{"id":9626,"date":"2015-08-20T12:18:41","date_gmt":"2015-08-20T18:18:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/?p=9626"},"modified":"2015-08-21T12:03:09","modified_gmt":"2015-08-21T18:03:09","slug":"from-solar-panels-to-french-fry-fumes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/2015\/08\/from-solar-panels-to-french-fry-fumes\/","title":{"rendered":"From Solar Panels to French Fry Fumes"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"padding: 15px;width: 260px;float: right; border: 1px solid #ccc; margin-left: 15px; background: #ffc300;\">\n<h4 style=\"margin-top: 0;\">Related Stories<\/h4>\n<ul style=\"margin-left: 20px;\">\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/2015\/08\/taking-care-with-carbon\/\">Taking Care with Carbon<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/2015\/08\/shift-happens\/\">Shift Happens<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/2015\/08\/veggie-trails\/\">Veggie Trails<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/2015\/04\/cc-selected-as-epa-green-power-partner\/\">CC Selected as EPA Green Power Partner<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p>Solar often claims Big Man on Campus status \u2014 with flashy panels, photogenic impact, and a certain sustainable swagger \u2014 but it\u2019s not the only player with a stake in the game.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe typical reaction, when you say sustainability, is that people think of environment,\u201d said Ian Johnson, Colorado College\u2019s sustainability director. And on a college campus, he added, that usually ends up manifesting itself through buildings and structures (like those solar arrays), energy use, water use, and the associated carbon footprint.<\/p>\n<p>But it\u2019s really only a third, or perhaps a quarter, of it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe other pieces are the financial side. Things have to be financially sustainable in the long run or they\u2019re going to fall apart,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cThey have to be socially sustainable as well \u2014 that\u2019s the least understood piece of sustainability. At the core of the concept of sustainability, we\u2019re really talking about our human experience within our ecosphere, and about making that a thriving experience for everyone. The concept of a thriving community applies universally to all ages, income levels, education levels, races, sexual orientations, religions, and all other classes and groups of people. Making sure that we\u2019ve got equitable resources and equitable opportunities really comes into play in the discipline of sustainability.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Underpinning all three of those pieces is what Johnson believes is key to all of it: community.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe can focus on the triple bottom line \u2014 the financial, the environmental, and the social side \u2014 but if we aren\u2019t doing that where we live and creating a just and resilient community where we live, then we\u2019re really still missing the point of it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo it all comes back to the clich\u00e9 of \u2018think globally, act locally.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n<p><div id=\"attachment_9628\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/files\/2015\/08\/CC_BUL-August-p13-Sustainability-IanJohnson-2015.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-9628\" data-attachment-id=\"9628\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/2015\/08\/from-solar-panels-to-french-fry-fumes\/ian-johnson-sustainability\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/files\/2015\/08\/CC_BUL-August-p13-Sustainability-IanJohnson-2015.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"800,600\" data-comments-opened=\"0\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;2.8&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;Bryan Oller&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;NIKON D800&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;Sustainability Director Ian Johnson works on a filtration system for CC&#039;s Veggie Van.  The system will filter out particles and moisture from waste vegetable oil gathered from food service operations. The oil will then fuel the van.  Students will be able to use the van for trips locally and regionally.&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;1434104022&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;Colorado College&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;17&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;640&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0.004&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;IAN JOHNSON SUSTAINABILITY&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"IAN JOHNSON SUSTAINABILITY\" data-image-description=\"&lt;p&gt;Sustainability Director Ian Johnson works on a filtration system for CC&#8217;s Veggie Van.  The system will filter out particles and moisture from waste vegetable oil gathered from food service operations. The oil will then fuel the van.  Students will be able to use the van for trips locally and regionally.&lt;\/p&gt;\n\" data-image-caption=\"&lt;p&gt;Sustainability Director Ian Johnson works on a filtration system for CC&#8217;s Veggie Van.  The system will filter out particles and moisture from waste vegetable oil gathered from food service operations. The oil will then fuel the van.  Students will be able to use the van for trips locally and regionally.