sustainability at purdue university

8/14/2019 Sustainability at Purdue University

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Sustainability at Purdue University

Team Green BeanJosh McKinney

Jessica Melton

Ryan Scott

Green Roof in Tokyo

Team Green Bean Page 1


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ENGL 421 - Francis Tobienne, Jr.

10-30-2009

Table of Contents

1. Title Page

1

2. Table of Contents

2

3. Executive Summary

3

a. Importance of Green Research

3

b. Green Buildings Overview

3

c. Community Outreach Overview3

d. Interviews Overview

3

4. Research and Data Gathered

4

a. Green Buildings

4

i. Mechanical Engineering Building

4

ii. Schleman Hall

4

b. Community Outreach Efforts

5

i. Recycling

5

ii. Energy

6

iii. Storm Water Management

6iv. Purdue Green Week

7

v. University of Vermont

7



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c. Interviews

8

5. Works Cited

12

6. Annotated Bibliography

13

Importance of Green

ResearchAround the world, going green and

sustainability are key words thatare heard often. But what do they

mean? In short, humanity is at a

crossroads. What with global

warming, the scarcity and price of oil

and other nonrenewable resources,

going green and sustainability

apply to those who want to help the

world continue to be a habitable and

hospitable place. Alternative

transportation, green roofs, recycling,

and other community-based efforts

pave the way for a brighter, greener,

sustainable future. The members of


Executive Summary


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Team Green Bean have looked into

the efforts Purdue has made thus far

in securing itself as a green

university. They have also looked into

the future regarding how Purdue can

make a more lasting impact on its

campus and the community around it.

Researchers have put many hours

into this field of study, and their

efforts and ideas will be summarized

herein. To focus this discussion,

Team Green Bean chose three main

points of interest: Purdues green

buildings, community outreach

efforts, and interviews withresearchers and teachers of

sustainability.

Green Buildings

OverviewIn 2011, Purdue will open its first

certified green building. The Roger B.

Gatewood Addition to the Mechanical

Engineering building will add spaceand sustainability to part of Purdues

Campus, and Team Green Bean

looked into the particulars. The green

roof of Schleman Hall and other

possible green building projects were

also analyzed. The importance of

green buildings is not to be

understated. Buildings account for

48% of the total energy consumptionin the United States and it is

imperative that this energy either be

reduced or put to better use than it is

now.

Community Outreach

OverviewThe only way for Purdue to be totally

green is to have the communitywithin and surrounding it be green as

well. Team Green Bean has

researched the strides made by such

organizations as the Boiler Green

Initiative (BGI) and the University of

Vermont in capturing the attention of

the community and getting help in

the effort to go green. Recycling and

energy awareness are just a few ofthe topics that are important to the

sustainability of Purdue and of the

community, and those, among others,

will be covered, as well as how Purdue

can continue to maintain the

communitys support in its endeavors.

InterviewsResearchers and teachers of

sustainability at Purdue are vital

because they can share their

knowledge with students, the

community, and university officials

alike. Team Green Bean conducted

two interviews with staff members

integral to the green movement at

Purdue, Dr. Fu Zhao and Dr. Robin

Ridgeway. These interviews shed

light on what is like to teachsustainability and how being green is

important to the university.



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Mechanical EngineeringIn 2011 Purdue University will

open its first green building, the

Roger B. Gatewood Addition to the

Mechanical Engineering building. The

$33 million addition will add just over

40,000 square feet to the building, or

about 55 percent more room. Along

with the new laboratories, classrooms,

and student areas, the building will

also bring a first to Purdues campus

a certified green building.

The Roger B. Gatewood Addition

will the first building on Purduescampus to be constructed to the

standards of the U.S. Green Building

Council, a non-profit organization

which focuses on cost-efficient and

energy-saving practices for green

buildings. The U.S. Green Building

Council (USGBC) has created an

internationally recognized

certification system called LEED which

was designed to improve several

environmental metrics including

energy savings, water usage, carbon

dioxide emissions, improvement of

indoor environmental quality and the

stewardship of resources and

sensitivity to their impacts. According

to the USBGC, LEED provides

building owners and operators a

concise framework for identifying and

implementing practical and

measurable green building

design, construction, operations and

maintenance solutions.1

LEED essentially is a points

system for construction engineers and

architects which allows building

creators to tally up the positive green

design decisions to achieve one of the

four different LEED levels Certified,

Silver, Gold, or Platinum. For The

Roger B. Gatewood Addition to be

LEED v2.2 Certified, it must achieve

26 of a possible 69 points. To achievethese points, Purdue is implementing

several items including a higher solar

reflectance roof, low-flow plumbing

fixtures, construction materials with

recycled content, Green Label Plus

carpet, wood certified by the Forest

Stewardship Council, and paint and

sealants certified to reduce indoor air

pollutants.

