AASHE Home > Resource Center > Campus Profiles > 2007

Seattle University 2007 Campus Sustainability Leadership Award Application

Category

Four-year and graduate institutions 1,000 - 7,500 student FTE

Facilities is replacing their fleet with electric vehicles. Several, like this one, was purchased used.

Contact

Karen Price
Campus Sustainability Manager
901 12th Ave., PO Box 222000
Seattle, WA
206-296-6997
kprice@seattleu.edu

Governance & Administration

The University’s commitment to sustainability is demonstrated in the following on-going practices:

There is a campus-wide Anti-Sweatshop Policy and an Anti-Sweatshop Committee covering vendors and manufacturers that supply the University with apparel bearing the University’s name and/or logos. Seattle University has joined the Workers Rights Consortium and the Fair Labor Association to independently monitor its contractors. These organizations will conduct monitoring for Seattle University in accordance with the organizations’ respective standards.

The Environmental Advisory Council acts as a seed bank and catalyst for campus sustainability and environmental initiatives coming from students, administrators, staff and faculty. The 19 members comprise alumni, students, staff, faculty and Jesuits.

The Facilities department employs a Campus Sustainability Manager, a Recycling Coordinator and an Environmental Health & Safety Specialist.

The 2006-2026 Campus Master Plan has sections on the campus’s commitment to sustainability in its built environment, sustainability goals and guidelines for incorporating green building practices.

Seattle University is a member of the U.S. Green Building Council, Washington Organic Recycling Council, Washington State Recycling Association and AASHE.

Operations

Facilities commitment to sustainability is demonstrated in the following on-going practices.

• Since 1994, reusable commuter mugs have been given to freshmen.
• Reusable furniture, office and recreational equipment are sold to the public at SU’s Surplus Store.
• Student Move Out at the end of the school year collects unwanted stuff for donation and recycling.
• On-site facility annually composts 15 tons of pre-consumer food waste, which is applied on our landscape.
• Recycling program since 1988.
• Landscape has been maintained organically and pesticide-free since 1986.

A joint solar power demonstration project between Mechanical Engineering seniors, Facilities and Seattle City Light includes solar panels on the Student Center’s roof and south wall and a tracking pole-mounted solar array that produce enough electricity to power one energy-conserving home for a year.

Notable accomplishments within the past two years:
Seattle University signed the Seattle Climate Partnership and the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

All urinals are either waterless or ultra low-flow. There are three dual-flush toilets on campus.

The replacement of inefficient electrical equipment with new energy saving technology is estimated to reduce the campus’ annual electricity usage by 2,628,763 kilowatt-hours.

SU hired a retro-building commissioning agent to train four Facilities maintenance staff and invited facilities staff from local universities to participate. Our trained staff then retro-commissioned two of our largest buildings, which is estimated to reduce electricity usage by 20%.

SU committed to buy new renewable energy to offset 15% of the campus’s annual electricity consumption. This makes SU the first and largest institutional customer to join Seattle City Light's Green Up program at the highest level of business participation -Platinum.

The fleet went from zero to 12 electric vehicles.

The budget for student subsidized transit passes increased 33%.

Public Safety purchased four mountain bikes for patrolling campus instead of two vehicles.

SU partnered with Flex Car, a car sharing company, to park two of their cars on campus and SU pays for the first year’s membership and application fees and a 2.5 hour trial.

Green building experience was added as new criteria for selecting architects, engineers, consultants and general contractors.

The Taqwsheblu Vi Hilbert Ethnobotanical Garden is an interdisciplinary teaching tool for students and faculty and a means of outreach to local elementary schools, community groups and the public. The garden contains plants that were central to this region’s Native cultures and signage explaining the Native plant uses and the plant names in the Native language. To support the garden’s educational mission, SU’s library acquired books on the relationship between Puget Sound's native plants and Native people. The garden captures stormwater runoff from a sidewalk and filters it in the pond.

Reused sod was purchased for the campus athletic field from the city’s sports stadium that had bought sod for an exhibition soccer game and was looking for an organization to take it.

Curriculum & Research

The University’s commitment to sustainability is demonstrated in the following on-going practices.

The College of Arts and Sciences offers a BA in Environmental Studies and a BA in Environmental Studies with Public Policy and Urban Affairs specialization.

The College of Science and Engineering offers a BS in Environmental Science and a BS in Civil Engineering with Environmental Engineering Specialization.

Notable accomplishments within the past two years:
The Albers School of Business hosted and helped plan the "Business for the Long Run" faculty conference on teaching sustainable business. The conference brought together leaders from business, government, non-governmental organizations and higher educational institutions to present and discuss ways they integrate sustainable business practices into their work and teaching.

Campus Culture

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Community Service & Outreach

The University’s commitment to sustainability is demonstrated in the following on-going practices.

During Fall Welcome Week, incoming freshmen spend a Saturday together volunteering in the community.

The School of Business and Economics and the non-profit Network for Business Innovation and Sustainability/NW (NBIS/NW) have a cooperative relationship to advance sustainable business practices. The business school provides a home base from which NBIS/NW works to give faculty and students opportunities to work with business leaders in applied learning and research projects.

The Center for Service and Community Engagement has two main goals: to create strong reciprocal partnerships between the University and community/government organizations in order to foster social change and to develop reflective, creative, compassionate and just student leaders. The Center works collaboratively with campus and community partners to implement programs in the following four areas:
academic service-learning, community partnerships, coordination of service activities and student leadership.

Notable accomplishments within the past two years:
The sustainability web site describes what the campus community is doing in the areas of operations, curriculum and research, policies, governance and administration, community service, campus culture and awards received. The Be the Change web pages give examples of what students, staff and faculty can do on campus and at home to reduce their environmental footprint.

The Environmental Advisory Council put on a six-week Sustainability Challenge. The Council created the Challenge as a fun competition to show how individuals can be an agent for change by taking small, easy steps in one’s daily activities. Each team had four people; 103 teams finished all six weeks. There were 59 student teams, 29 staff/faculty teams and 15 mixed teams, making up five percent of the campus population. Six professors used it as a learning tool and made the Challenge a class requirement in their ecology, biology and business classes. Participants abided by the honor system and awarded themselves points on a spreadsheet. There were daily actions that participants did all six weeks: turning off electronics, minimizing water used, reducing lunch waste, using a reusable mug and reducing paper use. There were weekly actions that participants did all six weeks: not eating meat one day a week, reducing the amount of energy used for laundry, using a reusable bag for shopping, purchasing at least one item that has less packaging and reducing the number of drive-alone car trips. Each of the challenge’s six weeks had a different theme: transportation, energy, waste, consumption, water and ecological footprint. Each week had several one time actions that related to that week’s theme. During waste week participants could choose to: reduce junk mail or use the online coffee waste calculator to calculate annual paper cup waste. Educational events for points included tours of SU’s composting and recycling facility, pesticide-free landscape, solar installation, and the cafeteria’s sustainable food practices. Two CFL bulbs, a faucet aerator and a low flow showerhead were given to all off-campus participants. Prizes were a gift certificate to a vegetarian restaurant and to online retailers of eco-friendly products.

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