Campus Sustainability: A Lightbulb Moment — Caitlin Marsh — TEDxAlmaCollege

[00:00:00] Speaker ?: - Good afternoon, everyone. [00:00:06] Speaker 1: Thank you so much for being here. Very excited about this. I'm here today to talk about sustainability. So before I go too much further, let's make sure that we're all on the same page with exactly what I mean by that. The Environmental Protection Agency defines sustainability as a quality that creates and maintains the conditions under which humans and nature can exist in productive harmony, and that prevent fulfilling the social, economic, and other requirements of present and future generations. So there's a great big mouthful. But what does that exactly mean? What it means is that sustainability is a little bit different from concepts like environmentalism or conservationism. Those are ideas that are really focused on preserving the integrity of our natural environment. And that's incredibly important. because once it's gone, it's gone. But sustainability takes those ideas a little bit further. It puts them in context of a planet covered with humans. And as usual, whenever you introduce humans into the mix, things get a little more complicated. But that's okay. Because sustainability allows for that complication. When you boil it down to a bottom line, sustainability is really about three different things. Economic, social, and environmental welfare. Not just now, not just ten years into the future, but for good. We're dreaming big when it comes to sustainability. So there you have the triple bottom line of sustainability, where we consider the environmental impacts, the financial benefits, and the social implications of any given action to determine how sustainable it really is. And that means that sustainability isn't a field in and of itself, but it's a way of thinking about whatever field you happen to be working in. So what better way to introduce a new way of thinking about a lot of different fields than by doing so on college and university campuses? Let's look at an example. Is everyone familiar with this? Well, for anyone who isn't, this is a light bulb. In fact, this is a compact fluorescent light bulb, or a CFL. And it's a little bit different from regular incandescent bulbs in that it doesn't use a filament. Most light bulbs, incandescent bulbs, use a tungsten wire that it heats up red hot in order to produce light. And that does a great job of producing light, but it also produces a lot of heat since you're heating up that wire. These bulbs produce 75% less heat, which means they're wasting 75% less electricity. They're also going to last longer because they're not heating up a filament, so they're not going to burn through that filament, which is what happens when a regular bulb burns out. In terms of producing light, this is going to be our more sustainable option. Not only are we saving on energy costs, but because they last longer, we can use fewer of them, so we have less raw material being made into these bulbs and less waste to handle when they do eventually burn out. Sounds good overall. Now, let's think of a college campus with, say, 1,400 students, a small residential school. And each of these students in their dorm room has a lamp that he or she brought from home. In each of these lamps, there is, say, a 60-watt incandescent bulb. Now, if these students use that lamp one hour a day over the course of the school year, that's going to end up using about 20,000 kilowatt hours of electricity just to light these lamps for an hour a day. It's a little bit tricky to estimate the cost of electricity because a lot depends on where and how it's made, when it's being used, how everything is being metered. But for the sake of argument, let's say that the electricity at this hypothetical school costs about 12 cents per kilowatt hour, which is pretty reasonable. In that case, that means that it's going to cost about $2,400 to light these lamps for the year. Now, if we replace just the light bulb in this equation, take out those incandescents and put in compact fluorescents, that cost is going to go down to $600 for the year. That's a huge change just from a light bulb. But there's a little bit of a wrinkle in this whole scenario because it's pretty unlikely that all 1,400 students are just going to decide one day to get up and go change out their incandescent bulbs for compact fluorescents. We're all creatures of habit. But if students had a reason to re-examine that habit, they might do so. And our reasons come in a lot of different shapes and sizes. One option is policy. The school could just decide to ban incandescent lights entirely. But that gets a little bit tricky. Who's going to enforce this? What are the consequences for students who are using the wrong bulbs? Probably not going to be a sustainable use of resources for the college campus just to keep on top of that. So maybe our hypothetical school, like lots of real schools, looks for a more grassroots effort to encourage students to change out their light bulbs. And what they might decide to do is start with a survey. Find out what students know about these bulbs, what they think, and maybe through that process they find that students really like their incandescent bulbs. Huge fans, not really interested in changing. This happens. [00:05:26] Speaker ?: And this happens. [00:05:27] Speaker 1: In Atlanta, Emory University has several different priorities for conservation and sustainability on campus. And one of them is water conservation in particular. Atlanta is the largest metropolitan area on the smallest watershed in the country. So that was really a priority when the school was developing their sustainability plans. And like any large residential campus, one big use of water on campus is going to be campus life and residence life, residence showers in particular. So they did some research with their students to see if they would be interested in taking shorter showers as a means of conserving water. And what they found through this survey was that students thought that that was going to be a really hard change to make. They weren't very likely to do it. And that's because for them it wasn't about using a lot of water. It was that a long shower was a luxury. And as I'm sure a lot of you know, those are pretty few and far between in dorm life. That's okay. Sustainability isn't about cutting back on quality of life now to preserve it for later. It's about maintaining that quality of life from now into the future. Remember, we're dreaming back here. So it doesn't mean when you come up against barriers like this in implementing sustainability goals that those goals are a flop. It just means that we might have to get a little bit more creative about how we end up reaching them. Back to our light bulb example. Probably the