Thu 25 Jan 2007
Two major events occured today to elevate sustainability to the forefront of Williams. The first was President Schapiro’s announcement to the college of the Climate Action Plan. The trustees met this weekend to discuss and unanimously passed a plan to reduce college CO2 emissions 10% below 1990 levels (or about 50% below today’s levels) by 2020. That letter can be found here
The second item was the release of the College Sustainability Report Card. The Report Card examines and grades 100 schools across the United States and Canada on criteria including climate change policies, green building, and investment practices. It was produced by the Sustainable Endowments Initiative which is run by Mark Orlowski ‘04. I’m not sure if his connection to Williams swayed his organization’s report, but Williams was one of only 4 schools to recieve an A-, the highest grade awarded. More can be found and the full report can be downlaoded here or here
January 25th, 2007 at 5:00 am
USA Today covers it here
January 25th, 2007 at 5:41 am
Logic tells one that limiting the endowment’s investments to enterprises which meet some sort of social test will cause the endowment to perform less well financially than if the limitation were not applied.
January 25th, 2007 at 7:41 am
Great stuff. But, fundamentally, isn’t this more marketing than anything else? Not that there’s anything wrong with that!
To be specific, if Williams really cared about carbon emissions there is no way that it would replace Sawyer library with a new building. Although the new library may be slightly more energy efficient, the (total) cost in increased emissions from tearing down the old building and putting up a new one is huge, much more than the annual emissions from either building.
How huge? Good question! Perhaps Morgan can tell us. In any environmental project, it is critical to take account of all effects, not just the ones that are easy to measure. In this case, the College is pretending that, over the next few years, it is doing good stuff because its annual rate of regular emissions is going down. It is explicitly ignoring the emission effects of capital projects, and Williams will always have major capital projects.
So, a college that really cared about emissions would not look at point estimates. It would aim for total emissions from, say, today to 2020 that are at least lower (if not by 10% lower), than emissions over the previous 12 years.
But Williams does not care enough to actually aim for a target that is meaningful. The people who run Williams want their big, new air-conditioned offices with room (in every single office!) to conduct tutorials. Nothing wrong with that! I want that too. Just don’t pretend that you are doing much for the environment when you do all this building.
What’s the carbon impact of the new Stetson/Sawyer project? Good question. Perhaps Morgan can find out.
January 25th, 2007 at 2:12 pm
David, I think your point about buildings is a good one. You’re correct in saying that building gargantuan new buildings is not in line with a carbon reduction commitment. However, the current building projects–Stetson/Sawyer specifically–are too far along in their progress to stop. The work of the Climate Action Committee focused on a commitment that starts from this point forward and includes the planned building projects. If you actually read the report, particularly the sections here and here, you’ll notice that changes in our building policy are a central part of the emissions reductions strategy.
Your comment that “Williams does not care enough to actually aim for a target that is meaningful” is completely off-base. The CAC has spent almost a full year developing a target that is attainable yet challenging. There is no doubt that sacrifices will have to be made if we’re to attain it. While stopping Stetson/Sawyer will not be one of those sacrifices, future building growth will be looked at much more critically.
January 25th, 2007 at 4:08 pm
Why, precisely, is Stetson-Sawyer “too far along in their progress to stop”? I was there on Monday and construction had not started. If Williams is really concerned about climate change, then it would not go forward with a building project that will, without doubt, add tons and tons of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. Again, I would like to know a good estimate for the effect — can’t the CAC provide one?
But the main point is that, whatever the size, it probably dwarfs (factor of 2? factor of 10?) the contribution that Williams is making by going back to 1990 levels. I realize that the powers-that-be argue that Williams “needs” Stetson-Sawyer, that every prof “must” have their own huge offices. But why? I share a (small) office. When I need to meet with people, we go to a (shared) conference room.
Again, I am not against a new Stetson (I am doubtful that new Sawyer is money well spent), but don’t tell me that Williams cares about climate change when its actions speak louder than words.
January 25th, 2007 at 11:31 pm
David, this is the response from Stephanie Boyd to your earlier concern. No, it is not a direct answer and I too have concerns about the energy used to erect a building (electricity and diesel for getting materials onsite and erecting them), but I feel this does speak to the impact of the materials used. While Paresky was not as ‘green’ a building as it could have been, significant steps were taken, especially in the demolition phase, to recycle much of the building and decrease the environmental impact of construction.
“We are intent on improving our sustainable building guidelines for new capital projects. This is a complex topic and many in the construction industry are working toward developing appropriate building practices. Typically sustainable building practices consider a number of issues - sustainable sites, water efficiency, energy efficiency, impact of materials
(recycled content, VOCs, energy associated with production and transportation, demolition), and in-door air quality. As we develop and improve our building practices at Williams, all of these factors will be considered. And in fact, many principles of sustainability are all ready incorporated into our building programs - recycling demolition waste, recycled materials, high efficiency HVAC design, low VOC materials, locally sourced materials, etc.”
January 25th, 2007 at 11:36 pm
And here is the response from Stephen Klass to the same concern:
“I perceive the writer’s concern to be that we haven’t taken into account the additional emissions from new construction that we can reasonably expect to be capitalizing. If so, then this individual missed a very important point of the analysis that the CAC performed. I think there are 3 important data points that Stephanie and crew took into account:
o inclusion of square footage included in current new building projects (e.g., Paresky, Stetson-Sawyer) through 2012
o assumptions regarding continued construction between 2012-2020, even though it is difficult to imagine what those projects would be at this time
o assumptions that we will not be taking existing buildings off-line once the new construction is completed, even though that is a possibility
I am comfortable saying that their analysis was appropriately conservative in this regard and that these conditions were taken fully into account to the degree that they can be predicted that far out into the future.”
