During the last five years, UNM has made significant improvements in conserving energy and protecting the environment.
While many Universities in the Southwest receive all their energy from the cities in which they reside, UNM produces 27 percent of its own electricity and all of its own water from wells, only paying the city for water during repairs. One of the main reasons UNM has been so successful at this is because of the renovation on its central utility plant completed in 2005, which allowed the Physical Plant Department to create extra electricity by using waste steam.
Mary Clark, program specialist at the Office of Sustainability, said other Universities in the Southwest region wish they had a central utility system and Physical Plant as up-to-date and sustainability-conscious as UNM does. With UNM rapidly expanding, UNM President David Schmidly signed UNM to the American College University President Climate Commitment (ACUPCC) in 2007. The program works with the Physical Plant and UNM’s Sustainability Studies Program (SSP) to develop a carbon action plan that would reduce carbon emissions by 80 percent by 2030 and 100 percent by 2050. Bruce Milne, professor of biology and director of SSP, and his SUST 434 Capstone class helped write the plan.
“My class and I put together an inventory for carbon emissions on campus and came up with a recipe to fix things,” he said. “One of the key ingredients for this was creating a community of practice — a group of students and faculty who have various titles and professions, but come together under a common goal.”
He said by providing a link between organizations such as the Physical Plant and academic programs such as SSP, UNM has become a sort of laboratory for students as well as an opportunity for them to bring awareness to the Albuquerque community.
Since Schmidly signed UNM to ACUPCC and SSP created a Carbon Action Plan in 2007, UNM has made a lot of progress in being more sustainable, but still has room for improvement:
What UNM is doing right:
Utilities renovation: UNM has reduced 30 percent of its water usage since the implementation of the Carbon Action Plan. Clark said this was partially due to the installation of more efficient sprinkler systems. In terms of saving electricity, UNM’s renovation on its boiler system enabled the University to start utilizing waste steam in order to create electricity (a process known as cogeneration). The Taos Campus Solar Array has also reduced electricity consumption with its more than 2,700 photovoltaic solar panels generating 500 kilowatts of power on a sunny day.
Energy conservation: According to the 2012 President’s Report on Sustainability, since May 2008 UNM has reduced 17.66 percent of its overall energy consumption. Clark said this includes all the heating, cooling and electricity used in the buildings and on campus grounds. UNM’s Physical Plant projects avoided costs of $41.9 million through 2018.
Alternative Transportation: According to the report, as of April 2012, 15.2 percent of the UNM community uses the free transit program as its primary form of transportation to campus. Programs such as Transition UNM, sponsored by SSP, encouraged students to find alternative means of transportation to UNM between 2011 and 2012, which has reduced single-occupant vehicle usage by 5.4 percent in that one-year period.
Recycling: Clark said a recycling program was started on campus about 10 years ago, and that now UNM diverts about 47 percent of its waste from landfill through recycling.
Community garden: When Milne founded SSP back in 2004, one of his main goals was to start a community garden on campus. Two years ago that vision became a reality with Lobo Gardens.
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Where there is room for improvement:
Turning everything off: Clark said that as green of a campus as UNM has become, students, staff and faculty need to take more responsibility for their energy use by turning off lights, computers and other electrical equipment when leaving classrooms.
More conscious recycling: Although UNM has diverted much of its waste from landfill, Clark said UNM can still work on its recycling habits. “I see plastic bottles thrown in the garbage or next to the recycling bins,” she said. “We should also not be buying so much plastic. We need to use water bottles and refill them at the stations in the SUB or water fountains around campus.”
Fewer single-occupancy vehicles: Clark said although more students are using the free bus passes each student is provided through Parking and Transportation Services, there are still too many single-occupancy vehicles coming to campus.
“Alternative transportation and car pooling takes planning,” she said. “I see students who come to campus around 9:30 in the morning after all the parking spots have already been taken and they will drive around campus over and over again, not being able to find a parking spot.”
More state funding: The recession has caused UNM lot of budget problems, but to add to it the Legislature has not been funding capital projects on campus for the past two years.
“The cost of our utilities renovations that were completed in 2005 totaled $50 million, but the state was not the one who funded it,” Clark said. “The campus itself had to issue bonds in order to raise money for these projects.”
More green purchasing: Clark said students and faculty need to ask the University to buy more green products to sell at different locations on campus. While the co-op is one establishment on campus that does support local economies and farmers, UNM needs more of these kinds of organizations. Clark said professors could also start using fewer textbooks in their classes and start issuing more homework online in order to cut down on printing on campus.
