By Chloe Parkins
WASHINGTON –Paper plates were stacked beside each food serving station. Plastic cups sat next to drink dispensers. Single-use plastic utensils were positioned in holders across the dining hall. Sophomore Tyler Massias was shocked and confused.
Returning to American University’s campus in August, Massias expected changes in the dining hall due to the implementation of a new dining partner, but he didn’t understand why the transition included unsustainable practices.
The dining hall’s dish room broke before the semester started. In order to fix the problem, the dining hall would need to be shut down for several days which the university plans to do over winter break. Massias didn’t learn this until December.
As politicians in Washington continue to end support in environmental programs and decrease nation-wide action against climate change, American is increasing its efforts to become more sustainable. After reaching carbon neutrality two years ahead of schedule, the school is looking for new projects to take on.
Even so, students at the university push for more transparency regarding new and continued efforts, believing that the university can do more. The intentions of the university and the students are in the same place, though: more should be done to decrease environmental footprints.
Professor Jesse Meiller said, “I think American University is much more mobilized than the Environmental Protection Agency. I don’t think anything can be as stagnant as our federal government.”
Having worked in the EPA for seven years, Meiller said how easily she became frustrated trying to enact change within the government.
“We have less layers at American University, many less layers,” she said. “I think that our provost and our president are really open and supportive of our sustainability mission, and I hope that we continue to move in that direction.”
Louisa Keyani, a sophomore at American, helped to establish a Sunrise chapter at the university. Sunrise is a national organization that works to end climate change and create jobs.
Keyani said the “effort and care is really there” at American but said the university could improve on its transparency about sustainability and more importantly, focus on divestment.
“It’s difficult to look at a university that is claiming carbon neutrality that’s still financially benefiting from fossil fuels,” she said.
Currently, the university invests in commingled funds. Some of that investment goes towards programs and organizations that perpetuate the use of fossil fuels. The university rejected proposals of divestment in the past several years, partly due to financial costs.
Yet, American is still ahead of the curve in terms of establishing a sustainable campus.
The school became the first university in the United States to achieve carbon neutrality in 2018, meaning 100% of its electricity comes from or is offset by renewable power.
Megan Zanella-Litke, the director of sustainability in the university’s Office of Sustainability, explained that American gets 50% of its electricity from three solar farms in North Carolina that the university built with George Washington University and George Washington University Hospital.
“At the time that we installed those panels, it was the largest instillation of a renewable by a nonutility company in the country,” Zanella-Litke said.
That solar farm installed about a quarter of a million solar panels. The University of California system has now surpassed that.
Despite the amount of construction and massive campus additions like East Campus, the university’s electricity use in 2018 was lower than what it was in 2015, partly due to sustainable initiatives like solar farms.
The other half of American’s electricity comes from renewable energy credits which ensure the continued use of renewable power.
American continues to implement new environmental projects. It is currently undertaking a campus pipes construction project that will change how natural gas is used on campus.
The school is changing to a decentralized low-temp hot water system. By decentralizing the hot water system, water will not have to travel as far to be used.
This project will decrease natural gas use on campus by about 50% and reduce electricity used on campus. Once completed, the school will need to purchase fewer offsets to manage its carbon footprint.
Since many of these projects require systematic changes and construction efforts, the university works to involve students in other capacities. American is currently increasing its focus on waste management.
Like many colleges and universities across the nation, American has separate bins for trash, compost and recycling in its buildings. Tacy Lambiase, the sustainability manager in American’s Office of Sustainability, explained the process of minimizing trash on campus.
Lambiase said paid student workers collect compost on campus and it is brought to a compost facility in Prince George’s County, Maryland. At the compost facility, the clear bag is held up and inspected.
“If they see too many things in the bag, even just one thing in the bag, that is not compostable, it’s probably going to go to the landfill,” she said.
Garrett Walsh, a junior at American and an intern in its Office of Sustainability, said it is important to take a few extra seconds at the bins to separate your trash from recyclable and compostable items.
“There’s definitely a preconceived notion that being sustainable is more expensive and it takes more time and effort, which are things that college students don’t have a lot of,” Walsh said. “Just pick a few things out of your life that you can commit to, like ‘I’m gonna take an extra five seconds when I’m at the trash to actually put things in the right spots.’”
Courtney Stoner, the sustainability analyst in American’s Office of Sustainability, thinks each person can help to normalize new behaviors like carrying and using a reusable utensil set.
Do “little things where you can show people ‘it’s not weird to do this,’” she said.
Stoner explained that people never used to carry around reusable water bottles and now it is considered the norm.
Lambiase said, “I think of climate mitigation as a toolbox.”
She said there are many things each person can do and ideally, every person uses a tool. Eventually, “some people may begin to use tool belts.”
Tyler Massias, a sophomore at American University, is the chief hub coordinator for American University’s Sunrise club chapter. It is a national organization that works to mitigate climate change and create jobs.
(Photo by Chloe Parkins)
(Source used: American University’s greenhouse gas emissions inventory on their website https://www.american.edu/about/sustainability/tracking-progress.cfm)
(Data provided by Courtney Stoner, the sustainability analyst in American University’s Office of Sustainability)