Browsing by Subject "Campus sustainability"

Now showing 1 - 6 of 6

Open Access
A Toolkit for Identifying Energy Savings at Colleges and Universities
(2012-04-26) Davis, Eliza
Across the country college and university leaders are beginning to recognize the financial and reputational benefits of saving energy and “going green”. However school administrators and other campus leaders face institutional, behavioral, and economic barriers to identifying energy-saving opportunities on their own. To address these challenges a “toolkit” was developed to help college and university leaders identify energy-saving upgrades and programs, calculate project costs and savings, and communicate the value of these investments to key stakeholders. The toolkit includes a menu of energy efficiency projects appropriate for college and university campuses as well as detailed explanations of how to calculate the expected project costs and savings. This resource walks users through the process of benchmarking and tracking campus energy use over time and introduces key calculations to consider for all energy investments such as net present value, payback period, and avoided greenhouse gas emissions. Additionally the toolkit addresses the importance of education and engagement for successful adoption of energy efficiency programs. Finally, the toolkit includes two case studies about identifying energy-saving projects at universities in North Carolina. This is a free and accessible guidebook designed for use by school administrators, faculty, staff, and students who want to identify ways for their institutions to save money, reduce energy use, and cut greenhouse gas emissions. The toolkit can be used as an alternative to hiring an energy consultant or enrolling in a green building certification program or as a complementary resource for an institution that already plans to take these steps. The author hopes that the use of this toolkit will encourage community dialogue on environmental issues and will inspire a lasting commitment to sustainability on college and university campuses.
Open Access
Developing a Climate Action Plan for the Nicholas School of the Environment
(2018-04-27) Price, Taylor; Liu, Yige; Lee, Dominic Minho
It has been nearly 10 years since Duke University's formal commitment to climate action via the creation of the first campus-wide climate action plan, "Growing Green: Becoming a Climate Neutral Campus". As the Duke Office of Sustainability, looks to continue its journey towards carbon neutrality, they are exploring additional avenues to create change. At the same time, the Duke University Marine Lab, based in Beaufort, North Carolina, also has sights set on reducing their campus carbon emission. This study investigates the feasibility of each school creating their own specific Climate Action Plans to supplement the university-wide plan. Furthermore, this study will provide insights into the feasibility of school-specific climate action plans at the university at large as well as provide recommendations for the Nicholas School and the Duke Marine Lab. The results provide an assessment of the greenhouse gas footprint of the Nicholas School and the Duke Marine Lab both long and short recommendations to drive the campus towards carbon neutrality.
Open Access
Environmental Leadership in Campus Sustainability
(2019-04-24) Allen, Simon
Campus sustainability is an important topic for several reasons: 1. Higher Education institutions generally have a large environmental footprint, primarily because they are large users of energy to operate their campuses and fulfil their programmatic activities. 2. Due to their mission and competencies, Higher Education institutions have the capacity and responsibility to lead on climate and sustainability action for the sake of their students and society. Second Nature, a nonprofit founded to encourage climate action by higher education institutions, established the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education in 2001 due to increasing interest in campus sustainability. However, it wasn’t until the American College & University Presidents’ Climate Commitments (‘ACUPCC’) in 2006 that many organizations publicly made concerted, objective, quantifiable commitments to reduce greenhouse gas (‘GHG’) emissions. In 2015, Second Nature expanded and rebranded the ACUPCC to form the Presidents’ Climate Leadership Commitments. Today, that network comprises over 600 higher education institutions who have made a commitment to act on climate. At many of these institutions, a formal commitment has been made to reductions in GHG emissions. These commitments are reported through Second Nature’s reporting platform which acts as a central hub for the monitoring and evaluation of progress against these commitments. As part of the agreed protocol for reporting their emissions, institutions use the Greenhouse Gas Protocol (‘GHGP’), a partnership between the World Resources Institute and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. GHGP establishes a comprehensive, global, standardized framework for measuring and managing emissions from private and public sector operations, value chains, products, cities, and policies. In this report I have focused on five Higher Education institutions which have made objective commitments, and for whom data is available through the Second Nature reporting portal. These include Colgate, Cornell, Duke, Middlebury (College) and New York Universities, all of whom are members of the Carbon Commitment initiative. Additionally, the five were chosen because although they have all made quite meaningful progress against their commitments, they have taken quite different routes to secure their reductions.
