Issue date: 9/18/09 Section: News

Media Credit: Bryan Edwards Fifth-year intern Missy! Orr '09 and sophomore Chloe Lawson, the president of DePauw Environmental Club, pass out balloons to celebrate the one-year anniversary of the signing of the Presidents' Climate Commitment. A number of community members - including Orr - calculated the university's carbon footprint in time for the Sept. 15 anniversary.

Media Credit: Bryan Edwards Missy Orr, fifth-year sustainability intern, delivers balloons to Jeanne Menzel, assistant to the vice president for student life, to celebrate the completion of the carbon footprint calculations.

For a while now, "green" has been a well-known code word for change at DePauw, through various initiatives like recycling and composting. One lesser-known movement has been the endeavor to calculate our university-wide carbon footprint.

On Tuesday, this yearlong effort to analyze DePauw's ecological effects culminated in the submission of the Carbon Footprint Report to the American College and University Presidents' Climate Commitment (ACUPCC), an organization dedicated to making college campuses carbon neutral.

"We will eventually in the future become a university that has a net carbon usage of zero, meaning that we will make up for all carbon emitted," said Missy Orr, a fifth-year sustainability intern who helped collect and organize data contributing to the report.

This initiative to become more environmentally conscious around campus gained legitimacy on Sept. 15 of last year when President Casey signed the Presidents' Climate Commitment. This agreement, signed by 650 schools worldwide, entails setting two short-term goals of turning DePauw green, as well as calculating its carbon footprint within one year.

Analyzing campus-wide carbon emissions was a huge undertaking, and many other schools hired consultants to compile their information. However, the Sustainability Initiative established a large infrastructure to collect data related to categories like travel, paper consumption, energy, composting, recycling and wastewater, among other factors.

"It's really important that we follow in the tradition of the well thought of schools that calculated it internally, because there was no question as to whether or not we could do it," said Carol Steele, associate dean for Academic Affairs. "We just needed a lot of volunteer effort."

This volunteer effort came through on several fronts and the university's carbon footprint was submitted on time. The data DePauw has collected was submitted to Clean Air-Cool Planet, an organization with a campus carbon caluculator. They will take the data and return a report back to the university by the end of the semester.

However, the sustainability movement is far from over. There are still several opportunities for students to get involved, and several people are excited to get to work.

"After completing the carbon footprint analysis I'm really inspired to innovate new projects that DePauw can adapt to become carbon neutral," said Chloe Lawson, president of the DePauw Environmental Club and one of the sustainability interns.

"One of my personal projects is working on a rooftop garden here. I also want to help reduce our water usage by conserving and recycling water," Lawson said. "We as students have creativity and freedoms to change the history of DePauw's environmental policy."

Orr added, "one thing I really want to stress is that this is our university. This is our future. It's such a great opportunity to get involved in what DePauw is becoming. And what's truly amazing is seeing the impact that one student can have on the changes occurring here."

Opportunities to impact the green movement around campus come in the form of the DePauw Environmental Club, taking classes involving alternative energy sources, or simply recycling and composting.

For more information, or to get involved in the efforts to create a carbon neutral campus, e-mail:

depauwsustainability@gmail.com

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