For Bates, the rating shows how students, faculty, and staff \u2014 with strong support from college leadership \u2014 collaborate to incorporate sustainability into the fabric of college life.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Reducing its carbon footprint is one of many efforts, big and small, that Bates is making to become more sustainable.<\/p>\n
More validation of the college\u2019s progress came over the summer when Bates received a Gold rating<\/a> from the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE).<\/p>\n Through AASHE\u2019s Sustainability Tracking, Assessment and Rating System (STARS)\u00a0\u2014 a widely recognized framework for publicly assessing sustainability \u2014 schools earn points by fulfilling criteria that range from the environmental friendliness of operations and facilities to the incorporation of sustainability into academics and student life.<\/p>\n Among NESCAC colleges that participate in the STARS program, only Bates, Colby, and Middlebury have earned Gold ratings. Bowdoin, Tufts, Wesleyan, Williams have Silver. (Only two institutions, Colorado College and Stanford, have earned the highest rating, Platinum.)<\/p>\n For Bates, the STARS rating shows how students, faculty, and staff \u2014 with strong support from college leadership \u2014 collaborate to incorporate sustainability into the fabric of college life.<\/p>\n \u201cSustainability is a natural priority of our campus culture and plays an important role here at Bates,\u201d President Clayton Spencer wrote in a letter to AASHE. \u201cWe see civic engagement and environmental stewardship as integral and intertwined components for creating and sustaining a just world.\u201d<\/p>\n This graph, using information gathered and organized by student EcoReps, shows Bates’ net total carbon emissions since 2001 \u2014 figures that represent on-campus emissions such as those created by electricity, heating, and campus vehicles.<\/p><\/div>\n Emissions reduction is a point of strength on Bates\u2019 scorecard. The purchase of renewable energy certificates in 2005 contributed to a drop in campus emissions\u2014 but emissions were slashed further this year under Energy Manager John Rasmussen, when Bates switched its primary heating fuel from natural gas to Renewable Fuel Oil<\/a>, a wood-based fuel that does not release fossil carbon into the atmosphere.<\/p>\n Efficiency has also improved. All new buildings and renovations are constructed to LEED Silver standards and building insulation has been improved.<\/p>\n Campus heating is now mostly centralized<\/a> under a system that provides better data on energy usage and allows staff to remotely control the heat (and therefore emissions). And in Commons, optical and temperature sensors<\/a> control 11 of the kitchen\u2019s 14 exhaust hoods.<\/p>\n The tank that holds Renewable Fuel Oil, a sustainable fuel which curtailed much of the Bates’ fossil fuel use, is installed in January. (Doug Hubley\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n Dining Services has, along with Facility Services, been a driver and partner in Bates\u2019 sustainability efforts \u2014 it composts or recycles 80 percent of its waste, or, through initiatives such as eliminating disposable cups<\/a> in Commons, avoids creating waste altogether.<\/p>\n The EcoReps, about 25 students who work under Twist, represent yet another strength in the college\u2019s AASHE assessment: community engagement. According to the AASHE assessment, 90 percent of Bates students have been affected by the EcoReps\u2019 programs. \u00a0\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n Working in small groups, they\u2019re responsible for everything from EcoService Day, to the Trashion Show, to communicating to the wider campus community the work that dining and custodial services have done, to collecting data from myriad sources for the graph representing Bates\u2019 emissions over time.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re doing not just college-level work, but professional work,\u201d Twist said.<\/p>\n In another project to help engage the community, they created a \u201cSustainability Map<\/a>,\u201d noting measures the college has taken to increase efficiency in campus buildings.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can click through, building by building, what updates have been made,\u201d said Hannah Slattery \u201918 of Gilford, N.H., who worked on the project. Big or small, the changes are \u201cimportant to bringing down the overall carbon footprint of those individual buildings.\u201d<\/p>\n Some of those students serve on the Committee on Environmental Responsibility (CER<\/a>), a group of faculty, staff, and students who work to raise awareness; research, assess, and report on environmental practices; and recommend policies.<\/p>\n Sustainability manager Tom Twist and\u00a0EcoReps Isa Moise \u201919, Beanie O\u2019Shea \u201918, Hannah Slattery \u201918, and George Fiske \u201919 show off the college\u2019s color-coded waste receptacles in March, part of a project to encourage recycling on campus. (Josh Kuckens\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n The CER\u2019s work over the past decade primed Bates for all the emissions-reducing, solar-installing, EcoRepping strides it\u2019s made in the past few years, said CER chair and Professor of Geology Beverly Johnson.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re successors of a long line of people who have been pushing for better sustainability practices on campus,\u201d Johnson said, noting early work by former Bates environmental coordinator Julie Rosenbach and by John Smedley, a professor of physics who led an initial environmental task force.<\/p>\n Part of CER\u2019s work involves assessing how sustainability is incorporated into academics. In 2015\u201316, 35 courses in departments such as environmental science, physics, and politics were sustainability-focused, according to the college\u2019s AASHE submission. Another 33 were related to sustainability.<\/p>\n \u201cI was surprised by the number of courses from many departments that we could include as sustainability-focused or -related,\u201d said Camille Parrish, a lecturer and learning associate in environmental studies who assessed Bates\u2019 course offerings. \u201cPart of that is because we at Bates and in the Environmental Studies Program are very interdisciplinary.\u201d<\/p>\n Johnson said CER is looking into developing a sustainability-related General Education Concentration, a cluster of courses that help students develop expertise outside their major.<\/p>\n \u201cThe big thing I\u2019m going to be working on with my subcommittee is bringing sustainability into the curriculum more intentionally,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Twist said he hopes to build on the strides recognized by AASHE by doing more with solar energy<\/a> in the coming years, as well as engaging more students who are not specifically interested in environmental efforts.<\/p>\n![\"STARS-Gold-Logo_tcm18-253951\"](\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2017\/09\/STARS-Gold-Logo_tcm18-253951-300x300.png\"){kind=logo}
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"graph](\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2017\/09\/graph-for-emily-1-1-900x673.png\")
<\/a>![\"Up,](\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2017\/01\/161209_CCU_RFO_Floating_3773-dlh-200x300.jpg\")
<\/a>![\"Bates](\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2017\/03\/170302_Waste_032-900x600.jpg\")
<\/a>
![\"George](\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2016\/10\/161019_CCU_Shortridge_tt_5629-900x599.jpg\")
<\/a>