Though the Mechanical

Engineering buildings addition will be

1http://www.usgbc.org/DisplayPage.aspx?CMSPageID=1988


Research and Data Gathered

Green Buildings


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the first certified green building at

Purdue, there have recently been

other green construction projects on

campus.

Schleman HallThe green roof atop Schleman is

a plant-covered surface designed to

both retain water from rain and

insulate the building and is the result

of a $68,700 grant from State Farm

Insurance2. As a side effect of the

natural materials used, the buildings

roof will actually last longer than if it

didnt have a green roof. The roof

includes monitoring equipment

powered by solar panels designed to

check the efficiency and performance

of the roof and provide data for make

design decisions for future green roof

projects on campus. Though the

future of green roofs at Purdue

depend on the data gleaned from

Schleman Hall, Purdue is alreadyconsidering green roofs on the

Horticulture Building, Mann Hall, the

Armory, and other new construction.

2http://www.boilergreen.com/page2/page8/greenroof.html

Recycling

Recycling programs have long

existed at Purdue, and in the last few

years have grown in both importance

to students and faculty and

participation. In 2008 Purdues

recycling rate was 26 percent, which

resulted in keeping 500 tons of trashout of landfills. The recycling rate at

Purdue increased to 37 percent in

2009. The end goal for Purdue is to

recycle 100 percent of its waste.

Purdue Grounds have set a goal of a

total of 65 percent recycled waste by

2014, so clearly the goal of 100

percent efficiency is many years off.

To encourage the increase of

recycling, Purdue Grounds installed

31 new recycling containers across

the West Lafayette campus.

Furthermore, there is a pilot program

in Freehafer Hall, which puts recycling


mmunity Outreach Efforts


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containers instead of trash cans at

the desk of every staff, and faculty

member in the building. The only

items not recycled in Freehafer Hall

are those containing liquid, food

waste, or food wrappers. These items

can be thrown away at trash cans in

common areas. The recycle bins are

emptied twice a week by a custodial

crew and creates no additional

required labor. This pilot program is

expected to be expanded and go

campus-wide in 2010, greatly

increasing the recycling

efforts of all staff and increasePurdues overall recycling rate

significantly.

Another initiative Purdue is

taking to increase campus-wide

participation is joining Recyclemania!

in 2010. Recyclemania! is competition

between other colleges and

universities to see who can recycle

the most during a ten-week period in

the spring 2010 semester. It is hoped

that students will want to participate

and that their involvement will carry

over after the ten-week period.

Purdue also has a few rather

unconventional recycling programs

that are not immediately apparent

when one first comes to campus. The

remnants of over 500,000 meals each

month from Purdue dining hall go tothe West Lafayette Waste Treatment

Plant and are there recycled into

methane. University Residences also

have recycling programs for those

living in dorms. University Residences

spends $3000 weekly for its

employees to check and sort

recyclable goods, including

cardboard, plastic, and paper.

Housing and Food services provides

customers with refillable bottles and

uses only 100 percent recycled fiber

napkins. The Purdue Memorial Union

uses green cleaning chemicals and

now has a sustainable floor that

requires fewer chemicals for

maintenance in its Commons area.

Purdues Veterinary Hospital has

created compost with its used animalbedding and manure.

Another success for recycling at

Purdue has been a collaborative

project between Boiler Green, Purdue

Athletics, and Purdue Refuse and

Recycling. Together, these groups

have worked together to setup a

recycling program for Purdue home

football games at Ross-Ade Stadium.

