Environmental Issues Committee

April 15, 2008

EMU Century Room E

 

Attendees:

Chuck Kalnbach, Paula Staight, Lynn Giordano, Steve Mital, Art Farley, Bill Cresko, Tim King

 

The February and March minutes were unanimously approved.

 

Updates

The Building working group plans to hold its final meeting, and Steve will provide the EIC with their list of recommendations soon. The Information Technology and Transportation groups have met and purchasing group meeting is still pending.

 

Steve attended a one day seminar at Willamette University.  Representatives from about fifteen Pacific Northwest universities attended.  Schools were divided into basically two camps, ones such as the UO that had already made substantial progress in reducing green house gas emissions and those that are just starting.  A primary example of progress was the completion of a GHG study, and those schools were in favor of using per square foot or per student measurements.  Some of the smaller schools have been able to reach carbon neutrality by doing as much as possible on their campuses and then purchasing offsets to reach their goal.  The representatives discussed questions about quality and progress being made in the area of offset exchanges.

 

Steve is anticipating help from the following individuals:

Josh Ruddick (former UO employee) offered to work on providing data re: UO’s past energy usage;

J.P. Monroe will provide estimate of anticipated student growth;

Jim Krumsick will work on calculating the maximum amount of energy saved if all the Building group’s recommendations were implemented.

 

Cresko - Presentation

Bill created a graph to illustrate the GHG effect if student enrollment were to increase or decrease.

Relationships included:

z = total campus output (metric tons)

w = total number of users on campus

x = per user output

y = percentage change in per user output with respect to present

 

The equation can also be used to calculate square foot relationships.  He offered to design a web calculator.

 

Final Report to Francis Dyke

The committee requested that Steve begin drafting a final report.  They asked him to include his recommendations and to send it out electronically for review prior to the meeting next month.

 

 

Next Meeting:   2:00 – 3:00 p.m. on May 15^th in EMU Century E

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Contact:
Kay Coots, R.S., CSP
Environmental Health and Safety Director
Phone: (541) 346-5421
E-Mail: kcoots@uoregon.edu