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How sustainable is The Evergreen State College?

How sustainable is The Evergreen State College?. 2011 - 2012 Research by Clay Showalter and Arij Beebe-Sweet Energy Systems and Climate Change, The Evergreen State College, Olympia, WA. Hypothesis. H1: Evergreen is sustainable.

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How sustainable is The Evergreen State College?

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  1. How sustainable is The Evergreen State College? 2011 - 2012 Research by Clay Showalter and Arij Beebe-Sweet Energy Systems and Climate Change, The Evergreen State College, Olympia, WA

  2. Hypothesis • H1: Evergreen is sustainable. • H2: Evergreen is sustainable to some degree, but needs to improve certain elements to become truly sustainable. • H3: Evergreen is not sustainable. • Null: There is no way to measureEvergreen’s sustainability.

  3. What is Sustainability? • The capacity to endure. • People • Planet • Profit geo Logic Systems http://geologicsystems.wordpress.com/2011/06/21/a-business-case-for-sustainability-attention-alberta-oil-sands-operations/

  4. Why is sustainability important?

  5. Carrying Capacity • All living things are reliant on a healthy ecosystem. • All creatures impose a load on their environment’s ability to supply what they need and absorb what they excrete. • Carrying capacity is the maximum persistently feasible load for a given creature and way of life.

  6. Humans & Carrying Capacity • Technological advances can increase the Earth’s human carrying capacity. • Phantom carrying capacity. • Each enlargement of human carrying capacity means diverting some of Earth’s life supporting capacity away from other species.

  7. How is sustainability measured? • There are several established ways for measuring sustainability • Life Cycle Analysis • Environmental Sustainability Index • Ecological Footprint Analysis • Anthropologists Cultural Approach • AASHE STARS (Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System, for Colleges and Universities) • Current system used and acknowledged by Evergreen.

  8. Choosing our Metric • Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) • The GRI framework is the most widely used standardized sustainability reporting framework in the world. • Developed by NGO’s CERES and Tellus Institute (supported by UNEP) in 1997 • Has gone through several revisions as an understanding of the metric has evolved current standard G4 is in practice.

  9. Six Performance Indicators • Environmental • Human Rights • Labor Practices and Decent Work • Society • Product Responsibility • Economic

  10. Environmental • Materials • Energy • Water • Biodiversity • Emmissions, Effluents, and Waste • Products and Services

  11. Human Rights • Investment and Procurement Practices • Non-discrimination • Freedom of Association and Collective Bargaining • Security Practices • Indigenous Rights • Assessment/Remediation

  12. Labor Practices and Decent Work • Employment • Labor/Management Relations • Occupational Health and Safety • Training and Education • Diversity and Equal Opportunity • Equal Renumeration for Women and Men

  13. Society • Community engagement • Operations impacts on local communities • Compliance with laws and regulations

  14. Product/Services Responsibilities • Lifecycle stages of products with health and safety impacts • Practices related to customer satisfaction, such as surveys and evaluations

  15. Economic • Direct economic value generated and distributed • Policy and practices of spending • Hiring procedures for administration

  16. Boundaries • Should Faculty and Student commuting practices be included in our GRI?

  17. Decision Tree GRI Sustainability Reporting Guidelines http://www.globalreporting.org/NR/rdonlyres/D8B503A9-070C-43DB-AD0F-5C4ACB1EBF39/0/G31RefSheet.pdf

  18. Conclusion • Critical evaluation of metric (GRI) and its implementation. • Global Reporting Initiative • Systems Thinking • Vision of the Future • Question society faces: What impacts are we willing to absorb or endure?

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