston Globe just published a story about how pieces of trash have been tracked to their final destination in the Greater Boston area and will soon be tracked in other cities. The tracking project, initiated by MIT’s SENSEable City Laboratory, has been developed in the "hope that tracking the trash through the disposal system - and making it viewable in real time on a blog - will cause consumers to give more thought to what they are tossing out."

How cool! I've often wondered if one of the reasons why some people do not recycle had anything to do with the fact that what they throw out magically "disappears." Of course, we know that it doesn't magically disappear, as demonstrated by the giant plastic dump in the Pacific Ocean; however, for the vast majority of Americans, what we throw away is out of sight and out of mind. I hope this MIT project serves as a means for people to feel more responsible about what they throw at the Earth.

David Suzuki to visit Penn State

Hi everyone,

Environmentalist David Suzuki will be visiting Penn State on April 20. The details are below in the press release:

PRESS RELEASE!
David Suzuki, former host of the CSB science magazine show The Nature of Things, to speak on campus

David Suzuki, an award-winning scientist, environmentalist, and broadcaster, is the keynote speaker for the 5th annual Colloquium on the Environment. He will give the talk "The Challenge of the 21st Century: Setting the Real Bottom Line" on Monday April 20, 2009. The event will be held at 5:00 p.m. in the HUB-Robeson Auditorium and it is open to all faculty, staff, students, and to the general public.

David Suzuki co-founded the David Suzuki Foundation in 1990 and the Foundation has worked to find ways for society to live in balance with the natural world that sustains us. Focusing on four program areas oceans and sustainable fishing, climate change and clean energy, sustainability, and the Nature Challenge - the Foundation uses science and education to promote solutions that conserve nature and help achieve sustainability within a generation.

Suzuki is renowned for his radio and television programs that explain the complexities of the natural sciences in a compelling, easily understood way. His television career began with CBC in 1971 when he wrote and hosted Suzuki on Science. He then created and hosted a number of television specials, and in 1979 became the host of the award-winning The Nature of Things. Suzuki is also recognized as a world leader in sustainable ecology. He is the recipient of UNESCO's Kalinga Prize for Science, the United Nations Environment Program Medal and the Global 500. He is a fellow of the American Association of the Advancement of Science and recognized by Time Magazine as a Hero for the Environment. Dr. Suzuki earned a Ph.D. in zoology from the University of Chicago, and spent 40 years on the genetics faculty at the University of British Columbia before retiring in 2001.

His visit follows keynote presentations by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at the inaugural Colloquium on the Environment in 2004, Christine Todd Whitman in 2005, William McDonough in 2006, and Amory Lovins in 2008. The Colloquium is sponsored by the Penn State Institutes of Energy and the Environment and the University's Finance and Business Environmental Stewardship Strategy.

For more information please visit: http://www.psiee.psu.edu/default.asp. The event is free and open to the public.

Update about the Washington University conference call

This past Friday, Washington University in St. Louis organized a conference call about how they were able to go plastic water bottle free. It was very informative, and I think there are some great points that we at Penn State can appreciate as we go forward with our own efforts.


Some background

The ban at Wash. U. started when the university was trying to figure out how to reduce energy costs. It was discovered that much energy was expended on "chillers," or devices used to keep beverages cold. The administration figured that energy use and costs associated with it could be reduced by getting rid of the water bottles.

The administration approached students at Washington University to make sure that such an effort was something that the students would be supportive of. It turns out that some students on campus were already trying to get water bottles banned in St. Louis, so it was a great match of efforts.


Raising campus awareness about bottled water issues

Several attempts were made to raise the campus' awareness about water bottle waste. To raise awareness about the quality of bottled water versus tap water, the students held taste-test events to see if individuals could tell which water was bottled and which was tap. Only one individual, an administrator, was able to tell the difference. The students also held a rally, where a "tower of consumption" constructed of discarded water bottles was built to create a powerful visual of what water bottle waste looks like on a larger scale.

Another more time-consuming effort was an evaluation of every drinking fountain on campus (!). Students tasted water, measured the temperature of it, and tested the fountains to determine how easy it would be to refill a water bottle there. This helped to figure out where any access issues would impede people's ability to easily get tap water.


Impact of water bottle ban

An exciting note from a service standpoint was that the campus dining services was not greatly impacted by a loss of revenue due to the prohibition of water bottle sales. Compared with January 2008, sales of juice went up 4 to 5% in January 2009. Soda sales decreased slightly, and water bottle sales decreased 90% (bottles are still being sold in the campus store until spring break of this year). The decrease in soda consumption might indicate individuals' consciousness of plastic waste in general, not just that of water bottles.

