Campus Sustainability -- reducing energy use without the nuclear option

There are a range of campus sustainability initiatives across the US and across the world (though the US needs them more). There's even a conference this week at Arizona State held by the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education.

One nice opportunity with campus-wide approaches is that they can avoid being "sustainable" for the sake of "sustainable development." Most efforts that use the sustainable term are, to be sure, aiming to develop their incomes and resource uses in sustainable ways, not to sustain the earth and ecological health. They are, in other words, the best examples of green washing. But with campus initiatives, at least we have the chance to avoid that, given the premise that colleges and unviersities are not corporations. (Or, umm, except now that academia is so under the foot of corporate ideology. Let's just pretend that's not true yet. And isn't pretending things aren't true the basis for most non-environmental action anyway?)

My point being, here's the widely hailed Harvard Green Campus Initiative (and as summarized here). It is but one of many, but, since it's Harvard, it's quite a visible one. I know that Dave's University of British Columbia also has a fine and well-run UBC Sustainability program, but I'll let him post on that since he's right there and I'd just be getting my info from him anyway.

Why am I bringing this up?

I bring this up because the some of us at the University of Virginia are starting to work on a similar endeavor. (Side note: since Harvard nixed its early admissions program, I see that UVA has now followed suit; but I assure you our fledgling attempts at coordinated sustainability efforts weren't inspired by Harvard.)

Cal-Berkeley is looking fine too; and dozens of others -- in fact, hundreds of others -- are in on it. Wait, is there anyone not purusing campous sustainability efforts?

So, just as a preview and a first post on this, let's at least look at Harvard's claims (a few of them):

...Green building certification for 12 new construction and renovation projects from 2002-2006. Many green building projects have achieved energy performances of 30-50% above code and construction waste recycling rates of over 90%.

...Graduate Green Living programs implemented to outreach to over 9,000 undergraduate and graduate residential students. As a result recycling rates have increased by over 40% and energy use has been reduced by 10-15%.
Addressing energy conservation in existing buildings. Invested $6.5 million in 85 different projects achieving an average payback of 3.4 years.

...Annual investment of $180,000 in running occupant education programs to reduce energy use in laboratories and other building typologies, achieving a payback of 1-2 years.

...Purchasing renewable energy certificates to offset 7% of Harvard's electricity consumption while investing another $100,000 a year into renewable energy research and internal business development for an expanded renewable energy portfolio.

In some earlier posts, I began a dialogue with some readers about the problems of "it's all the system, man" versus "but what can I do, I'm just one person?" Campus programs like these I think offer an entry point into avoiding the exaggerations of both sides, the singular or the systemic.

But can these work? Or is it all buzzwords?

What are your schools doing?