“We are going to make gold if it is the last thing I do,” said Professor of Government and Environmental Studies Jane Dawson, in an uncharacteristically assertive tone.
Dawson was referring to the College’s recent award of silver by the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment and Rating System (STARS) subset of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) program. Though Dawson is spearheading a movement to elevate our current STARS status from silver to gold, receiving a silver rating certainly warrants a moment of celebration. As Dawson put it, “are we doing what we say we’re doing? Silver indicates we’re doing a lot [though] it is hidden from students, and faculty, and staff. There’s a lot that we don’t know that’s going on.”
In September of 2016, the Environmental Model Committee—along with help from the Office of Sustainability and the Goodwin Niering Center for the Environment—began a long and tedious process of collecting the 400 pages of data necessary to apply to STARS. A point system, based on this data, dictates each participating institution’s ranking.
Margaret Bounds, Assistant Director of Sustainability and an active member of the Environmental Model Committee, spoke to why Conn chose AASHE from the multiple environmental ranking systems available for institutions of higher education: “AASHE STARS is really the only national ranking system that looks at holistic sustainability including social and economic issues along with environmental issues.” Dawson echoed Bounds’ explanation: “We decided that in keeping with the mission and identity of the College, we would go with the rating system that was the most appropriate to our definition of sustainability.” The Environmental Model Committee supports the idea that social justice, economic consciousness, and sustainability are all intrinsically connected.
Our STARS application and subsequent silver status mark a major accomplishment for Conn in that before 2016, we had never applied for any type of outside environmental ranking. Furthermore, it is common for separate sustainability groups on campus to get caught up with their own goals and fail to work together. In this case, individuals and organizations across department lines worked alongside one another to create tangible results.
Because the STARS rating is so comprehensive—it asks for data in the categories of academics, engagement, operations, and planning & administration—environmental groups had no choice but to share the workload. Both students and staff members were heavily involved. Amelia Morrissey ’19, a Goodwin-Niering scholar, spent the summer of 2017 working to collect greenhouse gas emissions data for the STARS rating. For her part, Saskia Stark-Ewing ’18, another Goodwin Niering scholar, recently succeeded in bringing a food waste software system to Conn called “Phood.” Director of Department Management Trina Learned helped the Environmental Model committee collect data on energy emissions and operations in buildings around campus.
“The real value of STARS is to benchmark our own progress on campus sustainability,” explained Bounds. She added, “By collecting all of the data for STARS we now have a much better sense of how we are doing and what areas we need to focus on for improvement.”
Conn has always been a leader in environmental awareness. We boast one of the oldest environmental academic programs in the nation, send our food scraps to Secchiaroli Piggery, have added concrete environmental actions to our strategic plan, and are part of the “We’re Still In” movement—this means we have promised to uphold the standards set by the Paris Agreement, even though we as a nation have withdrawn. Dawson commented on our environmental progress since we decided to apply to STARS, “We brought down the energy used in heating. They re-did the steam house, a lot of changing to LED lights. The geothermal [energy system] we put in New London Hall also gave us some pretty good points.”
Our STARS’ point sum is also heavily affected by the 37-acre forest in Costa Rica that was sponsored by Conn in 1999. This forest alone offsets the carbon dioxide emissions Cro produces. Though I am in support of protecting natural areas, we must be aware that offsetting our carbon emissions is not the same as decreasing our carbon emissions. As Dawson commented, “There is still more to be done.”
In the works are a college-wide composting system, a shift to more renewable energy, and a student led movement to divest from unethical investments such as fossil fuels and concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs). I am optimistic that our current rating of silver will spark student, faculty, and staff engagement in order to rise to the next level; this is a movement that requires a group effort.
Toward the end of our interview, Dawson reaffirmed her commitment to continued environmental initiatives. “I saw President Bergeron last week,” Dawson began. “She hugged me and congratulated me on silver. And I said, ‘But, we’re still going for the gold, aren’t we?’ and she said, ‘You’re absolutely right, we’re going for the gold.”’
