Princeton's sustainability defies rankings

A recent Sierra Club magazine ranking of greening efforts at colleges and universities, which Robert Givey '58 referred to in a recent letter to the editor in The Daily Princetonian, underscored the fact that there is great public misperception about the sustainability efforts at Princeton.

Had we been contacted by the magazine, we would have been eager to contribute a wealth of information about our initiatives and progress. It would have provided a significant opportunity to highlight that we do not rely on symbolic measures or demonstration projects that often attract attention, but which do not always serve as meaningful measures of efforts to operate and grow in an environmentally sensitive manner.

The University is addressing all areas of operations, including energy and carbon dioxide emissions, research, education, outreach, student initiatives and communications. Already in place are Princeton's Sustainable Building Guidelines, which require environmental and energy performance that exceeds the basic certification under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) building rating system.

All upcoming new building projects will feature innovative green design elements appropriate to the use and location of the project. These include green roofs, rainwater collection and reuse systems, photovoltaics, low-flow water fixtures, lighting systems with daylight and occupancy sensors, LED lighting technologies and geothermal heating and cooling, to name a few. We are learning from every green design element we are testing, with the objective of using effective approaches on a campus-wide scale.

In the area of energy conservation, the central cogeneration plant on campus won the 2007 EPA Award for Energy Conservation. When installed in 1996, the cogeneration plant was responsible for a significant step-down in our carbon emission that we are still benefiting from today. In fact, due to aggressive energy conservation measures and the installation of cogeneration, our average gross emissions on campus since 1990 have increased less than 5 percent. This is a phenomenal accomplishment given the amount of campus growth during the same time-period.

Yet still another element in our efforts is Princeton's people. The University is unrivaled in its research potential for finding solutions to the global climate crisis. Princeton's associated academic programs — many coordinated through the Princeton Environmental Institute — are exemplary, and further support for these efforts is one of the major goals of the University's major fund-raising campaign.

Our campus is blessed with extraordinary students — many who are involved in almost every aspect of campus sustainability initiatives as committee members, interns and student club representatives — providing research and ideas with motivated energy. Three of the most visible student-initiated projects launched in the past year include the Greening Princeton Farmer's Market, the campus Student Organic Garden Project and the CFL bulb exchange program.

These elements tend to defy comparison in current rankings. When I meet with my colleagues from other institutions, we actually welcome the chance to compare ourselves meaningfully on sustainability, because comparison can provide opportunities for innovation and improvement. A meaningful method, however, is not yet available. What is available tends to be based on PR-friendly certifications or signed commitments that tell only a limited story about actual environmental performance.

For example, while we have found LEED to be very effective in beginning the conversation about integrated green design, Princeton made the determination early that we wanted to move beyond LEED. Our initial evaluation found it was possible to obtain high-level LEED certification without any consideration for energy conservation, which is one of our strengths.

We therefore instituted our own Sustainable Building Guidelines that require a minimum of 30 percent energy performance improvement over code for all new buildings and major renovations. Unlike the current LEED evaluation process, our own guidelines also allow us to consider the efficiency of our central power facilities in our individual building projects.

The substance of comparison must be performance. The unique character of each institution makes it difficult to say who is best at greenhouse gas emission reduction, for example. Each institution is situated in a different climate, a different energy grid, with different fuel choices, in contrasting urban and rural settings, with different commuter patterns and public transportation infrastructures. All these variables make comparison profoundly complicated.

Other institutions have been stronger than Princeton in the past in communicating their sustainability programs to their students, alumni and the public, and there is no disputing that some colleges have had sustainability offices for longer than Princeton. Neither communication efforts nor the existence of an office structure, however, are necessarily meaningful measures of sustainability performance.

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The Office of Sustainability was not created because of a lack of existing initiative, but rather because of an abundance of it. Princeton students, faculty and staff helped develop the office as a result of years of accumulated effort. We plan to continue and improve on that legacy over the coming decades. Shana Weber is the Sustainability Manager for University Engineering and Construction. She can be reached at shanaw@princeton.edu.