How Sustainability Creates Value and Underpins Broad Campus Outcomes

1. How Sustainability Creates Value and Underpins Broad Campus Outcomes University of Colorado Boulder Environmental Center Dave Newport Director Environmental Center University of Colorado at Boulder

2. Dave Newport, Director of the Environmental Center, University of Colorado at Boulder (CU) Dave Newport is Director of the Environmental Center at the University of Colorado at-the nation’s first, largest, and most accomplished sustainability enterprise of its kind.Dave also Chairs the University’s Carbon Neutrality Working Group, led the creation CU’s climate action plan, and is a Faculty Associate in the Environmental Studies where he teaches the nation's first course in Carbon Neutrality Planning for Higher Education.Dave is Secretary of the Board of Directors of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE), and is one of the three original co-creators of the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment and Ratings System (STARS) that is as "higher education’s gold standard for assessing campus sustainability," according to the Chronicle for Higher Education.Dave led the University of Colorado’s team that last year compiled the nation’s first STARS Gold sustainability assessment award. has also been ranked as the nation’s #1 Green campus by Sierra magazine (2009). How Sustainability Creates Value and Underpins Broad Campus Outcomes University of Colorado Boulder Environmental Center Dave Newport Director Environmental Center University of Colorado at Boulder

3. Today’s Discussion • Phases of campus sustainability • Definition of campus sustainability • Definition = X • How does sustainability create value? • Value drivers = Y • What does a campus do? • Support activities = Z • What is Total Sustainability? • Total Sustainability = X+Y+Z • Conclusions

4. Strategic Mapping, Planning and Public Commitment • Efficiency, Cost Control and Full Cost Evaluation • Curricular and Co-Curricular Education • Branding & Marketing academicimpressions.com/events/sustainability/ THE SUSTAINABILITY ROADMAP

5. CU Environmental Center #1 Overall College Sustainability Leader • Founded Earth Day 1970 • >120 student-staff, 10 professional staff • Nation’s oldest, largest, and most accomplished center • STARS-Gold • Sierra #1 Green Campus • SEI-Sustainability Leader • Many campus sustainability firsts • Recyclingprogram • Bus pass for all fac/staff/students • Renewable energy purchase • Carbon neutrality pledge • Zero waste athletics • CU national sustainability research leader (#1 NSF funded).

7. Phases of Sustainability

8. “Managers can no longer afford to ignore sustainability as a central factor in their companies’ long-term competitiveness… Megatrends require businesses to adapt and innovate or be swept aside.” “The Sustainability Imperative” Dave Lubin and Dan Esty Harvard Business Review (2010)

9. Phases of Campus Sustainability Campus leaders—including the highest level executives—openly promote a sustainability vision and rally behind it as a central value of the administration’s goals and strategic plan. There is full executive leadership on sustainability, a keen understanding of its tenets, and a vision for the future. Grassroots champions advocate for various sustainability-related services and policies—and campus leadership either resists the requests or is only minimally responsive. In response, advocates then organize and launch their own ad hoc efforts. Engaged, visionary leadership and an integrated approach enhances educational outcomes by synergizing them with sustainability-related operations, student life, staff, and community engagement activities. Systems-thinking and interdisciplinary cooperation are the central mission of all campus departments. Sustainability operations, curriculum, student activities, and community partnerships are coordinated, coherent, and high quality. Campus leadership accepts some – but not all—aspects of the business case for sustainability. Leadership easily sees the value of efficiency programs that inspire cost savings and improve campus reputation.

