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Questioning College Spending on Sustainability

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Young America's Foundation often questions high tuition.  Today we look at a new trend on campus toward sustainability and environmental spending.Garbage  

There is nothing wrong with measures that help the environment, but some universities are taking this to the extreme.   

In a time when many students are struggling to pay tuition, and student loans may be nationalized by Obama, it is not wise to dramatically increase spending on new initiatives.   

Harvard University employs 16 full-time people in its Office for Sustainability.  One of this office's programs is a trash audit during which students comb through garbage to find out if it is recyclable.   

Other campuses also are moving toward more spending on these initiatives.  The University of Michigan announced a "multi-faceted" initiative, and the University of New Hampshire employs 10 staff members for sustainability.  There is even a "report card" that monitors campuses on this issue.  Many other colleges have offices and programs like this.  Just search for "campus green initiatives" and you will find them. 

Posted by Roger Custer at 02/01/2010 03:49:48 PM | 


Readers' Comments

Campus sustainability programs are an excellent way to help educate the next generation for the booming "green" job market. Sustainability experts are being hired in many corporations throughout the US--and these experts are very well paid. Measuring and monitoring sustainability activities (even looking at recyclables in garbage) is key to understanding how we use resources on campus.
Posted by: jon cheever at 2/2/2010 10:09 PM


Harvard University is Massachusetts' third largest employer. If you're implying that keeping a staff of 16 people to oversee sustainability operations for one of the leading economic entities of the entire state of Massachusetts is irresponsible, then I'm afraid your mistaken. Please keep in mind, Harvard has an incredibly vast multi-site campus, a medical school, law school, business school, and graduate school of public policy and governance. Moreover, the potential savings are enormous.

I went to a tiny school in MA, and once we hired a sustainability coordinator, in her first 6 months had proposed ways to save several hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. And most were implemented the next year. I'm sorry, but all your article points to are insinuations and implications.

Why don't you do some research and find an example of actual fiscal waste (that is, when money spent by the school to cut energy costs was more than the actual or projected savings). Until then, try not to fear monger by raising the conservative spectre of sustainability. It amuses me that you start your article with the disclaimer that, "There is nothing wrong with measures that help the environment," almost as if to say you're pro environment! Yet that's never been a part of YAF's campus initiatives.
Posted by: Ben at 2/4/2010 4:47 PM


I love it when conservatives open up posts about environmental protection with:

"There is nothing wrong with measures that help the environment, but..."

Just say it. Say you don't believe it is important. Say you don't see any value in it. At least if you were to speak honestly about it we could have a rational debate about its merits or detriments.

So go ahead and write half-assed posts about the amazing work done by young people across the nation to save their universities money, clean up their air, and reducing waste in their communities. It will be a good day for America and for the world when conservatives will begin frankly engaging the subject of sustainability and waste-reduction (as Sen. Lindsey Graham and Rep. Mike Castle are courageously doing).
Posted by: Tommaso at 2/4/2010 4:55 PM


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