On game days volunteers begin at

8AM and continue working until an

hour after the game ends to collect

recyclable waste and encourage fans

to recycle. In 2008, there were a total

of 150 volunteers that put in 710.5

hours. The result of their efforts was a

total of 45,140 lbs of recycled waste

that didnt end up in a landfill3.

Through the first three games of the2009 football season the program is

3http://www.boilergreen.com/page2/page10/Recycling.html



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on pace to recycle of 52,000 lbs of

waste by the end of the season.

EnergyThe Boiler Green Initiative (BGI) is a

Purdue sponsored organization

dedicated to helping Purdue and the

surrounding community become

green and sustainable. Energy is the

main subject of one particular focus

group, specifically energy used in

lighting Purdues buildings. Their

objective is to ultimately use sunlightmore effectively, reducing the

buildings energy needs. To aid them

in achieving this goal, they plan to

find data on the percentage of light

bulbs on campus, in the surrounding

community, and in public buildings

that are energy efficient. They will

use this data to write a new report

that analyzes what can be done to

light buildings more efficiently and to

make recommendations on using

daylight as an effective lighting

source. They will invite a professor

from the Department of Architectural

Engineering to give a lecture on how

buildings can be better suited to use

daylight as a more effective way of

lighting than light bulbs. After

compiling all their data and gleaning

more information from research, they

will apply for grants to hold an

efficient light bulb exchange to invite

the community to learn more about

their findings. This will increase

awareness in the community and on

campus about how to conserve

energy using daylight and efficient

light bulbs and will be an integral tool

in Purdue going green

Storm Water

ManagementThe Boiler Green Initiative also has a

focus group relating to storm water

management.

Storm water is the runoff water

that gathers after a rain storm and

flows into drainage ditches, stormsewers, reservoirs, and other large

bodies of water. Along the way,

storm water can collect debris and all

manner of pollutants, such as motor

oil, pet waste, and lawn chemicals.

Polluted storm water runoff is the

biggest threat to the worlds drinking

water, as most of this runoff flows into

our public drinking systems. Thereare many ways to help rid storm

water of its potentially damaging

effects, and rain gardens are one of

them.



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Rain gardens have two main

functions. They collect water from

storms that might otherwise be

directed into a public drinking system

and they then filter out the impurities.

Rain gardens also collect large

amounts of water to release back into

the ecosystem safely, instead of

causing overflow problems in public

sewers and water collection areas.

Overflow problems can also gather

impurities from surfaces but this can

be avoided by using a rain garden.

BGI is helping to bring rain

gardens to Purdue by first installingone at Hillel House. They are also

beginning to draft and design a

second rain garden at a location yet

to be determined.

By providing rain gardens to

Purdues campus, BGI is ensuring that

the community will pay attention to

the importance of safely taking care

of storm water before it can become a

public health hazard. Hopefully, too,

it will encourage community members

to create rain gardens of their own.

Purdue Green WeekOne of the main ways Purdue stays in

touch with the community and gains

ideas is Green Week. This year,

Green Week was September 21

through September 25, and many

events were scheduled to

demonstrate to the community all of

Purdues efforts to go green. This

shows a sense of accountability on

behalf of Purdue to the area in

general.

The foci of this years programs

were environmentally friendly

programs and changing habits that

waste energy. The dedication of

Schleman Halls green roof and the

idea to establish the university as an

arboretum were just a couple of the

events that focused on

environmentally friendly programs at

Purdue. BGI and Physical Facilities

also teamed up for an inter-residence

hall energy competition to see who

could save the most energy.All of Purdue Green Weeks

programs could be deemed a success

just by them being held at all. This is

one way to get the community

involved, and Purdue went all out to

make sure it set the bar for years to

come. By holding a Green Week

every year, Purdue will be

accountable for its green actions or

inactions, and the community will be

invited to see all of these up close.

University of VermontWith all the efforts Purdue related

groups have made to ensure that the

community is involved in Purdue

becoming green and sustainable, one

wonders if even more can be done.

The University of Vermont had an

idea. Through two community events

and one online survey, the university

gathered over 1,500 participants

throughout the area. Participants



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visions of a sustainable community

and university were gathered, and a

mission statement and plans and

designs were implements according

to those visions. This research

suggests that a more effective way to

bring about change within a university

comes from the community as a

whole, not just those few groups on

campus who actively seek change or

those beings in power. When the

community as a whole has the

opportunity to share their voice, it can

be quite empowering and as such can

be an important tool in helpinguniversities plan to go green.

