Rice University Celebrates Campus Sustainability Month with Showcase of Eco-Friendly Initiatives

Rice University’s Office of Sustainability is celebrating Campus Sustainability Month (CSM). Student organizations, campus departments and community partners that advance sustainability on campus and within Houston recently gathered at Rice Memorial Center’s Grand Hall to demonstrate the variety of sustainable practices available on campus and to the Rice community.

“Campus Sustainability Month is an opportunity to bring everyone together, to show the breadth and depth of what’s going on,” said Richard Johnson, senior executive director for sustainability and professor in the practice of environmental studies in sociology. “I think that’s really important. I find time and again that the more people learn, the more surprised they are to discover that there’s so much going on. The big picture understanding of sustainability is not something that’s easily captured on a website, but it helps when people experience it organically.”

Held every October, CSM is an international celebration of sustainability in higher education. Throughout the month, colleges and universities organize events to engage and inspire incoming students and other campus stakeholders to become sustainability change agents.

The goal of CSM is to raise the visibility of campus sustainability and provide campus sustainability advocates with a platform to deepen campus engagement around sustainability. It provides opportunities to recruit new leaders and set goals for the rest of the year. It also fits squarely into the goals of the Office of Sustainability and supports the office’s overall mission.

“Rice’s sustainability program started in December of 2004 and plays an active role in various topics,” Johnson said. “These include reducing our greenhouse gas emissions, combating climate change, improving water efficiency and energy efficiency, supporting new construction in green ways, improving recycling, reducing solid waste disposal, championing our composting program, embedding environmental education in thoughtful ways into the curriculum and using the campus as a living laboratory for learning about sustainability and connecting student project work with actual opportunities to improve our environmental performance.”

Although October features CSM, sustainability is a year-round priority at Rice, and the office continually showcases its creativity in engaging the community. Johnson provided the following examples of how Rice achieves this goal:

• EcoReps
  The office employs two “EcoReps” per residential college to educate and engage students in a variety of sustainability topics and events. Each semester, the EcoReps host a weeklong series of events targeted to the greater community as opposed to their individual college. Last academic year, the EcoReps hosted a total of 76 programs reaching approximately 2,000 individuals.
• Water-leak detection
  The office is rapidly expanding its water-leak detection program through the installation of water meters and the deployment of dashboards that help to detect leaks quickly. Since 2019, water use is down nearly 10% despite campus growth thanks to this program. Roughly two-thirds of campus buildings are now individually metered, and the goal is to add meters to the rest of them by the end of the fiscal year.
• Food waste reduction
  Through a partnership with Rice Housing and Dining and Moonshot Compost, the campus has now yielded over 1.14 million pounds of food waste diverted since November 2020.
• Houston ConnectSmart
  ConnectSmart is a free carpooling and alternative transportation app. The Rice community can affiliate with this group by going to the “Carpool” tab and signing up with their Rice email address.
• Move-out collection campaign
  The move-out collection campaign, Give a Hoot! Donate Your Loot!, originated from Johnson’s ENST 302/SOCI 304 class. The program has been expanded to offer a smaller-scale collection of goods at the end of the fall semester as well as at the Rice Village Apartments and Rice Graduate Apartments.
• TRACS
  Beyond the hedges, Rice is a member of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education, the Texas Regional Alliance for Campus Sustainability (TRACS) and the U.S. Green Building Council.

Kristianna Bowles, sustainability program coordinator, says the practices of CSM also extend into people’s daily lives.

“We love being able to highlight the depth and breadth of sustainability initiatives being spearheaded, not just on campus but in the city we all call home,” Bowles said. “While October is Campus Sustainability Month, true sustainability is what each of us does in our personal and professional lives, whether taking alternative transportation to work, getting involved in volunteer work within our community or simply taking a reusable bag with you to the grocery store. After all, you can’t spell ‘sustainability’ without ‘us.’”