January 26th, 2007 at 12:08 am
Morgan,
Thanks for looking into this, but does any of this address my main point? Sawyer-Stetson will cause X amount of greenhouse gas emissions. What is X? I think that X is a big number, much bigger than all the savings that the College is currently trumpeting. Can’t the College tell us what X is? Can you? (I don’t know enough about the topic to say.)
Imagine that Morty is driving along Route 2, notices that there is a discarded soda can on the other side of the street, goes down to the traffic circle, turns around, drives back, picks up the can and drives it to the recycling station. Morty then brags about his commitment to the environment and produces a plan to pick up many more cans in the next decade than he has in the previous ten years.
Great, huh? Morty is a true environmentalist! Just look at that study.
Now, imagine that Morty is driving a Hummer.
Everything about Morty’s actions (picking up the can, recycling it, conducting a study, promising to do more) is, considered in isolation, consistent with being an environmentalist. But, scene in the wider context of his Hummer use, the can pick ups are irrelevant window-dressing.
Decreasing energy usage to 10% below 1990 levels is like picking up the can. Fine, as far as it goes. Stetson-Sawyer is the Hummer.
January 26th, 2007 at 12:20 am
Surely we can all see the slipperiness of a statement like this:
Let history be your guide. Want to estimate how much new construction Williams will do from 2012 to 2020? Look at other recent 8 year periods! How much construction did Williams do from 2004 to 2012? (Paresky, Sawyer-Stetson) How much from 1996 to 2004? (Schow, Science buildings, Theatre) How much from 1988 to 1996? (Hopkins, Chandler)
I may have some of the dates wrong above and left out other major projects, but Williams has been doing lots of building and reconstruction in every 8 year period for a generation. Why would 2012 to 2020 be any different? You think that Mission and Greylock are going to stand forever?
Some huge amount of the actual greenhouse gases produced by Williams (50%? 90%?) comes from construction and renovation. Why is this left out of the accounting? Because professors want there big, new air-conditioned offices. (And students want a new gym and administrators want a new building and . . .)
Calling Stephanie Boyd’s response “not a direct answer” is charitable indeed. I might use other terminology.
Morty also reports that his Hummer automatically switches to neutral at traffic lights. Very efficient!
January 26th, 2007 at 1:31 pm
David, if you look at the links provided by CAC member you’ll see that carbon impact made by building progress was taken into account by the CAC.
Regardless, I’m not exactly sure what point you’re trying to make. I think it’s obviously that an annual 50% reduction in carbon emissions (approximately the amount we would reduce emissions by should we succesfully meet the CAC’s recommendations) will easily outweigh (probably both in the short and the long term) any excess carbon produced by grand building projects.
Now, I’m sure that you don’t really believe that the College should stop building. Nobody on campus would ever advocate for a freeze in campus renovations, not even the most energetic environmentalist. We all understand there are trade offs, and one of the trade-offs of operating a world-class educational institution is that you’re going to produce some emissions. The CAC’s goal was to see feasibly how best (and how much) to minimize these emissions.
As it is, the CAC’s recommendations are ambitious but certainly attainable, and I could not be more proud of the administration and trustees in their decision to commit to these recommendations.
January 26th, 2007 at 2:22 pm
A “current eph” (who really ought to join EphBlog as an anonymous author) writes:
No doubt this is my fault, but can you point to the place in the report where the carbon impact made by Stetson-Sawyer (and/or other projects) is discussed? I can’t find it.
Again, the key distinction is between operating carbon impact and capital carbon impact. The CAC provide a useful discussion of operating trends. They do discuss the fact that, all else equal, bigger buildings produce more carbon. Fine. This is an important point to consider.
But there is no discussion that I can find of the one-time carbon impact of building Stetson-Sawyer. This is the carbon capital account. My hypothesis is that if we divided all carbon emissions in last decade (or the next decade) into two parts — capital (mainly new construction) and operating — we would find that the capital account is much larger. If the capital account is twice the size of the operating account, then a report (like CACs) which only considers the operating account is, at best, incomplete. If the capital account is ten times larger, than the CAC report is almost irrelevant, for anyone who cares about the total carbon actually emitted by Williams.
Again, I wish that someone more knowledgeable than I about environmental issues would clarify this. What is the one-time carbon impact of replacing the current Sawyer-Stetson with new buildings?
Consider this vaguely relevant reference.
If just the manufacture of only the steel in such a small house releases 2.7 tonnes of carbon, how much carbon is emitted in the entire Stetson-Sawyer?
Again, it could be that I am wrong, that the one-time contribution is small. But anyone serious about reducing the total carbon emissions from Williams would figure this out.
I am no expert, but I think that this is wrong, that the manufacture of building materials (steel and bricks and so on) is very carbon dirty. But this is an empirical question. Can you get someone on CAC to testify one way or the other?
January 26th, 2007 at 4:27 pm
Is this a fair statement? First and foremost, Williams is bound and determined to be bigger and better - philosophically speaking. Primarily as a result of that effort, over time Williams will substantially increase the damage (in absolute terms) it is doing to the environment but intends to reasonably attempt to mitigate that increase. If that is a fair statement, why doesn’t Williams make it or an equivalent? We all know the answer to that question.
February 7th, 2007 at 11:45 pm
This entry is a stub
Five blocks of housing are added to the urban structure of Mexico City every week. Another hundred blocks, or so, to the cities of sub-suburban Africa, every week.
[point: no dollar spent on reducing CO(2) emissions in Williamstown is ever going to achieve more than a fraction of what it could achieve somewhere else]