&lt;\/p&gt;\n\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/files\/2015\/08\/CC_BUL-August-p13-Sustainability-IanJohnson-2015-300x225.jpg\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/files\/2015\/08\/CC_BUL-August-p13-Sustainability-IanJohnson-2015.jpg\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-9628\" alt=\"Sustainability Director Ian Johnson works on a filtration system for CC's Veggie Van.  The system will filter out particles and moisture from waste vegetable oil gathered from food service operations. The oil will then fuel the van.  Students will be able to use the van for trips locally and regionally.\" src=\"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/files\/2015\/08\/CC_BUL-August-p13-Sustainability-IanJohnson-2015-300x225.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/files\/2015\/08\/CC_BUL-August-p13-Sustainability-IanJohnson-2015-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/files\/2015\/08\/CC_BUL-August-p13-Sustainability-IanJohnson-2015-651x488.jpg 651w, https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/files\/2015\/08\/CC_BUL-August-p13-Sustainability-IanJohnson-2015-292x219.jpg 292w, https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/files\/2015\/08\/CC_BUL-August-p13-Sustainability-IanJohnson-2015-600x450.jpg 600w, https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/files\/2015\/08\/CC_BUL-August-p13-Sustainability-IanJohnson-2015.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-9628\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sustainability Director Ian Johnson works on a filtration system for CC&#8217;s Veggie Van. The system will filter out particles and moisture from waste vegetable oil gathered from food service operations. The oil will then fuel the van. Students will be able to use the van for trips locally and regionally.<\/p><\/div><br \/>\nSpend even a little time with Johnson over coffee and you\u2019ll be impressed by the web of community connections that are happening across campus and throughout the Pikes Peak Region.<\/p>\n<p>From collaborating with local nonprofits to help generate offsets in order to reach CC\u2019s goal of carbon neutrality (See \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/2015\/08\/taking-care-with-carbon\/\">Taking Care with Carbon<\/a>\u201d) and partnering with local farmers on campus food services, to planning for a possible eco-village on the east side of campus and buying into SunShare community solar gardens (a project founded by <strong>David Amster-Olszewski \u201909<\/strong>), many of the sustainability-related projects happening at CC engage folks and ideas from all over.<\/p>\n<p>One project in particular, Sense of Place programming, debuted at New Student Orientation last year. About 700 students (first-years and Priddy outdoor education trip leaders) participated in a \u201cField Guide to Colorado Springs\u201d workshop, learning about local ecology, geology, natural and cultural history, food and watersheds, energy and waste systems, and area amenities.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAll of it is at a very broad level,\u201d Johnson said, \u201cbut really trying to incite students, to\u00a0pique their interest in some way, shape, or form.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sense of place means something different to everybody, he added, but this project encourages students to \u201cdig in and start to investigate other aspects of this place and really make it their home, make it their study grounds for the next four years.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>All of these projects are part of what helped kick CC from a Silver Rating through the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education\u2019s Sustainability Tracking, Assessment, and Rating System (STARS) last year (CC\u2019s first year to apply) to a Gold Rating this summer.<\/p>\n<p>Of course those ratings wouldn\u2019t have been possible without leadership, primarily over the past four years, by the 40-plus-member Campus Sustainability Council: adding various sustainability components to the college\u2019s strategic plan in 2011 (including prioritizing staffing \u2014 hiring both Johnson and Mark Ferguson, campus operations and plant manager, in 2012); lobbying for and successfully increasing dedicated budget for projects; and presenting a plan and strategy for reaching CC\u2019s carbon neutrality goal.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe model is a little bit different, in that we\u2019re\u00a0not working strictly out of our office anymore,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cIt\u2019s not the black box of sustainability anymore. We\u2019re really pushing tentacles out into the rest of the campus and trying to make it a core piece of what everybody\u2019s doing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re just infiltrating,\u201d he said with a laugh. \u201cTaking over the world.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sustainability efforts on campus have made big strides lately. See how CC is diverting waste, saving resources, and cutting CO2. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":9627,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-9626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-august-2015","tag-features"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/files\/2015\/08\/solar.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9626"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9626\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9827,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9626\/revisions\/9827"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}