Campus Taking Steps to Reduce Its Environmental Impact

WINTERVILLE�Pitt Community College is taking steps to reduce the campus�s environmental impact and has established a Sustainability Committee to lead the effort.

Created in September, the committee has been charged with encouraging students and employees to conserve resources whenever possible. It is part of a push by community colleges statewide to convey messages of environmental awareness.

"Environmental education is an important part of our mission as a community college, and we will strive as a campus to model good practices in building design, training of workers for green jobs, and instilling better habits of energy consumption and conservation,� PCC President G. Dennis Massey said. �I am proud of the leadership of Pitt Community College's Sustainability Committee in developing new approaches and ways of thinking for our students, faculty and staff."

Since the committee�s formation, members have made presentations on sustainability to classrooms campus-wide in order to build environmental awareness and gain insight as to what students already know about it. Many committee members have expressed surprise at how environmentally unaware many students are.

�Many students have assumed that manufacturers are the stewards of the environment with the production of eco-friendly products, or that the government will protect them with regulations,� said Carnell Lamm, a PCC admissions counselor who co-chairs the school�s Sustainability Committee. �They are now beginning to see that we all must do more to keep our community healthy and green.�

In the weeks ahead, Sustainability Committee members will visit campus buildings and PCC�s Greenville Center to assess how well students and employees are conserving resources. They will look for things like faucets left running, lights and computers left on in empty rooms, and windows left open with the heat still running.

The information collected through the visits will be used as part of an Energy Challenge competition in which buildings on campus compete to become the most energy-efficient.

The Sustainability Committee is also seeking to increase recycling opportunities on campus and to promote websites pertaining to environmental sustainment. The group has also developed a student pledge in order to obtain student commitment to making positive changes in their lives to conserve resources at PCC.

�The student pledge is a statement of our environmental responsibility and it reminds us of whatever we do to the planet, we do to ourselves,� Lamm said. �Students responded favorably to the idea of being stakeholders in the school�s recycling efforts.�

Maurey Verzier, who is Lamm's Sustainability co-chair, says she hopes students and employees will take sustainability concepts home and conserve there as well.

And one message all committee members say they hope to convey is that real money is wasted every day because people are environmentally unaware.

Van Madray, dean of PCC�s Construction and Industrial Technology Division, said that when the college renovated the Robert Lee Humber Building in 2005 and brought it in line with modern energy efficiency standards, the cost of operating the nearly 40-year-old classroom building dropped significantly.

In addition to the financial implications involved with sustainability, committee member Wayne Caldwell said being more environmentally aware has an impact on health as well.

Caldwell, who works with the Greenville Climate Protection Program, explained that energy efficiency reduces harmful byproducts created by energy sources, such as coal. By reducing energy consumption, he said there would be less mercury in waterways and particulate matter in the air, meaning a cleaner environment and a healthier population.

03/02/2009