When I looked into what our campus is doing to be "Green" I was surprised to find that RCC has already assessed them selves in sustainability and had developed a plan for improvement. Beginning in 2009 Riverside Community College District launched its Green Initiatives with the formation of a District-wide committee.The committee, led by Vice Chancellor, Ray Maghroori, launched their Green Initiatives website to provide information about the District’s growing and successful Green Initiatives Program. http://websites.rcc.edu/greeninitiatives/ On the website I was able to find all kinds of information on how the campus was doing in terms of sustainability. The main thing that I found that RCC was doing was not only working toward a more green campus but starting with incorporating in the curriculum, and developing courses and programs to prepare students to live as environmentally responsible citizens. I think that having students that are environmentally aware is the first very important step in being a sustainable campus.
There are some things that other campuses have done in the regard of becoming more sustainable that RCC hasn't yet established. Like its neighboring university, UCR for example has its own buses and bus routes for the students. The university is currently adding and expanding, building new environmentally friendly facilities. Universities like UC Berkley for example push hard towards being as green as possible. Many of the campuses buildings are LEED certified which means they are certified by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC). LEED is an internationally-recognized green building certification system that provides building owners and operators with a framework for identifying and implementing practical and measurable green building designs, as well as construction, operations and maintenance solutions. The university even has its very own water center along with recycling and refuse services. The school is currently working on 5 green building projects and has plans to certify 18 more buildings with additional sustainability plans for 25 other buildings.
While RCC tries to be as environmentally friendly as it can be there is always room for improvement. Some things I would look at in determining how green my campus actually is would be, its energy usage, how environmentally friendly its buildings are, and its waste management. The one thing our campus is doing right is making its students environmentally cautious, so that in turn the campus will eventually make improvements in sustainability. Things like the new community garden at RCC are signs that the campus is moving in the right direction. What I think I would like to assess about how green the campus is, is the buildings and landscape on campus. New buildings like the math and science building are examples of a more environmentally friendly building but RCC is old and I wonder how "Green" some its buildings are.
First I would find out how many of our buildings on campus are LEED certified, and the exact qualifications needed to make a building certified. The college is nearing its 100 year anniversary and many of the building are out of date. Although it is very cost effective some environmentally friendly remodeling of the campus should be considered. Measurements of the benefits can be seen when comparing RCC to universities like Berkley when looking at their energy usage and how much better there green buildings are for the environment. The U.S. Green Building Counsel would be who to look to for help in improving the sustainability of the buildings on campus. The chancellor of the RCC district would someone to have a deciding role in determining if renovating and remodeling is something the campus would benefit from. The campuses landscape is covered with trees and lots of vegetation, and a proposal that may not be too costly is converting to a water wise landscape. Replacing some of the existing landscape with drought tolerant plants like cacti and succulents and some of the grass with rock and gravel would reduce the usage of water immensely. It is something simple that the campus can gradually work towards and doesn't have to all be done at once. Support for greener buildings and a drought tolerant landscape is something that will not be hard to get because it is a no brainer, greener facilities would be beneficial to not only the environment but to the college, community and everyone involved with RCC. The problem will always be money, which there is none of.
Campuses like mine all try their best with the resources they are given to be as sustainable as they possibly can be. Yes they can always improve but economically it is impossible to make improvements. What I did learn in some of this research is that most campuses are striving towards sustainability and setting goals for themselves which is really all they can do.
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