Paraphrased Interview TranscriptInterviewer: Josh McKinneyTopic: Sustainability in TeachingDate: 10-08-09Guest: Dr. Fu Zhao

Bio: Dr. Fu Zhao is employed as an

Assistant Professor by the School of

Mechanical Engineering at Purdue. Fu

teaches Mechanical and Ecological

Design Engineering. He has earned

four college degrees: a B.S. and an

M.S. in Thermal Engineering both

from Tsinghua University, China; and

an M.S. in Electrical Engineering and a

Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering both

from the University of Michigan.

Q. To begin, could you give a

brief overview of your experience

in sustainability?

Well, here at Purdue my research isprimarily in sustainable design and

manufacturing. My focus isnt merely

on developing new technologies to

tackle the challenges we face today,

but consists mostly on theTeam Green Bean Page 10

Interviews


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redevelopment of old ideas and

advances. By taking what we learned

in the past and re-engineering these

technologies for the benefit of the

environment today, we can help

reverse the damage done. I would say

that 90% of my research on this topic

focuses on the functionality of old

designs.

The other aspect of sustainability that

is important to me and to our futures

is education. Most of my academic

career has been centered on

sustainable engineering, clean andenvironmentally conscious

manufacturing and biomass energy.

When I began teaching at Purdue in

January 2007, I mostly taught

Mechanical Engineering to

undergraduate and graduates. What I

noticed over the next two semesters

was that the majority of my students,

all but one, in my environmentalclasses was mechanical engineering

students and not the variety I was

hoping for. After talking with my

peers and students, I was told my

classes were to dry and did not bring

any excitement to ecological design

and awareness. So for the fall 2008

semester I revised my curriculum.

Since then I have noticed a muchlarger enrollment into the program as

well as a greater interest from

students outside of engineering about

the program. By educating students

on sustainability we create awareness

for engineerings impact on the

environment and build a platform for

sustainable future.

Q. What do you mean by re-engineering old technologies?

Take for instance recycling biomass

into energy. This is not a new idea.

Yet converting biomass into energy

posed many problems in the past and

still does today. Turning corn and

soybean fields to switch grass for a

biomass boiler sounds sustainable,

but you had to give up acres of a crop

to make room for the grass. This

drives up crop prices and also is

energy intensive. My interest is in

taking bio waste already available

and using it to efficiently produce

power to the grid. Easy does not

describe the solution. Unfortunately it

takes power to make power. What we

as engineers need to focus on is howto take the least amount of energy to

produce the maximum amount of

energy. One example is to take a

tractor, plant a crop, fertilize and

harvest the crop just to burn it to

produce energy. The amount of

energy required to get the plant from

a seed to the boiler greatly exceeds

the amount of energy received from

the crop. Being sustainable doesnt

just mean recycling; we must focus on

the life cycle of our energy resources.



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Q. How important is

sustainability to Purdue?

Being sustainable is very important to

Purdue. Even though Purdue is just a

blip on a map, we can create a largeimpact on campus and around the

world by providing a model for

sustainable design. Since we are

starting with an old campus, we have

to take many factors into account.

With tuition increasing every year,

every dollar needs to be spent to

create the maximum amount of

efficiency in our facilities and ourprojects. We need to focus on being

sustainable which in turn helps the

environment, our campus and our

wallets.

Q. Yesterday the Sustainable

Endowments Institute gave

Purdue a B-minus in sustainable

efforts. Do you think that

Purdues efforts are in the rightor wrong direction?

Purdue is most definitely on the right

path to sustainability. The grade from

the article is correct, but I dont think

it gives justice to what we have

accomplished here. The other

campuses that were in the same

grade range as Purdue have not evencome close to achieving all we as a

campus have accomplished and plan

for.

Q. Do you enjoy teaching

sustainable engineering?

Yes. I do admit that the amount of

students I have now does burden my

grading load, but I enjoy teachingstudents from many different

backgrounds and degree programs.

Teaching future engineers to be

environmentally responsible in their

design is essential for being green.

