Summary of Progress and Recommendations for FY16 and Beyond

Environmental Council 2014 – 2015

Summary of Progress and Recommendations for FY16 and Beyond

June 9, 2015

Introduction

This is to follow up on our final Environmental Council (EC) meeting of the year. At that meeting in May 2015 we discussed with Ron Liebowitz our findings and recommendations which he asked us to share with him and incoming President Laurie Patton. A summary of our key recommendations which are drawn from the attached report and subsequent discussion by members of the EC are provided below. These recommendations are a work in progress and the EC would very much welcome the opportunity to meet with Laurie at our first EC meeting in September 2015 to discuss the future agenda of the EC. Also attached is a summary of the work the EC did this past year and its recommendations for going forward in specific areas the EC focused on over the year.

Objectives for future Environmental Council and Environmental Affairs/Office of Sustainability Integration work

The mission of the Environmental Council is to engage and support all members ofthe College community in advancing leadership in sustainability and environmental citizenship.

For 18 years, the Environmental Council has played an active role in shaping Middlebury’s commitment to environmental and sustainability leadership. The EC is a standing committee that recommends policy, undertakes assessment and projects, educates the college community, and advises the President. It is composed of about 21 members half of whom are students and the other half faculty and staff. The EC often works closely with the Environmental Affairs and the Office of Sustainability Integration which has made a significant difference in the College’s capacity for leadership in environmental stewardship and sustainability and hopes that through such a collaborative effort we can achieve even greater results in the future.

Middlebury has a longhistory and has been an early leader in environmental stewardship and sustainability and a well-earned reputation as a pioneer and innovator in this regard. This has also contributed a great deal to the college’s high appeal to prospective students and donors. Over the last ten years or so many other higher education institutions have incorporated sustainability and environmental stewardship into their policies and practices. While this is great progress for higher education as a whole, it also means that Middlebury must innovate in this arena more creatively and deeply.

Our efforts have been significant - especially at the institutional and administrative levels in recent years (carbon neutrality, biomass and biomethane, Real Food, etc.). As we conducted our outreach efforts this past semester sharing the results of the STARS report (see more below) and asking students, staff and faculty for their feedback on future priorities, one of the recurring comments we received was essentially that people wanted more info and opportunity to play a role in this arena as individuals.

We believe it would be beneficial to place an additional emphasis on enhancing the sustainability and environmental literacy of the college community (Including MIISM) as a whole and offer the following recommendations for how to achieve that goal:

Formalize the College’s definition of sustainability and environmental stewardship
Incorporate sustainability and environmental literacy goals into orientation and training of staff, faculty and students and into the annual goal setting process that takes place within the college’s departments and offices.
Develop means by which sustainability and environmental stewardship can be effectively and voluntarily further integrated into all academic disciplines and teaching at Middlebury. We would be happy to discuss specific means and strategies for doing so at a future time.
Develop a comprehensive and strategic communication plan for informing and engaging college community members in acting for sustainability and environmental stewardship and ways to track and acknowledge their contributions.
Establish a liaison from the EC to Faculty Council to report on the work of the EC and Environmental Affairs and the Office of Sustainability Integration.

Recommendations based on EC 2014-15 Committee work

Please refer to following report covering the work and recommendations of four subcommittees of the EC:

STARS (Sustainability Tracking Assessment and Rating System) and Strategic Planning;

Real Food Challenge

Campus Microgrid

Grants

Middlebury College Environmental Council

Findings and Recommendations for Academic Year 2015

May 26, 2015

About the Environmental Council

2015 Academic Year Foci

Summary of Findings and Recommendations

1. Outreach and Visioning – Sustainability Tracking Assessment and Rating System Committee

Summary

Recommendations

2. Real Food Challenge Committee

Summary

Preliminary Recommendations – further research to be conducted over the summer

3. Campus Microgrid for Climate Change Resiliency Committee

Summary

Recommendations

4. Grants

Appendix 3: Proposed product switches in order to achieve 30%, 40% and 50% real food

Appendix 1: STARS Report summary handout………………………………………………………………13

Appendix 2: 2014-2015 Environmental Council Members…………………………………..……….13

Appendix 3: Proposed product switches………………………………………………………………………14

About the Environmental Council

The mission of the Environmental Council (EC) is to engage and support all members ofthe College community in advancing leadership in sustainability and environmental citizenship.

The EC has worked on policy and outreach efforts related to management of college lands, environmentally preferred purchasing, energy, transportation, food, and carbon neutrality. Instrumental in the College’s carbon neutrality initiative, the Environmental Council established a working group to investigate options for reducing carbon dioxide emissions on campus, providing the foundation for carbon neutrality at Middlebury.
The Environmental Council also awards grants to members of the college community for sustainability projects. These resources have given students, faculty, and staff an opportunity to create and participate in over seventy projects that further Middlebury’s sustainability goals.

