Hello Dear Reader,
For the first week of my course on Sustainable Consumption, I was asked to describe my interest in sustainable consumption as a topic and my expectations for the course.
My Interest
If you explored my background on my LinkedIn profile, you will have discovered that I have an undergraduate degree in Physics. Thus it is probably not surprising to find out that my initial interest in sustainable consumption arose on the basis of energy consumption or (in the case of the US in particular) the overconsumption of energy resources. As I began to delve into the topic on my own, I soon found that the US tends to overconsume all sorts of resources (at least on a per capita basis).
For a very short synopsis of the consumption habits of the US (and many other Western cultures) I recommend The Story of Stuff. It is an online video that is about 20 minutes long, which highlights some of the history and issues of unsustainable consumption. Additionally, after reading Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization by Lester Brown among other books, I was reasonably convinced that not only is unsustainable consumption an issue that needs to be addressed but that it is an urgent issue indeed.
My Expectation
I spent the past year working as the Sustainability Coordinator at Dickinson College, which required me to address a wide variety of sustainability issues ranging from "What types of technologies should be implemented in order to achieve optimal energy savings at a minimal cost?" to "What is the best way to get people to turn off lights?" to "Should the college reduce the quantity of meat-based meals offered in the cafeteria?" with a lot of other questions in between.
Therefore, following a year of very broad, generalized research on sustainable consumption, I hope to be able to dig a little bit deeper into the topic and perhaps identify any underlying principles or tendencies. In particular, as a Climate Change MSc student, I hope to uncover many (if not a majority) of the ways in which sustainable consumption (or really, unsustainable consumption) habits are linked to global climate change.
I hope that this post gave you a reasonable estimation of my perspective from the outset of the course and the beginning of this blog. Please do post any comments or additional suggestions for informational material below.
Sincerely,
Sean Diamond
Monday, September 28, 2009
Friday, September 25, 2009
Blog Background Color & Energy Savings
As we were setting up our blogs for the sustainable consumption course, the discussion arose regarding the energy savings of different color backgrounds. On this discussion I wanted to point you to an article that I remembered reading about a year ago.
http://www.environmentalleader.com/2007/08/12/google-says-black-screen-doesnt-save-energy/
The issue was discussed by Google when people pointed to its white background as a culprit of significant energy use. The article claims that on flat panel monitors using a black background rather than a white background will actually use more energy. Unfortunately the article references a report, but the link is now broken or leading to some other website. If anyone can find the report they are referencing, I would appreciate it.
http://www.environmentalleader.com/2007/08/12/google-says-black-screen-doesnt-save-energy/
The issue was discussed by Google when people pointed to its white background as a culprit of significant energy use. The article claims that on flat panel monitors using a black background rather than a white background will actually use more energy. Unfortunately the article references a report, but the link is now broken or leading to some other website. If anyone can find the report they are referencing, I would appreciate it.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
The College Sustainability Movement
I wrote the following post during June of 2009; however, I never ended up submitting it to anyone to be published, so I thought that I would share it here:
While I was delighted to read about the many excited money-saving, sustainability initiatives being undertaken by colleges and universities in the recent article For Colleges, Small Cuts Add Up to Big Savings by Tamar Lewin on June 18, 2009, the tone of the article was disheartening. Prefacing the list of cuts that the colleges are putting into place as "smaller, quirkier economies" indicated that the initiatives were obscure or perhaps even nonsensical. This type of article offered an opportunity to highlight a major shift in business practices that is occurring throughout higher education institutions. That is, of course, the sustainability movement.
The term sustainable is often used synonymously with green, environmental, eco-friendly, and other such generic terms on which marketing and PR offices have recently capitalized. Fortunately, most college and university administrators have realized that sustainability requires more than just good intentions and the odd press release. Instead, they have started to understand that economic, social, and environmental concerns are all inextricably linked to one another and the overall viability of a business.