Yet to be completely successful, we

must have the majority of the

students conscious of their role in

sustainability. Just because otherstudents are not engineers doesnt

mean their decisions in their future

careers do not impact our ecology.

Paraphrased Interview Transcript

Interviewer: Josh McKinney

Guest: Dr. Robin Ridgway

Topic: Sustainable Future for

Purdue

Date: 10-09-09

Bio: Dr. Robin Ridgway is employed

by Physical Facilities at Purdue

University. Robin oversees and

advises Purdue and Wade Utility with



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environmental compliance and

state/federal regulations. She

received her Ph.D. in environmental

engineering from Purdue.

Q. Could you give a brief

description of your job here at

Purdue?

Well, my official title is Director of

Sustainability and Environmental

Stewardship. Basically my priority is

to take sustainability ideas proposed

by my bosses or companies doingbusiness with Purdue and make them

into a reality.

When it comes to a new upcoming

project, our campus is focusing on the

most energy efficient way to build it. I

find myself being the question asker

in most situations. When the Mackey

storm water project was in

development, I asked the questionsthat helped shape the most

sustainable design.

Dont get me confused with an

engineer though. My role is not the

details of the design, but the critic of

its performance and efficiency. If we

dont ask ourselves does this activity

effect our air quality or water

supply? then we will not know thelong-term impact of our decisions.

Q. Why is LEED important and

how is Purdue planning on

implementing the standards

outlined by LEED into the older

buildings and facilities on

campus?

The new LEED standards are for new

building construction. These

standards provide a strict set of

engineering and construction

guidelines to maximize the efficiency

of the building and its facilities. The

new Robert B. Gatewood wing of theMechanical Engineering building will

follow these new standards and will

stand as a model for future

construction at Purdue.

Where we run into problems are with

the older buildings on campus. Since

the buildings were not constructed

with LEED standards around, they are

sound, but not efficient. Our goal is toretro-commission the old buildings to

perform like a new LEED certified

building.

To achieve this goal we are looking at

any and all aspects of sustainable

design. The hard part is that we have

no reliable way of knowing how much

energy each building consumes on a

daily, monthly or yearly basis. Eachbuilding will have a unique set of

challenges to make it more efficient.

The way we are planning on attacking

this huge task is a three-stepTeam Green Bean Page 13


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strategy. First, we must retro-

commission to increase building

efficiency. Next comes metering. By

metering the buildings input of

energy, we can determine how and

where to increase efficiency. The last

yet most critical for short and long

term projects is the Qualified Energy

Savings (QES) upgrades. Purdue was

picked for the program to help

strengthen our role in sustainability as

well as the campus budget. This

program lets Purdue borrow up to $10

million for energy saving projects. The

projects are designed to pay themoney back within 10 years.

The benefit of borrowing money and

being able to pay them back in a

timely manner proves that there is

money to be saved. When the loans

are paid off, then all the savings will

be new capital to fund more green

projects around campus. For us this is

a win/win for our sustainable future.

Q. Is going green for Purdue an

asset or liability for the campus

as a whole? Faculty? Students?

If we can increase our sustainability

correctly, financially we can put the

campus in the equal or a little in the

black. Even though we will not be

saving money in the short-term the

financial rewards are not far off. We

must stay progressive and move

fiscally outward to create new

developments in sustainability. So I

do see the efforts of university to be

an asset to the environment,

community and eventually our

budget.

From a faculty standpoint, I would say

that our new green initiatives havealready started showing progress.

With efforts from the Boiler Green

Initiative and staff we have placed

recycle bins at every desk. When at

work, recycling styrofoam, paper,

plastic or cans is as easy as throwing

them in a divided trash can. We have

noticed a significant reduction in trash

collected from the buildings while ourrecycling center has seen a great

increase in recycled materials. If

faculty can recycle easily at work,

then there is no reason to throw

anything away.

From a student standpoint, recycling

is not hard and its benefits can be

seen around campus. The asset to

students is a cleaner campus with thereduction of trashcans and knowing

that they can contribute to a better,

more sustainable Purdue.

Q. Dr. Fu Zhao posed a question

for my interviews and I would like

to ask you, paper or plastic?

Oh well I hope I dont disappoint him!