While some money is being lost in on-campus catering, it is being gained in other places because people utilizing catering services have more money to spend on other items now that the cost of water has been eliminated. Catering on campus was willing to take a revenue hit for the greater public good of eliminating water bottles. They do not charge for providing tap water at events.

There were no problems with the university's Coca-Cola contract. In lieu of having bottled water in vending machines, Coca-Cola put vitamin water (personal note: I don't see how vitamin water is an improvement since it is technically still water).

There are few other details that I'll skip here (like bottled water distributed at graduation being phased out by 2010, for example). In total, Washington University will eliminated about 350,000 disposable plastic water bottles each year. When one considers how most bottles end up in landfills, this outright elimination is astounding.


Considerations for Penn State

During and after this conference call, I was thinking about what is different about their situation and that of Penn State. First of all, the ban was something the Wash. U. administration really wanted, not just the students. While we do have some administrators who have expressed an interest in this ban, the fact is that this is clearly not a priority (which it must be). We need to get more administrators on board in our effort. Perhaps we should consider creating a petition that is sponsored by different administrators?

The Wash. U. student representative mentioned that they made significant efforts to get student organizations on board with their efforts. The more support they had from organizations, the easier it was to inform more people about the necessity of a bottle ban.

Students at Wash. U. sold BPA-free plastic bottles as a fundraiser and donated the money raised to a charity in Kenya that works to provide clean drinking water for people there. To raise awareness, we might consider a similar move. So many people in the world don't have access to a tap, let alone drinkable water from one. People should think about that fact each time they reach for a disposable plastic bottle.

Along these lines, if we want to do such a fundraiser, we must consider what kind of bottles we buy. I've done some research into the many companies that sell aluminum and steel water bottles, and all of them make their bottles overseas, mostly in China (except for Sigg, which is in Switzerland). Perhaps BPA-free plastic is the way to go. What are your thoughts on this?

I guess that's it for now. Your comments, thoughts, and suggestions are welcome and encouraged.

Penn State H20 bottle activism is getting noticed...

Dan Woznica, a reporter for the Washington University newspaper Student Life, wrote a great article about how Wash. U.'s water bottle ban is inspiring action in other places (like Penn State, for example). Even Katie Couric has talked about Washington University's water bottle ban!

Pressure is mounting... we are numerous in this effort!! :)

Penn State recycling pioneer honored

Penn State Live had a great article about how one of the university's pioneers of recycling was honored recently. Mr. Al Matyasovsky, supervisor at the Office of the Physical Plant, was recognized with a Kneebone Award for Extraordinary Volunteerism.

Al is truly an asset to Penn State, and it is wonderful that his efforts were recognized. More info about what he has done to improve the quality of life here is available in the article.

Teaching Sustainability across the Curriculum Series

The Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence is doing a series on Teaching Sustainability Across the Curriculum. There is even one today:

What does "sustainability" mean in pedagogical terms? - Teaching Luncheon

• Thursday, February 5
• 11:45 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.

Today's environmental problems are so complex that solutions will almost surely require interdisciplinary knowledge and cooperation. Thus, faculty in all fields of study may want to consider what it would mean to teach sustainability principles and practices in their courses. So how do we come to common and useful definitions that will encourage educating for sustainability across disciplines? Come and discuss this question with panelists, Don Brown and Andy Lau.

I will be at the PASA conference but am going to jet across campus to get to this. Perhaps we can get Brown to come to speak to us.

More updates on the climate policy speaker series

Penn State Live has a nice list of all of the speakers who will be a part of the series called "Climate Policy: Addressing Cross-Disciplinary Challenges and Solutions" happening on campus this spring. To see the list, go here.

Ecological illiteracy in academia

Orion magazine has a piece that about sums it up. Why don't higher ed faculty know about the issues we face? Educated people need to be educated. NOW!

I AM ASTONISHED by the number of academics convinced that the infusion of a few technological electrolytes will cure the pounding hangover sure to punish us for partying so recklessly in the hospitality tents sponsored by Cheap Readily Available Oil. People with five or seven letters after their names are clinging to the delusion that energy and technology are interchangeable, that when one goes into decline the other will arrive to take them up the mountain for a weekend of downhill skiing.

Keep reading. Hat tip to Dana.