As an example, a poorly managed or inefficient HVAC system at a college will cost more money to run, create an uncomfortable work and study environment, and produce far more atmospheric emissions (either directly through combustion or indirectly through purchased electricity). All of these factors in turn affect the viability of the college in ways ranging from decreased employee productivity and lower customer (student) satisfaction to increased insurance premiums due to more severe weather associated with climate change.
Evaluating the economic, social, and environmental implications of a budget is commonly referred to as evaluating the "triple bottom line". This principle was actually explained reasonably well in When Balance Sheets Collide With the New Economy by Denise Caruso on September 9, 2007.
As noted implicitly in the results of the College Sustainability Report Card 2009, many higher education institutions began to take a triple bottom line approach to their budgets and operations prior the economic meltdown in 2008. In fact many colleges and universities had already begun to take on purely environmental initiatives such as the American College & University Presidents Climate Commitment, which commits the signatories to developing a plan for climate neutral operations.
This is not to imply that economic pressures have no bearing on such initiatives. On the contrary, economic difficulties have forced schools to reprioritize their projects. This typically means putting simple, cost effective measures such as energy efficiency and behavioral programs first on the list and shuffling the big-hype, more expensive projects such as installing photovoltaic solar panels toward the end of the list.
In the same way that "reduce, reuse, recycle" mantra puts waste management in the correct order, "efficiency, behavior, source" (although not as catchy and often in different words) has become the mantra of sustainability officers at schools (and for-profit businesses) across North America. As the analogy follows, trying to put up solar panels without replacing incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent lights is like recycling paper while setting the printer to only print in the top-left quarter of the page.
Student environmental organizations have been notorious for championing behavioral changes on and off campuses for decades, but student groups have recently been joined by college administrators enacting efficiency initiatives in what may ultimately be considered the tipping point in campus sustainability.
Efficiency programs save money and moderate environmental impacts regardless of user habits, so even though they have a higher up front cost than behavioral initiatives they tend to have a quick ROI and returns often far exceed the initial costs several times over. This allows the school to either save money or at the very least avoid the effects of an ever increasing energy load and variable utility costs. In either case the schools are able to devote more money to future energy initiatives (known as a revolving loan fund) or to their primary mission (educating students).
With all of this in mind, it seems that many of the programs mentioned in Tamar Lewin's article are not so quirky after all and are likely part of the larger sustainability movement. A movement that requires all involved to stop assuming that conventional methods are correct and to begin valuing environmental and social benefits at least as much as economic benefits.
In response to:
For Colleges, Small Cuts Add Up to Big Savings
By TAMAR LEWIN
Published: June 18, 2009
In the New York Times
While I was delighted to read about the many excited money-saving, sustainability initiatives being undertaken by colleges and universities in the recent article For Colleges, Small Cuts Add Up to Big Savings by Tamar Lewin on June 18, 2009, the tone of the article was disheartening. Prefacing the list of cuts that the colleges are putting into place as "smaller, quirkier economies" indicated that the initiatives were obscure or perhaps even nonsensical. This type of article offered an opportunity to highlight a major shift in business practices that is occurring throughout higher education institutions. That is, of course, the sustainability movement.
The term sustainable is often used synonymously with green, environmental, eco-friendly, and other such generic terms on which marketing and PR offices have recently capitalized. Fortunately, most college and university administrators have realized that sustainability requires more than just good intentions and the odd press release. Instead, they have started to understand that economic, social, and environmental concerns are all inextricably linked to one another and the overall viability of a business.
As an example, a poorly managed or inefficient HVAC system at a college will cost more money to run, create an uncomfortable work and study environment, and produce far more atmospheric emissions (either directly through combustion or indirectly through purchased electricity). All of these factors in turn affect the viability of the college in ways ranging from decreased employee productivity and lower customer (student) satisfaction to increased insurance premiums due to more severe weather associated with climate change.
