???The Environmental Stewardship Committee met Wednesday morning to discuss the progress of UB's plans to accomplish sustainability and carbon neutrality.
???About 45 people gathered for the meeting in the Student Union, representing committee subgroups focusing on the major issues of UB's environmental plans.
??? "[The meeting] was about trying to understand what it's going to take to get these things done at UB," said Bradshaw Hovey, associate director of the Urban Design Project.
???The ESC subcommittees are addressing the specific actions UB will need to take in order to achieve its economic goals. The subcommittee for energy has three subgroups of its own which address issues such as energy purchase and ways to make buildings on campus more efficient, according to Hovey.
???"There are issues about the way things are run [and] operated that we need to work with," Hovey said.
???The ESC has been working with environmental consulting firm Ecology and Environment, Inc. (E&E), to help reach the goals laid out in the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment signed by President John B. Simpson last year.
???Hovey said that E&E will help create a draft plan that is expected to be completed in March. The plans will be available to view on the ESC Web site in the spring, with a public forum to present the plan set for April.
???A small group of students from environmental groups on campus met the next day with a representative for E&E to discuss ways to expand student involvement in environmental issues.
???"There's huge proof that UB Green needs to be expanded and that students want that," said Emily Bauer, a junior biology major and chair of the UB Climate Action Network. "The primary tool within the student body is the Student Association...I think that tool is not being used."
???The group discussed the possibility of incorporating environmental issues into future general education requirement courses.
???"I think a lot of it is a need for culture change. If you make it a requirement, students are going to rebel against it. We want [students] to be excited about climate change," said Chris Llop, a junior engineering major and president of Students for a Sustainable World.
???The ESC discussions will continue to implement concerns that were raised at its Fall Sustainability Forum held this past October, when the ESC met with members of the UB and Buffalo community to discuss the university's initiatives to become carbon neutral.
???"There was a lot of support for using the campus as a place for generating electricity," Hovey said.
???Hovey explained that the ESC has been discussing ways to create energy on campus through solar or wind power.
???"There was a really strong feeling [at the forum] that we want to become carbon neutral the old-fashioned way. We want to earn it," Hovey said. "We're not sure how much we can do based on the quality or consistency of the wind, for example [but] we want to achieve carbon neutrality as much as possible without short cuts."
???Renewable energy credits and carbon offsets are a controversial issue in relation to sustainability, Hovey explained. This can involve planting more trees to offset the amount of carbon emissions.
???"This doesn't make us any more efficient," Hovey said.
???At the sustainability forum in the fall, attendees expressed their desire for UB's stance on carbon neutrality to reflect its role as an educational and research institution, according to Hovey.
???"We ought to be innovators, experimenters [and] implementers of new technology here," he said.
???Hovey noted that the current economic forecast should have little bearing on the implementation of the university's sustainability initiatives, given the long-term nature of the plans.
"Most people expect that in a year or two things will be better. As severe as it may get, the economic situation is a really short term thing in relation to the project," Hovey said.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