When I am done with my plastic and

paper bags, I re-use them around myhouse. I mostly use my paper bags to

put my recyclables in. For the used

plastic bags, they are a must when I

clean out the cat box for obvious



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reasons. I know there is no perfect

answer to paper or plastic debate so

I recycle them as many times as

possible.



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1. Boiler Green Initiative. Purdue University, 2009. Web. October 15,

2009.

2. Oskvarek, Jonathon. Activities promote green programs, habits.

Purdue Exponent18 Sept. 2009

3. Pollack, Noah, Eileen Horn, Robert Costanza, and Matt Sayre.Envisioning helps promote sustainability in academia: A case study atthe University of Vermont. International Journal of Sustainability inHigher Education 10.4 (2009): 343-53. Print.

4. Ridgway, Robin. Personal Interview. 9 October 2009.

5. Sustainability at Purdue University. Purdue University, 2009. Web. October

15, 2009.

6. Zhao, Fu. Personal Interview. 8 October 2009.


Works Cited


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Our issue is that of how Purdue University has gone green, and how thecommunity has been impacted or has helped the efforts. Our print and

electronic sources have been very helpful in answering these questions, andour interviews have given us a broader base of knowledge to pull from. Westill need to find some more sources about how the community has beeninvolved in Purdues sustainability efforts, but these sources have given us agreat start.

Boiler Green Initiative. Purdue University, 2009. Web. October 15, 2009.

The Boiler Green Initiative website has information on a number of Purduerecycling and green projects. It has information on the details of the green

roof on Schleman Hall as well as plans for future roof projects. The site alsohas hard numbers for the recycling programs at Purdue football games. Italso has information about the various green initiatives that BGI is workingwith Purdue to implement, such as alternative transportation, carbonneutrality, and energy saving. We will use this in our paper to discuss theefforts Purdue has made to go green and the possible efforts it could makein the future to make the university more sustainable.

Oskvarek, Jonathon. Activities promote green programs, habits. PurdueExponent18 Sept. 2009

This article describes Purdues 2009 Green week and its activities. We willuse this information in our White Paper to show the activities Purdue ismaking available to students and the community to support their greeninitiatives. This is a good resource because it provides necessaryinformation to the community about how to get involved in going green andemphasizes the efforts Purdue is making to achieve its goals.

Pollack, Noah, Eileen Horn, Robert Costanza, and Matt Sayre. Envisioninghelps promote sustainability in academia: A case study at the University ofVermont. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education 10.4(2009): 343-53. Print.

Although we didnt purchase complete access to this article, the abstractprovided some good ideas about involving the community in universitiessustainability efforts. This research projects methodology includedcommunity events and online surveys to discover what communitymembers envisioned a green university to be. We will use this article in


Annotated Bibliography


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highlighting how important the community is to determining how and whatshould be done to make Purdue a sustainable university and how how thecommunity can help Purdue focus its efforts.

Ridgway, Robin. Personal Interview. 9 October 2009.

Dr. Ridgway and I discussed the many difficulties of modernizing Purdue tomeet the challenges of today and tomorrow. Topics of the interview includeDr. Ridgway's role on campus, the next big project for Purdue and thecomplications of the LEED standards. We will use this interview to helpshow that Purdue is teaching students to be green and that faculty and staffare making an effort for the university to be sustainable.

Sustainability at Purdue University. Purdue University, 2009. Web. October15, 2009.

The Sustainability at Purdue website is a great resource which links to manypapers, articles and more regarding green efforts at Purdue. Of particularhelp to us have been the articles from details of Green Week 2009 whichdetail Purdue recycling programs, green roof projects, and other localcommunity programs. It also links to Purdues housing and food servicesustainability, which we will discuss in our paper concerning measures theuniversity has taken to go green.

Zhao, Fu. Personal Interview. 8 October 2009.

Dr. Zhao and I discussed the teaching aspect pertaining to sustainability at

Purdue University. Topics of the interview include Dr. Zhao's area ofresearch, his involvement in Purdue's efforts and if Purdue is directing theirefforts in the right direction to become a sustainable campus model. We willuse this interview to argue that Purdue is making strides to becomesustainable and a model in the community for green efforts.


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