Grow vs. Green

Sankey Hall, Schar Convocation Center, McEwen Dining Hall, Belk Library, East Residences, Jimmy Powell Tennis Center, South Campus Recreation Center and a new Historic Commons building are all buildings currently under construction at Elon. 

By the end of this year, eight buildings will be added to Elon's campus in addition to more than 30 buildings that have been built since 2008.

The square footage of Elon’s campus has increased by 47.4 percent just from 2008 to 2017, and there are no signs of the growth stopping, according to university architect Brad Moore.

“The desire is to make sure that we are providing the spaces needed by our students," Moore said. "As we continue to establish and enhance our residential campus, as we have more students on campus we will need more amenities. ... We will continue to be working on projects, but maybe not at the same frantic pace we have been working at the past couple of years."

With all the current and future construction on the horizon, Elon will be burdened with increased energy consumption to power these new buildings.

With Growing Energy

Energy consumption accounted for 48 percent of Elon’s total greenhouse gas emissions in 2017. Emissions per 1,000 square feet have decreased by 25.2 percent thanks to energy conservation efforts such as LED lighting. 

However, net carbon emissions to grow by 10.3 percent from 2008 to 2017 due to the school's expansion. But the culprit isn’t just campus buildings – this raise is attributed to transportation emissions and solid waste.

Elon attracts many other students for its robust study abroad program; study abroad travel accounted for 20 percent of all emissions in 2017. Although this adds to carbon costs, study abroad travel is something Elon will never get rid of, according to Durr.

"It is probably going to increase, and so how do we mitigate that? How do we increase education and awareness among the student body, and what are our avenues for offsetting [carbon emissions]? That's what we are looking at," Durr said.

Director of Sustainability Elaine Durr tracks these changes as she tackles the sustainability master plan’s goal of complete carbon neutrality by 2037.

"We have an amount of emissions, then we have offsets, and so it subtracts to get a net zero amount. Ideally that's the goal," Durr said of the plan. "As with a lot of campuses, we struggle with the growth of campus and then also trying to work on reducing emissions."

A Balancing Act

 

Sustainability isn’t just about doing what’s best for the environment, according to Durr. It is an equation that incorporates three variables: people, planet and prosperity. In other words, doing what’s best for the environment, society and the economy.

“Sustainability has all three legs of that triangle," said Tom Flood, director of grounds and landscaping and assistant director of physical plant. "We have to remember that when we talk about sustainability, it’s not just the planet, it’s also the people that are involved and the financial side of it."

Flood agrees with Durr that it’s a delicate balance, and Flood's team tries to be as sustainable as is practical for the campus and its needs.

“There are things that we can do slightly differently that might cost us a whole lot more money, and so then we have to ask the question: is that sustainable?” Flood said.

Moore says that as a private university with no state funding, Elon needs to make key decisions about where is best to invest. Risking newly researched green building techniques, such as using concrete and steel engineered to be lighter and more efficient, could end up costing too much.

“We are addressing the needs as they develop on our campus, and we are trying to do it in a very sustainable way," Moore said. "So I think we have a good balance."

Sustainability isn't just an administrative goal. Elon students can become eco-reps — students who work to educate their peers about sustainability and promote environmental and sustainability projects.

Sophomore Taylor McFadden serves as an eco-rep. She said this year, eco-reps are trying to get more students to think about waste reduction, composting and recycling practices. While the dining facilities already use many compostable products, such as food containers and to-go boxes, McFadden says it comes down to the students.

"Students play a huge part in how sustainable Elon really is," McFadden said. "With the composting to-go boxes, a lot of students use them, but a lot of times we are seeing them in the trash, and students don’t find it convenient to throw it in a compost bin or to sort their trash to see what goes in each bin."

Going Green

Elon closely monitors power consumption by each building and has 27 buildings certified by Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED). A LEED building has four levels of certification based on several factors, including energy efficiency, water efficiency, and sustainable materials. It has to be a certain percentage more efficient than a building that meets a standard energy code.

According to Durr, Elon is similar to other institutions in targeting the Silver ranking as the standard, but there are nine Gold buildings, including Lindner Hall. 

Newer buildings at Elon are meant to blend in with the historic Georgian-style buildings constructed in the 1900s by using brick, a sustainable and durable local resource, but they are constructed to be more energy-efficient.

Environmental studies professor Robert Charest said he doesn't like how Elon's campus looks as if it were built in 1875. He thinks Elon could be construcing better, more energy-efficient buildings, even if they lose the classic, historic look.

"I think we should be doing better than LEED certification, which just gives bragging rights," Charest said. "We should be trying to do more."

However, to achieve the LEED Silver rating, costs of construction go up approximately three to five percent, according to Moore. 

Flood said it is in the university’s best interest to spend energy wisely. Energy right now is relatively cheap, but over time costs will inevitably rise.

“It makes sense sustainably for the environment and for the economics to be good stewards of those resources," Flood said. 

When it comes to grounds maintenance, Flood cites many sustainable practices such as integrated pest management, a system that determines when and how to deal with any multitude of pest with the least-invasive, most-sustainable methods. 

