Whether overhearing a tour or reading up on F&M in a college guide, many of you probably have heard about President Fry’s signing of the Presidents’ Climate Agreement in 2007, meant to “reduce net greenhouse gases.”
While many people on campus may think F&M is environmental-friendly with events such as Recyclemania, it is time for a reality check.
The F&M community is not doing nearly enough.
F&M’s Sustainability Web site reads, “All new facilities over 5000 square feet and major capital renovations costing more than 50% of building replacement shall meet the value of a LEED Silver rating at a minimum.” If this is true, then why are neither of the new buildings currently under construction adhering to these standards?
When we first signed the contract with the United States Green Building Council (USGBC), we were one of the first schools to do it, which gave us more leeway than others who signed after us. F&M’s Sustainability Climate Action Plan says we will, “reduce carbon emission by 40% by the year 2025 with the goal to achieve climate neutrality within 50 years,” whereas competitors such as Dickinson, who signed after us, have only 20 years to do this. Though F&M has the extra 30 years of flexibility, shouldn’t we continue our message of commitment by trying to become more sustainable as soon as possible?
In fact, hesitating to do so is actually costing us more in the long run. Let’s figure the new buildings will exist for approximately 150 years; with all of the emerging technology, don’t you think more sustainable buildings will be maintained at a cheaper cost by then? In the Climate Action Plan, it says that abiding by the LEED Silver standard will cost 1-5% more for construction, yet there will be an immense savings as a result in the long run. Keeping the future of our community and our environment in mind, it is necessary we take action now.
Though the College is implementing policies such as lowering the heating temperature in buildings, are they doing this to help the environment or to be more economically conscious? Regardless of their motive, simple things like installing solar panels on the new dorms could help both our environment and our finances.
I realize that abstaining by sustainable practices is certainly not an easy task. However, our school should be making more of an effort to transition us to that point. The smaller initiatives help, but it is time to expand them to a larger scale. As we can observe from infrastructures like the Klehr Center, which has geothermal wells for heating and cooling among other neat sustainable features, we can see it is possible.
Just on the most fundamental level, I guarantee you students do not know things such as where and what materials they can recycle. We need to become a more informed and a more concerned community if we ever want to achieve our environmental goals. Not only does the F&M community need to be more aware about what is possible and what is happening in regards to environmental sustainability, but we also have to be willing to adapt to changes.
President Fry signed this contract in April 2007, and I, along with the rest of you, should be concerned about our ability to uphold to its regulations. F&M has this zero emissions goal with 2007 as the baseline. However, there needs to be more dedication from the entire community to achieve this goal, or else it is never going to happen. We are still fifteen years away from 2025, the year President Fry stated we would have climate neutrality. It is time to get working on our goal, rather than working against it.
