November 14, 2014
On and off the Hill, environmental sustainability is a pressing issue. Hamilton participates in a competition every year with other area colleges to monitor energy use. However, there are many initiatives being done at both the governmental and local levels in order to slow this damage and preserve the world. One of these initiatives is the Campus Conservation Nationals (CCN), “the largest electricity and water reduction competition for colleges and universities in the world,” according to the CCN website. Hamilton College has participated in CCN’s competition for the past four years.
CCN has several main goals. First, it aims at informing students about energy use and the benefits of conserving as much energy as possible in the different buildings on campus. With more informed students, the CCN encourages starting sustainability initiatives on their campus. It also promotes long-term application of this knowledge by conserving energy both in college and after graduation. CCN encourages behavioral changes amongst student communities in order lessen the amount of carbon dioxide emissions among college campuses. Although hundreds of schools nationally participate in the competition, Hamilton competes in a smaller group, the NY6 Region which includes Hamilton, Colgate, St. Lawrence, Hobart and William Smith, Union and Skidmore. The similarity in size and location make the competition more accurate and fair.
The past three competitions took place in the spring; however, the coordinators decided to move it to the fall this year to avoid conflicting with with other environmental competitions. In the past three competitions, Hamilton did very well. In the spring of 2012, Hamilton came in second place. In 2013, Hamilton came in first place, and during the spring of 2014, Hamilton came in second place by a very narrow margin.
The competition runs for five weeks. The first two weeks are the baseline measurement weeks, while the last three are measured and compared to the first two. Saving more energy in the last three weeks compared to the first two would be a positive trend. This year, the competition started on Oct. 29 and will end on Nov. 19. This means that energy use at all the schools may rise because of the season. During the past three competitions, the temperature got warmer as the season moved further into springtime, however, now, moving closer to winter, energy use will obviously increase.
However, Hamilton is doing surprisingly poorly this year, with an increase in energy use by 19.4 percent thus far in the competition. One difference between Hamilton and the other five schools is that Hamilton has four residence halls that are heated electrically: Bundy East, Bundy West, Milbank and Babbitt. Students in these residence halls can control the heat for their individual rooms. “The net result of all of this is that Hamilton’s electrical consumption in dorms is very large, primarily due to the 4 dorms on electrical heat. And therefore, so too is our capacity to save big or lose big, depending on the timing of the competitions,” said Brian Hansen, Hamilton’s sustainability coordinator.
Another difference between Hamilton’s energy use and that of other schools is that according to Risa Nagel ’16, president of Hamilton Environmental Action Group (HEAG), “Hamilton has 2 percent renewable energy so 98 percent of what we are using comes from coal and natural gases, which are archaic fuels.” In fact, only Skenandoa and the science center use geothermal energy, natural energy taken from the ground.
Hamilton’s poor performance in the competition results from systemic issues more than anything else. It would require a lot of money and time in order to change the sources of energy for the majority of the buildings on campus. Although it would be difficult to make such long-term changes right now, there are many initiatives taking place around campus in order to improve sustainability. According to Nagel, HEAG “exists as an educational forum for students to understand the issues in the environment.” HEAG members started “Cut the Cups,” a campaign to eliminate paper cups in the dining halls and are working alongside the Levitt Leadership Institute in order to gain funding to purchase reusable mugs for Hamilton students. The group has also tried to eliminate the wipes in the gym and to minimize paper towel use around campus.
There are also several long-term initiatives taking place around campus. The most recent renovations on buildings, including the Science Center, Kirner-Johnson and Sadove, are built to Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED) Silver standards, which means that they consume far less energy than older buildings due to new technology added during the renovations. Physical Plant is also working on projects that will show positive five-year returns, such as replacing light fixtures in all buildings with efficient LEDs and fluorescent light bulbs. Physical Plant wants to replace the heating and boiling systems, as well as the windows and insulation systems in many of the older buildings. “Hamilton consumes 20 percent less energy today than it did in 2007,” Hansen said. Also, according to Nagel, Hamilton invested in a few solar panels on KJ and as well as a wind turbine, which was replaced this past summer.
The many initiatives happening around campus were unfortunately not enough to improve the performance in the energy conservation competition. However, Nagel stressed that Hamilton’s issues do not revolve around the individual choices that people are making. Although taking shorter showers and using less paper are always encouraged, the main problems that Hamilton faces are systematic issues that will take time and money to fix, such as large use of fossil fuels.
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