Having accomplished many of its goals, and having used it to successfully and nationally catapult the university into some rare and “green” air, it was time for an update to the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh’s Campus Sustainability Plan (CSP).
Newly approved, version 2.0 doesn’t compromise on the University’s commitment to new, challenging and campuswide goals.
Ninety percent of UW Oshkosh’s organic waste should be destined for the campus ‘biodigester’ waste-to-energy plant. The institution should pursue construction of “a student-run Greenhouse.” Students, faculty and staff should co-develop a “comprehensive campus transportation plan,” adopt the national “Real Food Challenge” which strengthens sustainability of student dining services and create sustainability “Leadership” and “green dot” certificate programs within Sustainability Studies.
That’s just a snapshot of the many new objectives built into the renewed (CSP) – a key operational plan first developed by faculty, staff and students in 2008.
“UW Oshkosh is widely known as a national leader when it comes to sustainability,” said Sustainability Director Brian Kermath. “That’s a testament to our 2008 plan’s development and execution. Now, we’re proposing and planning to take some new big steps.”
“We don’t plan on pausing or resting – we’ve got some new initiatives and challenges we want to tackle,” Kermath said. “As with our first plan, it will take the deep thought, hard work and serious commitment of faculty, staff and students over the next several years to really take us to the next level.”
The new sustainability plan was authored by the campus Sustainability Council and endorsed by former Chancellor Richard Wells before his retirement. Its approval coincided with the Office of Sustainability’s move to some new and symbolic digs at UW Oshkosh. This fall, the department is setting up shop in the Oviatt House, the stately, spired former chancellor’s residence, oldest building at UW Oshkosh and, one might say, the campus’s most iconic recycling project.
Oviatt was vacated by the UW Oshkosh Foundation in spring, making way for Sustainability and University Honors offices.
“It’s a wonderful, new home for us and a great example of the principles and practices woven into the new plan,” Kermath said.
The plan’s “priority goals” are divided into three key areas: “the academic mission of the University,” “reducing and eliminating negative impacts especially related to human and planetary health and leading the campus to climate neutrality” and the “management of sustainability.”
More broadly, the plan is designed to achieve objectives, “developing the ‘campus as a living-learning laboratory’ and “engaging and empowering students and other university stakeholders to maximize their understanding of, and ability to act on the sustainability challenges of our time.”
“What makes the new plan different from our old one is that we are approaching this more like a ‘living document,’” said Jim Feldman, associate professor of Environmental Studies & History. “Rather than publishing a plan that we hope to guide us for the next five years, we are laying out our goals and vision with the intent to return to the plan every year or two to update it and to respond to new opportunities and conditions.”
The new Comprehensive Sustainability Plan’s specific, additional goals include:
- “Development of a Sustainability Leadership Certificate Program for students, which will involve studies, mentoring, and internships.”
- “Implementation of the ‘green dot’ (or other indicator) certificate program in Sustainability Studies.”
- “Adoption of the Real Food Challenge.”
- “Funding and adopting appropriate measures to convert fully to single stream recycling” on campus.
- “Development of a comprehensive campus transportation plan.”
- “Improvement of the bicycling culture and bicycle facilities on campus.”
- “Requiring that LEED certification be the standard for all new construction at Gold levels or above.”
- “Analysis of monthly resource consumption data,” which will be used to track University sustainability performance.
In many ways, the new goals pick up where those integrated into the first CSP left off. The faculty-staff-and-student Sustainability Council applauds the campus community’s collaborative efforts to accomplish a number of significant initiatives during the last six years.
Students enjoy lunch on Opening Day 2014 outside Horizon Village and Reeve Memorial Union.“The incorporation of sustainability in the University Studies Program, the construction of Sage Hall and Horizon Village as LEED Gold buildings and the three biodigesters stand out as particular highlights,” said Feldman, a Sustainability Council member.
Kermath added, “The university’s digesters now sell a lot of electricity to the grid – about half of what we consume on campus. What’s more, if we were to capture all of the waste heat from these plants, which we hope to do over the coming years, then the total energy production in equivalent kilowatt units would roughly equal all of the electricity we use on campus. These and other accomplishments would take us a long way to meeting our climate neutrality goals.”
“Campus freshwater usage is down by 41 percent from 12 years ago, and total suspended solids in stormwater runoff is down by more than 40 percent, thereby meeting the goal set in 2008,” according to one Sustainability Office summary look back on the old plan.
Kermath said the previous plan also helped nudge UW Oshkosh campus culture toward more sustainable daily habits and practices. They include integration of the “Zimride” ride-share program into campus, which allows campus community members to easily carpool via an online program, the launch of “trayless” dining, which reduces water use and waste, and the offering of local and vegetarian food options. UW Oshkosh’s participation in “Recyclemania,” a national competition promoting the importance of recycling and waste minimization, led to a first-place-in-Wisconsin in food waste diversion in 2014. Waste reduction has also been achieved through move-in day and move-out day diversion activities. In 2014, the campus diverted nearly one and half tons of goods from the landfill to Goodwill during move-out.”
The new CSP pushes UW Oshkosh to deepen the integration of sustainability into its teaching and research. It’s a focus that has already earned national notice, as UW Oshkosh’s transformation of general education – the University Studies Program – was created with sustainability, along with intercultural competency and civic engagement, designated as one of three “signature question” areas.
“Moving forward, I am particularly excited about how the CSP will guide our implementation of the ‘Campus as a Living Laboratory’ idea,” Feldman said. “This concept helps us use campus resources and operations as teaching tools for sustainability. Doing so will strengthen ties between and among the teaching, research and operational activities on campus and further enrich student encounters with sustainability as both a concept and as a practice.”
Bradley Spanbauer, associate lecturer in the Department of Biology/Microbiology, with the Office of Sustainability and part of the Sustainability Council, helped architect and author much of the content that was developed for the new Comprehensive Sustainability Plan. Spanbauer said the new plan will capitalize on something that was essential to the success of the 2008-2012 plan: Partnerships on and off campus.
“I would say one thing I found most interesting is the need for more collaboration across units on campus,” Spanbauer said. “In conducting the review of the previous CSP, I discovered that we met many of our goals, some of which we greatly surpassed, such as reducing our water usage and better planning for storm water.”
“I think the plan addresses many of our ‘next steps’ concerning numerous areas of campus, from curriculum to facilities,” he said. “This plan also addresses new areas that were not previously covered in the first plan, such as environmental health. This is important because not only are we concerned with human health, but also, how our impacts on the planet affect our health.”
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