In addition, up to 90 percent of irrigation water used to water Elon’s grounds is reclaimed water runoff taken from ponds on campus.

“Those ponds exist because storm drains feed into them, so every time it rains they get filled and refilled,” Flood said. “We are simply recycling a lot of that water.”

On top of these practices, LED lights have been installed in almost all sidewalk lamps, yard waste is composted and returned back to the campus in landscape projects and grounds maintenance crews avoid herbicides and minimize the use of fertilizer. 

Because of these efforts, Elon is able to maintain more acres of land per person at less than the average cost in comparison to institutions similar to Elon, such as Wake Forest University, Emory University, Furman University, Vanderbilt University and Boston College.

AAnother effort is the energy conservation in action plan. Physical plant has been adding meters and controls to most of the buildings on campus, including Schar Hall, Koury Business Center, Lindner Hall, Long Hall, Steers Pavilion, Belk Pavilion, the Carl Woods Center, Harden Club Sports, Holt Chapel and the Taphouse.

The control system is able to tighten the energy use in each building and, in some cases, each room by controlling air conditioning and lighting. The system is synchronized with a reservation system to make sure the room is set at a comfortable temperature for the span of the reservation time before going back into sleep mode.

“This pilot program is giving us some data on how this is working, what issues we are going to run into and how much will we will be able to save in energy costs,” Flood said.

Other initiatives to save on energy use include tree plantings to offset Elon's carbon emissions, which occur off campus, and increased dining composting, local and organic food and beverage purchasing and sustainability programs at Loy Farm.

Charest and Durr agree that Loy Farm is a true example of sustainability in all areas. 

Charest helped found Loy Farm and the sustainable architecture department located on the premises. The "Grow Biointensive" program is an organic method of sustainable food system production, focused on proper dieting. The food harvested by student volunteers is mostly used by Elon’s Campus Kitchen to make meals for Allied Churches of Alamance County, which provides resources for the hungry and homeless in the area.

Additionally, Charest wants Loy Farm to serve as a living learning community (LLC), but instead of dorms, this LLC will consist of tiny homes stationed besides the Loy Farm garden. 

Charest says he has developed a model for a building code- and zoning-compliant "tiny home community." He hopes that his idea comes to fruition in the next three to five years.

“The next step would be to try to implement it here at Elon, to see how it would work out at the Loy Farm," Charest said. "I think that would be marvelous if we could do that."

How Elon Stacks Up

As of 2017, Elon was listed on The Princeton Review’s list of 375 Green Colleges. This ranking deals mostly with student perceptions of how sustainable their college seems to them, but it also intertwines some data from the STARS report.

The Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System, or STARS report, is a transparent, self-reporting framework for institutions to measure their sustainability performance. It ranks 327 institutions based on specific data about academics, engagement, operations, planning and administration and innovation. To qualify for Bronze, a college needs at least 25 points; 50 points qualifies a school for Silver, 65 points earns a Gold rating and 85 points will earn Platinum. Elon received the Silver ranking with a score of 50.16 in its most recently submitted report in 2015. 

Three schools scored Platinum; other North Carolina campuses such as Appalachian State University, North Carolina State University, Furman University, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and UNC Greensboro were among the 93 schools to score Gold, while Elon shares the Silver rating with 152 other schools. 

From the STARS report data, Elon did extremely well in the coordination, planning and governance category, meeting 7.3 out of the eight objectives. It also received fair scores for diversity and affordability, public engagement, campus engagement and research. However, Elon scored poorly compared to peer institutions in dining, buildings and water operations, and received zero points for innovation. 

According to Durr, Elon will qualify for all four points in innovation in the new report. Durr says that the updated report will also have better scores for dining due to more local, community-based, and third-party certified purchasing.

Finding the Balance

Since every institution has a different formula for sustainability, it is difficult to compare sustainability between campuses. The environment, economic costs and social fabrics are different. But Charest, who thinks Elon can be doing more in terms of environmental sustainability, still describes Elon as a responsible institution.

"Responsibility is more than just sustainability," Charest said. "Responsibility is a much broader umbrella of factors to take into consideration. ... There's the financial health of the project, and of the environment, and the context. We also have to look at the health and welfare of the people affected."

He says Elon does a great job at mediating between all the different factors, and Moore agrees.

"I think we have a pretty good balance of meeting the needs of the community, but also doing it in a very sustainable way." Moore said.

Flood said there is always room for improvement, and there are many green energy options Elon is exploring for the future. But for right now, they are not sustainable options due to affordability and campus needs.

For example, solar projects cost a lot of money, even if it is a good energy-saving investment. If Elon is able to fund another solar field closer to campus, it would require removing trees.

"It can be argued from a carbon perspective that that's worth doing, but nobody wants to take down trees," Flood said. "That's something we continue to look at, what makes sense in the end game. It may very well be that we have to remove woods to add solar fields, but it's counterintuitive."

Flood says an aggregation project could happen in the future. This would combine Elon's purchasing power with other universities to buy green energy as a consortium.

Once the new STARS report is approved later this year, Durr, Flood and other staff will be able to make better comparisons and discover other ways to combat the extra energy coming from Elon's blooming campus.

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