school's not going to find that it's a huge issue for students not wanting to change up their bulbs. But that doesn't mean that there might not be other barriers. Maybe for students at this campus, these bulbs are hard to find and more expensive. In general, that's not the case. I mean, most places it's almost easier to find compact fluorescence than it is incandescent bulbs. But what if this campus is located somewhere that makes it hard for students without a car to go to a grocery store or a hardware store to pick up these light bulbs. But they've got a box of incandescent bulbs right in their room. That seems like an easy choice, right? But even barriers like this can be overcome. One good option in this case would be a light bulb swap. These are events where students can bring in an incandescent bulb, trade it out for a compact fluorescent. No questions asked. Super simple. There are even utility companies and manufacturing companies that will partner with schools to allow them to provide the light bulbs free of charge for students. Great. So now we've got a plan to overcome this barrier. The next step is to get the word out about it. So the school decides to partner with students and staff and faculty who are thought leaders in campus to help them get the word out as well. They partner with resident assistants to remind students to bring in their light bulbs. They get the word out through social media and emails. They put an ad in the school paper and on the school radio station. All the ways they know that their students are looking for that outreach. They make sure that their trade out table for this light bulb swap is actually in the dining hall. Which makes it really accessible for all the residential students that we want to target with this program. And it works. Programming like this that really integrates the campus on a community level works. It's not going to make this campus immediately incandescent bulb free. But it's going to change out a lot of light bulbs. And more importantly, programming like this goes a long way towards changing the social norm. Now there's been a lot of research in a lot of different fields into why people make the kinds of decisions that they do. And how we can help each other make better decisions. And one way is by changing the social norm. The way people think and feel about any given topic or behavior. And in general, this is really hard to do. I mean, think about all the issues that we still have surrounding racism and sexism. Changing the way that an entire society thinks is a real challenge. But on a college or university campus, we're working with a little bit different society. We're working with a smaller society for one. But we're also working with a society that has its thinking stretched and challenged on a daily basis. So if we can't change that social norm on a college campus, we're working with. So where do schools start? If they're interested in embracing sustainability, all logical places in the classroom. And as I said, sustainability is a way of thinking and not a field into itself. So we can take it out of the confines of, say, an environmental studies class. We can apply it to courses in chemistry and biology. We can take it a little bit further and apply it to sciences like sociology and anthropology. Why not take it out of science altogether? Apply it to courses in policy and business and management. Look at literature courses and communications courses. Even fine arts and performing arts can incorporate elements of sustainability in their curriculum. Why stop there? Why just teach about sustainability on a campus where you can live it? For schools that are looking to live and work more sustainably, it's important to take a look at what you already have and where you stand in comparison with other similar schools. Maybe you already have some really great programming in place, but it's just underutilized. Maybe there's a really comprehensive recycling program, but no one uses it because the bins aren't very clearly labeled. Maybe your school's labs are incredibly energy efficient, and you have a lot to offer to other similar schools looking to make their labs a little more efficient as well. Are there policies that already govern sustainability at your school? Are they regulated? Have they been updated recently? All of these are important things to think about when starting to embrace sustainability. And it's also important to remember that the utilities that we think of first when we think of sustainability, electricity, waste, water, those aren't the only things to think about. There's also sustainability in things like dining operations, in maintenance and housekeeping, things like product sourcing and procurement, transportation, even in investments. These are all important resources to keep in mind when we're thinking about sustainability. But on a campus, we can never lose sight of our most important resourced students. These are the people who think big thoughts, and they figure out ways to make them happen. On a college or university campus, they have an opportunity to practice that. Some schools use eco-rep programs where students have the opportunity to serve as a representative for their dorm. They develop sustainability programming for those residents and can bring their concerns regarding sustainability to the administration or other groups, as appropriate. Some schools work really closely with their Greek life programs to help make events like recruitment or even parties more sustainable. Some schools have programs that are focused on making sure that special events like homecoming or conferences or TEDx events are just as sustainable as regular everyday life on campus. Making the change to embrace sustainable thinking isn't always an easy process. It can take months or even years of benchmarking and data collection before we can even begin to make changes. And then it can take some significant investments in infrastructure. But even before that, we have to change that way of thinking. And that's the hardest thing of all. See, most of us don't spend a lot of time thinking out into some nebulous future where our actions may or may not have some particular consequence. But there is a group of people that spends a lot of time thinking out into that future. And there's a lot of you here in the audience today. Students are an incredible resource. And the colleges and universities that support sustainable thinking are invaluable. Not just to you as students, but to all of us as a society at large. Sustainability can be hard to understand as a concept. And as a practice, it can be hard to undertake. But when it clicks, when the health of the environment, social responsibility, and economic benefit all work in harmony, that's a delightful moment. [00:13:48] Speaker ?: Thank you.