Panel discusses sustainability, ratings

Although Boston University received a B- on a College Sustainability Report Card compiled by the Sustainable Endowment Institute in Cambridge in 2008, panelists debated the objectivity of such rankings Monday night.

In the first lecture of a four part symposium series, ‘Sustainability and the City,’ hosted by the BU City Planning Program, more than 35 students and faculty listened to panelists speak about the complexities of institutional sustainability rankings and BU’s role in maintaining a sustainable environment.

BU Operations Vice President Gary Nicksa addressed BU’s sustainability improvements throughout recent years, including BU’s improvement from its D ranking three years ago.

‘Our Admissions Office is now completely paperless, and buildings like Myles Standish Hall and College of Communication now run completely on natural gas,’ Nicksa said. ‘BU has reduced CO2 emissions by over 16 percent over the past ten years, and our waste increases have not surpassed the growth of our campus.’

Although current college ranking systems are highly subjective, rankings are a key motivator behind college sustainability adjustments, Nexus Environmental Partners founder Tom Balf said. However, Nicksa said there is more to sustainability than just rankings.

‘Sustainability is not an issue of reputation,’ Nicksa said. ‘It is the balance between doing the right thing and sustaining an affordable education.’

President Robert Brown’s $1 million sustainability initiative began just this academic year and has so far brought on Dennis Carlberg as sustainability director. Carlberg heads the Sustainability Committee, which is composed of administrators, faculty and students.

Metropolitan College applied social sciences professor Enrique Silva said it will be interesting to see if colleges reach a consensus on which ranking will determine sustainability.

‘Even if they do come to an agreement, it might not necessarily be the best one since there are ranking systems that give higher scores to institutions that cannot fulfill their promises,’ Silvia said.

Carlberg said BU needs to improve the sustainability of current buildings, which they are slowly doing. Although the recently finished Student Village Phase II has sustainable features such as a dual-flushing toilet, it is not LEED certified, which means the building has not been evaluated to meet certain standards of sustainability.

‘I used to be an architect, and I can tell you that demolishing buildings and reconstructing new ones is the biggest waste of energy,’ Carlberg said. ‘Even if the new buildings are more sustainable than the old ones, the whole process is a waste of energy.’

Charity Coleman, a graduate student, said she is somewhat skeptical of BU’s sustainability ranking improvement.

‘The symposium opened my eyes to how BU hasn’t reached out with the community, which has slowed down their progress in sustainability,’ Coleman said. ‘I believe that the improvement in our scores is partially due to improvements we have made, but it also has to do with how the school has improved in representing itself to the committees.’