Open Access
EVALUATION OF THE PROJECT DELIVERY PROCESS FOR DUKE GREEN BUILDINGS
(2009-04-24T03:33:32Z) Dao, Amy
Since 2003, Duke’s sustainable buildings policy has required that all new and retrofit buildings be LEED certified at a minimum, while “every reasonable effort will be made to achieve silver or higher ratings.” As Duke University strives to achieve its commitments to become carbon neutral, green building will play an increasingly important role for campus sustainability. However, to date Duke has conducted no internal evaluations of the LEED process, and recent reviews of LEED scorecards show that Duke green buildings are achieving the least points possible in the energy category. Using qualitative interviews and case studies of LEED certified buildings, this study aims to evaluate the green building design and implementation process at Duke, and to provide useful feedback for improvements that might aid in the decision-making process. The results of this study emerged under five themes: (1) Environmental goals, (2) Motivation and perceptions, (3) Methods and criterion for financial analysis, (4) Communication and interaction of stakeholders, and (5) Timeliness. The results were analyzed from a Conventional versus Integrated Design framework, and concluding recommendations were made that would increase the practice of integrated design.
Open Access
Increasing the Electricity Generation Capacity from Solar Resources at Duke University
(2018-04-27) Zhang, Jun; Zaragoza Castillo, Ricardo
Duke University has set the goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2024. This study explores the alternative of contributing to this target through the installation of solar photovoltaic systems (PV) from environmental, technical, regulatory, economic, and financial perspectives. It estimates the technical potential of on-site PV on the main Duke Campus and assesses the opportunities and challenges posed by federal and state regulations. We found out that the maximum technical potential of solar PV systems is 51.5 MWdc when being installed on rooftops and 35.6 MWdc when being installed atop parking lots. Together, Duke University owns 87.1 MWdc on-site PV technical potential. Our power system operation analysis illustrates that the on-site solar capacity addition at Duke University would incrementally reduce the system cost and emissions, while the 300-MWdc solar farm would negatively impact the power system economics and grid reliability. The costs of installation on parking lots are lower than on rooftops, but due to economies of scale, the most economical option to reduce emissions is to install off-site solar farms. For the cost-effectiveness of sustainability, this study also estimates the carbon abatement costs (COA) of carbon-abating strategies including PV, carbon offset, and Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) that Duke University could apply at this stage under business-as-usual (BAU) and carbon-tax scenarios. We also find that state regulations severely limit the benefits of on-campus PV development given a) the lack of programs allowing the participation of third-party energy providers, b) the limitation of standard Power Purchase Agreements for solar energy facilities to less than 1 MWdc, and c) the lack of certainty on the value of RECs.
Open Access
Recommendations on Campus Sustainability Development at Duke Kunshan University
(2017-04-28) Rhim, Helena; Ma, Handi
As the Sustainable Duke Office at Duke University determines the next steps on how best to integrate a satellite campus such as Duke Kunshan University (DKU) into its Climate Action Plan, it is important for both DKU and Duke to gain an in-depth understanding of campus sustainability at other higher education institutions. Through a review of literature and a case study of campus sustainability at Hong Kong University of Science & Technology (HKUST), this project seeks to provide a baseline for further studies on sustainable development at DKU by (1) identifying the types of sustainability initiatives currently taking place at HKUST, (2) understanding the specific challenges of implementing such initiatives, and (3) providing recommendations for DKU on how best to incorporate sustainability as it continues to expand its physical campus and academic programs.