10. What is sustainability? The X Factor

11. What is sustainability? • "Sustainability is an economic state where the demands placed upon the environment by people and commerce can be met without reducing the capacity of the environment to provide for future generations" -- Paul Hawken, "The Ecology of Commerce", 1993 • "Then I say the earth belongs to each . . . generation during its course, fully and in its own right, no generation can contract debts greater than may be paid during the course of its own existence." -- Thomas Jefferson, September 6, 1789

12. Three legs of the stool environment fiscal social

13. 2.5 legs of the stool? environment fiscal social

14. How to embed the social dimension? environment fiscal social

15. What is STARS? • A voluntary, self-reporting framework • A guide for advancing sustainability in all sectors of higher education. • A common standard of measurement for sustainability in higher education. • A tool that promotes a comprehensive understanding of sustainability that includes its social, economic and environmental dimensions.

16. Three STARS categories 1) Education & Research • Co-Curricular Education; Curriculum; Research 2) Operations • Buildings; Climate; Dining Services; Energy; Grounds; Purchasing; Transportation; Waste; Water 3) Planning, Administration & Engagement • Coordination & Planning; Diversity and Affordability; Human Resources; Investment; Public Engagement

17. Summary: The practical definition of campus sustainability is represented in the sum product of STARS categories. STARS represents the scope and breadth of activities, policies, and interests that bound and highlight the systems that integrate and define campus sustainability. In short: • Definition of Campus Sustainability = STARS = X

18. How Does Sustainability create value? The Y Factor

19. How does sustainability add value (create benefits) for a campus? • Is it just: • Cost savings from energy conservation? • Green marketing and branding? • Student recruitment? • Cutting carbon?

20. Summary of Aramark study • Students are aware of sustainability • Over two-thirds (77%) have some awareness • Students “Walk the Walk” with Green • Very important among factors for choosing a college. • Students report that their schools are not doing enough • Nearly half (45%) of schools have weak movements toward sustainability • 11% of students claim their institution has no action on sustainability.

21. Driving factors in college selection

22. Where to focus efforts

23. How does sustainability add value (create benefits) for a campus? • Efficiency and Innovation • Resource & people productivity and synergies • Marketing and Branding • Reputation, competitiveness & social license to operate • Full Cost Evaluation • Life cycle costing, integrated externalities, total cost of ownership • Inclusion, Transparency & Public Commitment • Stakeholder intel and buy-in, transparency, metrics, courage to commit to tangible goals = credibility & legitimacy, informed decision making, reduced risk

25. Drivers of organizational capacity

26. Driving sustainable value Tomorrow Inclusion, Transparency & Public Commitment Full Cost Evaluation Sustainable Value Internal External Marketing & Branding • Efficiency & Innovation Today Value Drivers = Y

27. Campus SUPPORT activities The Z Factor

29. Campus Support Activities Support Activities = Z

31. Where does sustainability show up?

32. Value driver gap analysis

33. total sustainability X + Y + Z =

34. + Total Sustainability

35. Strategic Mapping, Planning and Public Commitment • Efficiency, Cost Control and Full Cost Evaluation • Curricular and Co-Curricular Education • Branding & Marketing academicimpressions.com/events/sustainability/ THE SUSTAINABILITY ROADMAP

36. conclusions Sum Product

37. Conclusions • Sustainability helps drive campus outcomes across the board • Only a few of sustainability’s benefits can be monetized—but they all add value • Identifying those broad pathways brings new singers to the choir—and helps integrate sustainability principles and practices across all campus communities • Phase 4 campus not possible without sustainability influences and benefits recognized across all support activities.

38. Conclusions • STARS enables Total Sustainability • STARS defines the measurable range of campus sustainability impacts • STARS systematically embeds social dimension as foundational, not an after thought • A systems integration approach adaptable to whatever implementation stage a campus may be in

39. Conclusions • The Sustainability Megatrend is here to stay. • STARS/Total Sustainability approach presents higher education with a studied, deliberative planning and execution model and system. • Campuses that embed sustainability into core mission and leadership will flourish, others may not.

40. “The illiterate of the 21st Century will not be those who cannot read or write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” • Alvin Toffler

41. How Sustainability Creates Value and Underpins Broad Campus Outcomes University of Colorado Boulder Environmental Center Dave Newport Director Environmental Center University of Colorado at Boulder