After completing their final report, The University of Wisconsin Sustainability Task Force shared recommendations and held an open discussion with the public Thursday, furthering their project of spreading a campus wide Sustainability Initiative.
Director of the Nelson Institute Gregg Mitman laid out the task force’s process and recommendations at the forum, and took questions from the audience regarding specific implementations and how they will affect certain departments at UW.
The main recommendation put forth by the task force was to create an Office of Sustainability on campus, which would integrate education, research and campus operations to further sustainability efforts.
According to Mitman, the proposed Office of Sustainability would involve having a co-director of operations and a co-director of research and academics to help converge campus sustainability efforts.
Mitman will be meeting next week with initiative sponsors Provost Paul DeLuca and Vice Chancellor of Administration Darrell Bazzell to approve a budget for the proposed Office of Sustainability.
The other recommendations put forth at the forum included improving the Sustainability Initiative web portal to allow the campus community to provide input to the Office of Sustainability, amplifying both formal and informal education about conservation, and to turn UW into a “living laboratory” of sustainability efforts.
According to Mitman, in recommending turning UW into a laboratory for ongoing sustainability projects, the specific projects the task force wants to complete are to improve the utilization of classrooms and to develop standards of food sustainability on campus.
Because many professors vie for classes to be held on Tuesdays and Thursdays, Mitman said many classrooms go unused Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. The task force recommended UW analyze how wasted classroom space impacts UW ecologically, economically and socially with the hope of changing this culture, the report said.
“Wisconsin has the worst classroom instruction space utilization rates in the Big Ten, and our efficiency in department classroom utilization is even worse,” Mitman said.
The Sustainability Task Force recommendations come within the same year the task force was created.
In early 2010, DeLuca and Bazzell called for two task forces to handle the issues of Sustainability and General Health on campus. The 18 member task force of students, faculty and staff hosted a campus wide retreat on April 27 to create project groups, and on Oct. 10 the Sustainability Task Force completed their final report.
Mitman said the task force looks to build on the environmentally sound legacy of UW and the We Conserve initiative to bring together the entire campus in improving sustainability.
“We are looking to align research and education on sustainability with campus operations to service the environment and our social responsibility to people and the planet,” Mitman said.
DeLuca and Bazzell opened up the program, and talked about their sponsorship and support of the initiative.
Bazzell said he is happy with the recent “A” grade UW received in sustainability efforts from the Sustainable Endowments Institute, but said the university still has a long way to go.
“The grade we received was great, but let’s not rest on our laurels. There is lots of work that still needs to be done,” Bazzell said.