Evaluating the economic, social, and environmental implications of a budget is commonly referred to as evaluating the "triple bottom line". This principle was actually explained reasonably well in When Balance Sheets Collide With the New Economy by Denise Caruso on September 9, 2007.
As noted implicitly in the results of the College Sustainability Report Card 2009, many higher education institutions began to take a triple bottom line approach to their budgets and operations prior the economic meltdown in 2008. In fact many colleges and universities had already begun to take on purely environmental initiatives such as the American College & University Presidents Climate Commitment, which commits the signatories to developing a plan for climate neutral operations.
This is not to imply that economic pressures have no bearing on such initiatives. On the contrary, economic difficulties have forced schools to reprioritize their projects. This typically means putting simple, cost effective measures such as energy efficiency and behavioral programs first on the list and shuffling the big-hype, more expensive projects such as installing photovoltaic solar panels toward the end of the list.
In the same way that "reduce, reuse, recycle" mantra puts waste management in the correct order, "efficiency, behavior, source" (although not as catchy and often in different words) has become the mantra of sustainability officers at schools (and for-profit businesses) across North America. As the analogy follows, trying to put up solar panels without replacing incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent lights is like recycling paper while setting the printer to only print in the top-left quarter of the page.
Student environmental organizations have been notorious for championing behavioral changes on and off campuses for decades, but student groups have recently been joined by college administrators enacting efficiency initiatives in what may ultimately be considered the tipping point in campus sustainability.
Efficiency programs save money and moderate environmental impacts regardless of user habits, so even though they have a higher up front cost than behavioral initiatives they tend to have a quick ROI and returns often far exceed the initial costs several times over. This allows the school to either save money or at the very least avoid the effects of an ever increasing energy load and variable utility costs. In either case the schools are able to devote more money to future energy initiatives (known as a revolving loan fund) or to their primary mission (educating students).
With all of this in mind, it seems that many of the programs mentioned in Tamar Lewin's article are not so quirky after all and are likely part of the larger sustainability movement. A movement that requires all involved to stop assuming that conventional methods are correct and to begin valuing environmental and social benefits at least as much as economic benefits.
In response to:
For Colleges, Small Cuts Add Up to Big Savings
By TAMAR LEWIN
Published: June 18, 2009
In the New York Times
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Introduction
Hello All,
I am currently a graduate student at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England. Specifically, I am enrolled as an MSc Climate Change student in the School of Environmental Sciences. I am starting this blog as a component of a course in Sustainable Consumption.
Thus, as you are reading any posts on this blog, please understand that I will be approaching topics from a generally academic prospective unless I've noted otherwise.
For more on my professional background, please refer to my LinkedIn profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/seandiamondsustainability. To summarize very briefly, I graduated from Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, USA, in May of 2008 with a B.S. Physics degree wherein I focused on renewable energies. Then, I worked at Dickinson College as the Sustainability Coordinator for a year before heading across the pond to begin my MSc degree.
I look forward to hearing your feedback, but due please try to keep any ranting to a minimum and make sure to let me know where you are acquiring your information. Otherwise, I will probably see fit to simply ignore your feedback.
Sincerely,
Sean Diamond
I am currently a graduate student at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England. Specifically, I am enrolled as an MSc Climate Change student in the School of Environmental Sciences. I am starting this blog as a component of a course in Sustainable Consumption.
Thus, as you are reading any posts on this blog, please understand that I will be approaching topics from a generally academic prospective unless I've noted otherwise.
For more on my professional background, please refer to my LinkedIn profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/seandiamondsustainability. To summarize very briefly, I graduated from Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, USA, in May of 2008 with a B.S. Physics degree wherein I focused on renewable energies. Then, I worked at Dickinson College as the Sustainability Coordinator for a year before heading across the pond to begin my MSc degree.
I look forward to hearing your feedback, but due please try to keep any ranting to a minimum and make sure to let me know where you are acquiring your information. Otherwise, I will probably see fit to simply ignore your feedback.
Sincerely,
Sean Diamond
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