Comprised of a cross-section of faculty, staff, and students, the EC meets monthly throughout the academic year. Its committees meet in between on an as-needed basis.

2015 Academic Year Foci

During the 2015 academic year the EC focused its efforts in four areas:

Outreach and solicitation of feedback from the college community about Middlebury’s progress as a leader on sustainability in higher education and what its vision and strategy should be for the next 5 years, using the recent Sustainability Tracking Assessment and Rating System (STARS) report.
Investigating and quantifying options for meeting and exceeding the national Real Food Challenge for college dining purchasing.
Follow up on the campus microgrid recommendations by the Middlebury School of the Environment and a J-Term class feasibility analysis of a campus microgrid.
Solicitation of requests for proposals, awarding of grants, and follow up with grantees.

The EC also devoted some time to discussing a project of SRI club members regarding the assessment of publicly traded companies in the endowment portfolio and their carbon emissions impacts. No action was taken.

Summary of Findings and Recommendations

1. Outreach and Visioning – Sustainability Tracking Assessment and Rating System (STARS) Committee

Summary

The EC partnered with the Office of Sustainability Integration (OSI) to hold a series of meetings with various groups around campus. The meetings provided an introduction to the results of a comprehensive assessment of sustainability progress at the college completed by the OSI in the spring of 2014. The assessment is based on the Sustainability Tracking Assessment and Rating System (STARS) developed by the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (see Appendix 1). Middlebury’s OSI and Environmental Affairs staff were part of a consortium of higher education staff and faculty who helped develop STARS starting in 2006. Participants at the meetings were also asked to share their definition of sustainability and to identify what the college is doing well in this area and what it could be doing better. The following groups were engaged:

•March 2 – Community Council

•March 11 – Staff Council

•March 13 – Faculty Meeting

•March 17 – Department Coordinators

•March 23 – College Advancement

•April 1 – Facilities Service

•April 7 – Town Hall Open Forum

•April 29 – Art and Architecture Class

•April 30 – German class

•April 30 – Dining Services

•May – June – LIS, Admissions…others TBD

These meetings are part of a 9-month process the OSI is conducting to develop a vision and strategies for advancing Middlebury’s sustainability leadership over the coming five years and to help establish priorities for that period. The first phase of outreach and engagement is nearly complete. The OSI will work with the data gathered during the outreach sessions and develop a draft summary of findings from the feedback received. During the summer it will circulate that summary for further comment and feedback and develop a draft vision and strategy document for review and comment by the EC and many other groups in the fall of 2015. The plan is to have a final guiding document by the end of October 2015 to help shape the priorities and activities of the OSI and the College to advance it s leadership in sustainability.

To date about 150 comments and suggestions have been posted on a Crowdicity website (see Appendix 1) set up to capture and share the feedback received from the outreach and feedback sessions.

Recommendations

While the process described above is in progress and has another six months to go, the EC has the following recommendations regarding this effort.

• Review the comments and feedback thus far and identify any actions that could and should be implemented soon.

• Review the STARS report with departmental heads to identify areas where we could improve and make a plan for implementing actions to do so.

• Provide a briefing of the STARS report and plans for improvement for new President and for Trustees as well.

• Review and revise the institutional definition of sustainability at Middlebury to make explicit our commitment to social equity and justice.

• Identify ways that the STARS process and criteria could be integrated into the curriculum and coursework. Conduct a roundtable with faculty to discuss this idea.

• Do an annual check-in to determine if there have been significant changes that warrant an update of the STARS report and the College’s rating.

• Consider conducting the STARS assessment on a two-year cycle rather than the current three-year cycle.

• Bring next year’s EC up to speed quickly about where the STARS process is and identify what role the EC will play in the completion and implementation of the visioning and strategy process.

2. Real Food Challenge Committee

Summary

Middlebury has participated in the Real Food Challenge for the past two years. This is a national campaign to increase the purchasing of “real” food at higher education institutions across the country. Real food is defined as food that meets on or more of the following criteria: local, ecologically produced, humane, and fair trade. The goal is for all higher education institutions to achieve at least 20% of the food served on campus meeting the Real Food criteria.

To determine the percentage of real food purchasing Middlebury has analyzed all food purchasing receipts for the months of October, March, and July for the past two years. This required tracing the receipt back to the ultimate source of the item purchased and ascertaining whether it is produced in a way that meets one or more of the Real Food criteria. The results are stored in an online database to make future analyses easier. Dining Services is also implementing new menu management software that will make this task immensely easier.

