Contact Nilda Mesa

Nilda Mesa - nmesa@columbia.edu

Sustainable Columbia Newsletter
Date: April 24, 2008

To the Columbia Community:

As the University heads into the annual celebration of Earth Day, I am writing to provide the first of what will be regular updates on the wide range of efforts our University community is undertaking to ensure Columbia continues to move toward the highest levels of environmental stewardship. This is an important, long-term initiative that begins with many individual steps.

New Advisory Committee Holds First Meeting
The Columbia Environmental Stewardship Advisory Committee held its first meeting on Friday, April 11. Comprised of students, faculty and staff representatives from across the University’s campuses, the Advisory Committee is charged with the task of identifying important principles and goals to lessen Columbia’s environmental footprint and promote a culture of sustainability. Represented are undergraduate and graduate student councils and environmental organizations at Morningside and the medical center, leadership from central administration and prominent faculty members from the arts and sciences, SIPA, engineering, business, law, and architecture schools, as well as research scientists from the Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory. To learn more about the Office of Environmental Stewardship, which is coordinating this collaborative effort, visit http://www.environment.columbia.edu.

Greenhouse Gas Inventory
In June 2007, as part of Mayor Bloomberg’s PlaNYC to make New York more environmentally sustainable, President Bollinger committed Columbia to joining with nine other local universities in pledging to reduce greenhouse gas (GhG) emissions 30 percent by 2017. Achieving this ambitious goal will take collective action—not only by the administration, but by all of us in our daily lives.

As part of its pledge to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, individuals and departments from across the University, as well as the NYC Department of Sanitation, are cooperating to undertake a greenhouse gas emissions inventory. This inventory will identify and quantify sources of greenhouse gas emissions, which are mostly attributable to building and transportation energy usage and waste in landfills. The baseline inventory will spur the development of a GhG reduction plan, including a range of specific energy and waste reduction strategies—an essential step in long-term emissions reduction. To learn more about Columbia’s commitment to reduce its emissions, visit http://www.columbia.edu/cu/news/07/06/green.html.

Cool Columbia Program
In partnership with the New York Chapter of the Sierra Club, University Facilities and the Office of Environmental Stewardship launched the Cool Columbia campaign to encourage off-campus housing residents to become more energy efficient. The effort is part of the Sierra Club’s national Cool Neighborhoods pledge campaign, which includes other local partners such as the Cathedral of St. John the Divine and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer’s Go Green East Harlem Steering Committee. Households can take the Cool Columbia pledge and can sign up to have an energy evaluation and year-long coaching on reducing their energy bills and cutting greenhouse gas emissions. As part of this campaign, compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs will be given free of charge in exchange for incandescent bulbs. For more information, visit http://cool.columbia.edu/.

CFL Bulb Exchange and Display on Earth Day
Spearheaded by the Columbia Law School’s Environmental Law Society, 50,000 low-energy CFL light bulbs are available to members of the Columbia community willing to swap their incandescent bulbs. In its usable lifetime a single low-energy 27-watt compact fluorescent bulb saves over 1,000 pounds of carbon dioxide from being released into the atmosphere compared to a traditional 100-watt incandescent bulb. Last week, CFLs were swapped at SIPA, the business school, the medical center, Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory and residence halls. On Earth Day, April 22, the collected incandescent bulbs will be displayed on College Walk, and light bulb exchanges can still be made at the display as well as at graduate school and undergraduate lobbies. For more information, e-mail environment@columbia.edu.

RecycleBank at Columbia
RecycleBank is an innovative market-driven venture in social entrepreneurship started by a Columbia Business School alumnus. It creates incentives for individuals and families to recycle by rewarding credits that can be redeemed at participating local and national merchants, including Pinkberry, Apple Tree Market and Chipotle. Columbia University is the first university nationwide to serve as a pilot, with a participation rate of over 50 percent in just a few months. The Columbia-RecycleBank program was recently featured in TIME magazine http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1730187,00.html. RecycleBank at Columbia is currently open to residents of first-year resident halls and is expected to go campus-wide next fall. For more information, visit http://www.recyclebank.com/columbia/.


Green Living Challenge Tests Undergrads’ Energy Smarts
The Green Living Challenge is a competition for undergraduate dorms at Columbia University sponsored by Columbia College Student Council, EcoReps, and the Office of Environmental Stewardship. Using weekly electric energy readings, dorms compete to be the most energy efficient with a new winner announced each month. The competition runs through the academic year. For more information and the latest standings, visit http://www.environment.columbia.edu/greenlivingchallenge/.

Columbia Environmental Experts Blogging on Major News Media Web Sites
Columbia has long been a leader in cutting-edge climate science research and environmental policy studies. Now, some of our researchers are also showcasing their expertise on the Web sites of major media outlets. Steven Cohen, executive director of the Earth Institute, blogs on New York City and sustainability for the New York Observer’s new Green Channel http://www.observer.com/green, which will feature a range of Columbia expertise on environmental issues. Stuart Gaffin, a researcher with the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies at Columbia, recently launched Exhausted Earth, a blog about global environmental challenges, on the Web site of Reuters: http://blogs.reuters.com/environment/author/stuart-gaffin/.

Environmental Education Opportunities
Columbia provides a diversity of academic opportunities for students at every level to learn about sustainability issues and to put them into practice. The business and engineering schools offer the University’s first-ever integrated design class, where teams are developing products that could potentially be brought to market to harness energy from athletic equipment, and a sustainable development concentration is now offered to undergraduates. Through degrees, concentrations, internships and fellowships, Columbia’s Earth Institute has become a leader in efforts to prepare the next generation of thinkers and practitioners of sustainable development. For more information about the Earth Institute’s educational opportunities, visit http://www.earth.columbia.edu/articles/view/2146.

Earth Institute Seed Funding Competition
The Earth Institute is holding two seed-funding competitions for the '08-'09 fiscal year. One competition is for Cross-Cutting Initiative (CCI) projects and the other is for Earth Clinic projects. The CCI fund has $200,000 to be awarded in increments up to $50,000. The Earth Clinic fund has $150,000 to be awarded in increments up to $30,000. Selection
of funded projects will be completed by July 18. For more information, visit http://www.earth.columbia.edu/articles/view/2140.

New Online Climate News Section
The Columbia Office of Communications and Public Affairs has launched a new online section on environmental and climate research at Columbia. It includes stories from the Earth Institute and Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory, as well as many of the University’s smaller research institutes and centers that reach across traditional academic disciplines in addressing environmental science and policy. The online section is a central place to learn more about how Columbia faculty and researchers are contributing to the global understanding of the climate challenge: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/news/climate/.

Share Your News and Ideas
We have undertaken a range of initiatives to improve our environmental stewardship and reduce our carbon footprint. The success of these efforts will rest upon our ability to move forward together. The wide support is evidenced in the broad participation described in this letter.

New ideas need to be identified and more needs to be done. We need your help. Please e-mail Nilda Mesa, assistant vice president of environmental stewardship, your ideas at nmesa@columbia.edu.

Please share information about what you and your office are doing to support a sustainable Columbia by sending your news and updates to Clare Oh in the Office of Communications and Public Affairs at clare.oh@columbia.edu.

Sincerely,

Robert Kasdin
Senior Executive Vice President