The Philadelphia Horticultural Society blog recently featured an article about our campus’ trees and the recent educational efforts that have come about through a collaboration between students and the grounds department. Take a look!

Nine Tri-College students from Bryn Mawr, Haverford, and Swarthmore are fasting as part of EQATs 40-day fast. Today, we unite separate campaigns at individual schools together under the message of environmental justice.

Many of us have visited Appalachia. Community members told us about the destruction of their homes, health and livelihoods due to practices of mountain top removal coal mining. We fast today in support of and in solidarity with our friends in Appalachia who live in resistance to the power of fossil fuel corporations.

To us, solidarity means recognizing that we have so much to learn from each other, and that we are standing shoulder to shoulder in working with one another. In addition to wanting to show solidarity with the people of Appalachia and with the work of the Earth Quaker Action Team, today our three schools are working in solidarity with each other. Our colleges all have Quaker roots and a stated commitment to Quaker values of social justice and equality. We believe that students from our schools must unite together to hold our schools accountable to that commitment. Our campaigns are working to build student power in order to create a more livable future.

As we prepare to break our fast at 5pm over dinner, we are celebrating our work so far and our continued collaborations, and are steadfast in our belief that our intersecting and allied campaigns will be successful in creating lasting change.

Mark your calendar for April 20th, when Bryn Mawr green groups will celebrate earth day with lots of events including a huge spring planting in the garden! More info to come soon…

This was a great opportunity for bi-college collaboration on green issues and a great kick-off to several green events to happen this spring including Earth Day and a workshop led by Bryn Mawr’s visiting artist, Jenny Price.

Johanna Gauthier, center, is one of the heads of this year's Recycling Committee. SLG members Jerry Berenson, Jim McGaffin, Victor Donnay, Ellen Stroud, Lee McClenon and Michaela Olson presented her with a certificate at the last meeting.

The Sustainability Leadership Group recently recognized this years Recycling Co-Heads, Johanna Gauthier and Alisha Park for their outstanding dedication and work towards the college’s sustainability goals.

One major project for the SLG this year has been to continue reducing energy use on campus. The recycling committee has coordinated with facilities to work with students to make heat conservation hours in the dorms. The heat has been turned down from 70 to 67 degrees between 11-3pm in all dorms, saving significant amounts of energy. A recent follow up survey shows that many students approve of the changes and many would be in favor of even bigger cuts!

The committee was originally formed several years ago to investigate waste issues on campus. While this is still a major area of focus, Johanna and Alisha have pushed the committee’s work beyond this narrow scope with great results. Because of this the group will be renamed “The Green Ambassadors” in the fall.

Way to go Alisha and Johanna and thanks for all your work!

]]> http://sustainability.blogs.brynmawr.edu/2013/02/02/take-out-reduced/feed/ 0 http://sustainability.blogs.brynmawr.edu/2013/02/02/electricians-lighting-the-way/ http://sustainability.blogs.brynmawr.edu/2013/02/02/electricians-lighting-the-way/#comments Sat, 02 Feb 2013 22:04:40 +0000 Lee http://sustainability.blogs.brynmawr.edu/?p=932 Last Tuesday the Sustainability Leadership Group held an ceremony for the new renovations in Brecon Hall that made it the first 100% LED dorm on campus. As part of the proceedings, President Jane McAuliffe honored three electricians from Bryn Mawr facilities with the following address before presenting them with certificates.

“Your initiative and innovative ideas in suggesting ways that the LED lighting industry can better adapt this technology to new construction as well as retrofit installations have been immensely valuable to the Bryn Mawr College Facilities Department and the College as a whole. By working with the developers of state-of-the-art, energy-saving LED products, you have helped steer the course of new product development in a direction that has proven to have direct application in many campus buildings.  These cutting edge products, never before available in the lighting industry, have led to easier installations across campus, enhanced lighting in many areas, and considerably lower energy consumption rates. Furthermore, your willingness to assertively challenge the status quo in the belief that we can all do better projects a positive example to the entire Bryn Mawr College community. Thank you for your service.”

For more pictures and news about other exciting parts of the event, including a sustainability tour and a talk by a leader in green energy, please see the article in Bryn Mawr Now.

The event will start at 3:30 in Pembroke Arch with a short tour given by Environmental Studies Seniors. The idea for the tour came out of the senior seminar last fall. This short version will show some highlights from the full tour route that can be shown to prospective students that are interested in environmental issues or have already been on the standard admissions tour.

After renovations this winter break with hard work done by electricians from the Facilities Department, Brecon is the first dorm on campus to install 100% LED bulbs (during our ribbon cutting we will change the last traditional bulb to a new high efficiency one). In order to make this happen, the school had to figure out the best way to retrofit our old fixtures to accept LED planels.

This happened with the help of a company called “Lighting Solution Development” which engineered a completely unique solution for Bryn Mawr Facilities. David Shiller, the president of that company who has advocated for energy efficiency for many years, both as an activist protesting coal plants and as an engineer working with EnergyStar, will talk about his career path and what he sees as necessary for sustainability in the future.

After the talk, we will celebrate the one year birthday of the LED bulbs in the Thomas Great Hall Chandeliers. Installed last December, the new bulbs both save energy and have a lifetime expectancy of three years! This means that our skilled electricians can spend less time changing simple light bulbs and more time bringing Bryn Mawr the best technology there is. Please join us for cake.