The EC formed a partnership with Dining Services, EatReal student group, Office of Sustainability Integration, and Student Government Association to assess the current status of Real Food purchasing and the extent of support from students for increasing it. Their findings in the fall included:

● 25.4% of Middlebury College’s food qualifies as real food.

● 1,150 students signed an EatReal petition in 2013 to increase local food.

● SGA survey found 60% student support of creating a more sustainable food system.

● In April 2014, SGA passed a bill supporting 30% real food by 2015-2016 academic year.

Based on further analysis using statistical software (STATA) to help find which food items could be switched to change their qualification to Real for the least cost, the group proposed a two phase strategy for achieving 50% real food by 2020:

● Step 1: Goal of 30% by 2016. Implement product switches identified by Dining Services.

● Step 2: Goal of 50% by 2020. By spring of 2016, research and propose strategy.

In December, 2014 President Liebowitz and VP for Finance Patrick Norton committed Middlebury College to the Real Food Challenge with a goal of 30% Real Food by 2016. With a 30% goal, Middlebury is among the top ten leading schools. They also expressed support for reaching 50% by 2020 but asked for more research. Two students, Natalie Valentin and Lucy Reading did an independent study this J-term to begin the research with the intention of providing preliminary ideas in May for how to reach 50%.

The following are the options under consideration at this time. Interns working for the Office of Sustainability Integration and Dining Services will conduct further research over the summer.

Preliminary Recommendations – further research to be conducted over the summer

Product switches

Since the 30% commitment was signed in December, Dining Services has made a number of conventional to real product switches, including fair trade bananas, organic spinach and spring mix, and local beef patties. A winter term independent study estimated that these changes have already brought the College up to 27% real food. The student researchers also began identifying further potential product switches by working with Dining Services and their primary distributors, Reinhart Food Service and Black River Produce. Based on their findings from one month of research, they found that by switching 37 products (selected from the top 50 products that Dining Services spends the most on annually) to either local or organic, the College could reach 50% real food with an 18.6% ($745,644) increase in the budget. It should be noted that this is a very high estimate and that with more time and coordinating with our distributors, more cost-effective switches could be found (see Appendix 3).

Sourcing and storage through Reinhart Food Service

Reinhart Food Service is currently Middlebury College’s primary food distributor, and working with them is currently the best short-term and least labor-intensive way by which to expand our Real Food. They have expressed significant interest in supporting the College’s Real Food commitment, including inviting a group of students from EatReal to visit their facilities and speak with their local food purchasers. Middlebury’s other main distributor, Black River Produce, is best positioned to source local products. However, Reinhart is more capable of sourcing humane, fair and ecologically-sound products such as fish and fruit. Reinhart also has frozen storage space in its warehouse that the College could utilize to purchase in bulk and store products including local produce throughout the winter and spring.

Contracts with local farmers

Either through Reinhart or independently, the College can look to increase the amount of contract growing that it does with local farmers. Dining Services currently contract grows from La Lumiere Farm, Lewis Creek Farm, and the Middlebury College Organic Farm (MCOF). Recent examples include butternut squash and basil, and could include: baby spinach, cherry tomatoes, broccoli crowns, romaine lettuce, green bell peppers, Spanish onions, mushrooms, Roma tomatoes. The College could also look outside of Addison County for more opportunities to contract grow, or work with innovative companies such as JustCut Vermont out of the Food Venture Center in Hardwick, which sells pre-processed and frozen local vegetables year-round. These partnerships not only allow the College to lock in low prices for large quantities, but also give farmers much needed financial security as they plan their crops for the year.

Expanded Processing and Storage Space

Renovating the Freeman International Center to create additional storage and processing space would not only allow the College to take in more local food, but also allow Dining Services to improve its catering operations. With the proposed renovation, however, additional frozen storage would still be necessary. The College could negotiate its contract with Reinhart to include using storage in their warehouse or rent out space from Vermont Refrigerated Storage. The Hannaford Career Center’s mobile processing unit could also cover additional processing needs. FIC also poses problems in terms of delivery, because it is not oriented well for trucks to drop-off products.

Taking a long-term perspective, investing in a new on-campus facility could be a worthwhile investment. This would allow the building to be designed to facilitate smooth delivery of products and include all of the necessary storage and processing space to cover both increase real food as well as catering operations. The new facility could also include meat processing space, like what used to be in Proctor, to allow Dining Services to bring in larger cuts of humane and local meat.

Leasing the College’s agricultural lands

The College currently owns 300 acres of tillable land and 100 acres of pasture that could be used for agriculture. This land could be leased to new and/or experienced farmers who want to learn to grow for large institutional buyers such as the College. In exchange for land and mentorship, these farmers would commit to a multi-year contract to grow produce and/or raise livestock for Dining Services. This option would greatly increase campus food security, as well as provide a wealth of educational and internship opportunities for students.