"Green" Starts Small

by John Sagebiel on 23 Apr 2008

The most obvious example of the move toward a more green campus at the University of Nevada, Reno opened just a few months ago: the Joe Crowley Student Union.

While this is a big and obvious example, many of the reasons why "The Joe" is green are neither big nor obvious, and the same can be said of much of what goes on at UNR.

At The Joe, the success of the building comes not from a few singular and heroic efforts, but through the combination of dozens of smaller efforts and systems working together to make the whole truly much greater than the sum of its parts. The same can be said of the campus in general. At The Joe, "day lighting" brings natural sunlight into the building, reducing the need for electrical lights. This is good, but less electrical light also means less heat built up inside the building, which means less mechanical cooling is needed. Small steps add together to make a big impact.

On the campus broadly, we have moved to a more integrated waste management system, trying to increase our diversion rate by sending more material to recycling. In 2007 we more than doubled the weight of cans and bottles collected on campus from the previous year, collecting more than 60,000 pounds. The office paper recycling program continued its success with over 400,000 pounds of paper being recycled. We began a very active cardboard recycling program in 2007, which also kept tons of material out of the landfill.

While these weights could represent a huge pile of material, the achievement did not all happen at once. It resulted from thousands of individual acts by students, faculty, and staff who chose to throw that material in recycling bins and not the trash. But again, it is not just these visible efforts that have an impact. For every recycling bin, there has to be a way the collected materials get picked up, get combined with similar materials, and get taken to where they belong. In addition, those people who are rarely seen but always here - the trade shops, for example - contribute to this effort. Plumbers, electricians, and other skilled trades people save the metal scraps from their projects and these are recycled rather than thrown in the trash.

The professionals who plan buildings and manage the construction on this campus also work hard to make sure the newest buildings on campus are as efficient as they can be. Retrofitting older buildings (and, significantly, the central heat plant) is done with an eye toward reducing energy use as well. The use of the newest controls, switching systems, and variable frequency drives -behind the scenes - represent more small steps that contribute to the whole.

Ultimately, "green" is about community. It is about each and every one of us doing small, seemingly insignificant acts that, when added together on this campus, equal a large, positive impact. More importantly, these acts mean something. They mean we are a community of caring people.

John C. Sagebiel, Ph.D., LEED AP
Enviromental Affairs Manager

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