AUGUSTA Smaller footprints at UMA
 

BY MATTHEW STONE
Staff Writer
 
09/16/2009

AUGUSTA -- University of Maine at Augusta employees will teleconference more often, entire academic programs will move online and UMA students will have access to free public-transit passes.
All are steps at the crux of an action plan, released Tuesday, that aims to cut the 5,000-student university's greenhouse gas emissions more than 80 percent by 2050.

UMA released its climate plan in tandem with dozens of other colleges across the country as part of a national initiative known as the American College and University Presidents' Climate Commitment. Since 2007, 650 colleges and universities have signed on to the commitment, which requires colleges to develop and implement plans that limit campus emissions as a way to combat global warming.

For UMA, the plan's release is the result of two years of work since the college became a charter member of the climate commitment.

That work included undertaking a comprehensive inventory of all energy used at UMA and developing workable steps for reducing emissions.

"That's a pretty short time period," said Sheila Bennett, a natural-sciences professor who led the UMA committee that authored the climate action plan.

With no student residence halls, UMA's greenhouse gas inventory hinged on plan writers' ability to determine how much energy students, professors and employees expend commuting.

The committee, which calls itself the Campus Green, surveyed students about their commutes to UMA's Augusta and Bangor campuses and to remote learning centers located throughout Maine.

Some 45 percent of UMA's greenhouse gas emissions can be attributed to student commutes, according to the climate action plan.

"Those are the emissions that need to be addressed in a very significant way," Bennett said.

That's why the plan recommends a series of steps for expanding UMA's online course offerings, reducing the number of in-person classes meeting two or more times a week, and broadcasting more lectures to remote learning centers with video-conferencing technology.

"It's not a great stretch for our campus to recommend that we move in this direction in order not only to save money, but also to reduce our carbon footprint," Bennett said.

While other central Maine colleges have signed the commitment, UMA was the only college to release an action plan Tuesday.

At Unity College, a "sustainability fellow" will conduct an inventory of energy use by campus buildings, said Jesse Pyles, the college's sustainability coordinator.

In the interim, Pyles said, he'll work with students and professors to develop the climate action plan.

"For us, it's about being able to educate and involve students in the climate action process," he said.

The 560-student college expects to publish a climate action plan by January, Pyles said. It's a plan that will inform future development on campus, he said.

"We're designing with the environment in mind," he said.

The University of Maine at Farmington is preparing a plan for a January release, spokeswoman April Mulherin said.

Colby College in Waterville plans a May 2010 release. Kennebec Valley Community College in Fairfield expects to complete a plan by May 2011.