Building an Environmentally Sustainable School:

Some Notes on Wynn Calder’s Presentation at the 2009 TAIS Heads Retreat

Mr. Calder’s presentation addressed three principal topics: 1) the need for environmental sustainability initiatives in all aspects of society, and how independent schools are addressing this issue in creative ways; 2) integrating education for sustainability into the overall educational program of a school; and 3) assessment options. Although these notes contain a number of specific examples drawn from Mr. Calder’s presentation, they are only meant to give the reader a sense of the size and scope of the rich and varied discussions the participants in the Heads Retreat had with him, not a detailed summary of issues addressed and examples offered. My hope is that this brief summary will give many of you some new information, new ideas, and new places to seek more information about the ways in which our schools can save money, become more efficient, and exercise greater environmental responsibility in the process of achieving a high measure of sustainability.

After a brief review of the negative environmental consequences of unbridled capitalism, Mr. Calder sounded the fundamental theme of his presentation: education for sustainability is a critical response to the challenges our planet, and our economic system, are facing. Only if we can reconfigure our way of thinking about the relationship between what we need to produce and use to sustain our civilization, on the one hand, and what we need to reduce, use and/or reuse, and recycle, on the other, can we hope to achieve a durable and long-lasting balance between the products and services required to sustain our society and the reduced levels of pollution and environmental degradation needed to insure the earth’s ability to sustain itself. In short, in the twenty-first century humanity needs to make a global transition in the following areas:

FromTo

Fossil poweredSolar powered

Take, make, wasteCyclical production

Living off nature’s capitalLiving off nature’s income

Market as masterMarket as servant

Loss of cultural and biological diversityIncreased cultural and biological diversity

Materialism as goalHuman satisfaction as goal

The first step for a school, particularly an independent school, to take as it grapples with this challenge as an educational institution is to develop an environmental mission statement that is compatible with, or better yet which grows out of, the school’s current mission statement. This is a process that will require buy-in from all stakeholders in the school—administration, faculty, staff, students and parents. Once this document is in place, the school can develop various aspects of a coherent and cohesive program to move the school toward sustainable policies and practices, both in terms ofthe operation of the school’s physical plant and its academic program.

Mr. Calder spent the rest of the Sunday session giving examples of the considerable savings schools had been able to realize by implementing sustainability-oriented programs in a number of areas:

  • One school focused on reducing food waste in its lunch program by doing away with trays in its cafeteria, so that students could only take two plates through the line. Although they could go back for seconds if they were hungry, few did that. The end result was that the amount of wasted food was reduced, thus realizing significant savings in that area. In addition, the school used less water and detergent because there were no trays to wash, and it was also able to reduce the cafeteria staff by one person because of the reduced workload. Overall savings amounted to tens of thousands of dollars.
  • The cost of energy—primarily electricity and natural gas—constitutes a significant part of the cost of operating a school. Energy savings can come both from technical or policy driven changes, and from changing the energy-use attitudes and habits of the entire school community. Local power companies will often provide an energy audit of your school free of charge. This will tell you where you are wasting energy, and what you can do to reduce or eliminate that waste. Or you can hire a company like ESCO (Energy Service Company) that will do a multi-faceted assessment of your school and offer strategies for reducing energy consumption that are tailored expressly to your school. This all-in-one service has its benefits, but it is much more expensive. Depending on what your school’s power usage profile is, and the cost of the measures you use to reduce it, these steps can immediately reduce energy costs by several thousand dollars a year--or much more.
  • Join the Green Cup Challenge, an energy use reduction competition among independent schools that takes place during the month of February each year. For more information check out the competition website at.
  • Make every future design, construction and renovation project on your campus LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified. This is the new gold standard for architects, and many now have this training. Also, the cost of LEED buildings is now only 2% greater than that of non—LEED buildings. Thus the energy savings and reduced environmental impact that LEED buildings provide constitutetwo compellingreasons to adopt this standard for all future building projects: they demonstrate your school’s commitment to environmental responsibility, and they will save your school a considerable amount of money over the life of the building.

On Monday, Mr. Calder focused on the various ways independent schools are including formal or informal education in environmental sustainability as part of their overall educational programs. Again, there was a considerable variety in the ways different schools approached this task:

  • Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts has a required 6 week long course in local history that details the effects of urban sprawl and acid rain on the local environment, and explored the historical, social and economic factors that have impacted the local environment.
  • Seabury Hall in Maui, Hawaii, has curricular and co-curricular programs that address sustainability issues, including engineering concepts and sustainability, chemistry and the community, a senior sustainability project, a course entitled “Spirit of the Earth: Theology and Sustainability,” and a four day spring experiential learning course in environmental issues.
  • The Nichols School in Buffalo, New York, has developed a comprehensive curriculum for the 21st century that weaves environmental sustainability issues throughout its academic program. This school has taken to heart the idea that sustainability is no longer an elective—it must be part of the core curriculum of 21st century schools.
  • Marin Country Day School, a K-8 school in California, addresses sustainability education through a combination of curricular and co-curricular programs. Grades K-2 connect students with nature, nurture curiosity about the natural world, and promote activities (composting, recycling, gardening) that are “good for the earth,” while Grade 5 adds formal learning about climate change in a unit integrating ecology and conservation studies, and an 8th Grade Environmental Council works on projects like limiting paper use and recycling it, Bike to School Day, etc.
  • Westminster Schools, Atlanta, Georgia, also has a combination approach. School green initiatives include: participation in the Southeast Regional Green Cup, a Campus Conservation Corps that plants trees, runs single-stream recycling, and operates the Lexus Challenge (four categories: air, water, land, climate), a ninth grade Discovery coursethat addresses sustainability issues through interdisciplinary experiential education, a biodiesel conversion project using cafeteria canola oil, and a commitment to purchase food locally when available.

Although he gave a number of other examples, those listed above give a good sense of the range of formal and informal ways that independent schools have found to educate their students about key aspects of the subject of sustainability.

Mr. Calder concluded his presentation by noting that the National Business Officers Association is interested in helping independent schools to join green purchasing groups, such as MISBO and PACEBO, or to form new ones He can also provide information about LEED accredited architects if you email him at . His final remarks addressed the issue of assessing progress toward creating a sustainable school. He has developed several assessment tools that he uses when he is consulting with schools on the subject of sustainability, some quantitative, others qualitative. Again, he will be happy to share these with you if you contact him at . In relation to ongoing assessment, he emphasized the importance of appointing an Environmental Sustainability Coordinator to oversee and assess the progress a school is making with its sustainability initiatives. Ideally, this would be a dedicated full time employee. The bottom line here is that schools that do not make room for proper oversight of sustainability programs generally fail to achieve their goals in this area.

As I said at the beginning of this report, I hope that these notes will give you some new ideas, and a sense of the kind of conversations we engaged in during this year’s Heads Retreat. However, they certainly do not do justice to the actual discussions we were able to enjoy during our time with Mr. Calder, and with each other.