The University Record will feature more about the campus sustainability effort and highlight the upcoming EnergyFest in a special supplement Sept. 13.

The issue of sustainability at U-M took on greater meaning last year when President Mary Sue Coleman said in her annual State of University speech that “U-M is strengthening its long-standing commitment to sustainability across the board — in education, research, operations and engagement.” Kevin Brown of the University Record recently sat down to discuss this institutional topic with three U-M sustainability leaders — Terry Alexander, executive director for the Office of Campus Sustainability; Don Scavia, special counsel to the president for sustainability, Graham Family Professor of Environmental Sustainability, professor of natural resources and environment, professor of civil and environmental engineering, and the director of the Graham Environmental Sustainability Institute; and Ryan Smith of the Student Sustainability Initiative.

Record: Let’s start by defining what sustainability means at U-M?

Don Scavia: Sustainability is using the Earth’s resources in ways that satisfy our needs, but don’t impede future generations from satisfying their needs.

Record: What’s the overarching goal for this initiative?

Terry Alexander: The overarching goal that’s been set by President Coleman is to have the University of Michigan recognized as a world-class leader in sustainability. Internally, I think it goes beyond that in terms of striking the balance between being as green and sustainable as possible from the environmental standpoint, balanced against the mission of the university to educate and perform world-class research, balanced against the economic realities that we all live with.

Record: Why is this important to pursue?

Ryan Smith: I think it’s a matter of just caring about one another. Since at its core, sustainability is an issue about the human race, it’s increasing your consciousness to that level.

Alexander: The other piece is that it is no secret the world is facing a crisis when it comes to resources, energy, population and the climate change issues that are happening. So everything we can do operationally to make the campus greener, helping to educate the next generation of leaders who are going to help us fix the world, to world-class research that’s going to lead to solutions of these problems — all of these combined will help us fix the issues that are affecting us today.

Record: Planet Blue, The Sustainable Difference, has been unveiled as the brand and tagline for U-M sustainability. Why was this chosen and what should the campus community take from this?

Scavia: It was chosen for a number of reasons. One, in a simple phrase it really tells the whole story. It is about Planet Blue. It’s also about sustaining the long-term traditions that we have at U-M focused on the environment, and it builds on a very strong, well-recognized internal program called Planet Blue (Operations Team), which has great brand recognition.

Record: When President Coleman made her declaration last fall that U-M was strengthening its commitment to sustainability, she referenced the university’s long-standing commitment to sustainability. Talk about this from the university’s perspective.

Scavia: One really good example was the establishment of the Erb Institute, which is now 15 years old. Through the wisdom of the Erb family to support that program, we have probably the best dual master’s degree with business and natural resources in the country. Well respected by other schools, by the business community, by the natural resource community, and that’s been in place for 15 years.

We have strong natural resource-based programs in our Biological Station and other field sites. Our Center for Sustainable Systems in the School of Natural Resources and Environment has been in place for more than a decade. So we have been in this business for quite some time.

Alexander: From the operations side, we have been dealing with environmental issues for decades. We had one of the earliest campus recycling programs and our recycling program at the football stadium has been one of the largest in the country for several decades. We have one of the largest fleets of alternative fuel vehicles for an academic institution, with a little over 500 vehicles that operate on alternative fuels. Our bus system keeps expanding every year. We have approximately 6 million riders a year on the U-M Bus System, and over the last couple of years we have put programs in place with the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority so that faculty, students and staff can ride for free on those buses. The university subsidizes those rides, but it’s a real benefit to get mass transit in place and reduce cars coming to campus.

We have had storm water programs underway for almost 15 years on campus. We constructed a large wetland system on North Campus by the Art and Architecture Building that captures the run-off from approximately 80 acres that cleans the water before it infiltrates the ground.

We’ve been an ENERGY STAR Partner of the Year with the EPA, our power plant has received numerous awards from the EPA for energy conservation — so sustainability is not new to us.

Smith: I think it’s really important to have had this long-term commitment to something that invokes long-term change. Many of today’s changes are for the future, and I think the student body is really excited about it.

Scavia: And that is the essence behind The Sustainable Difference tagline.

Record: So for the average person at the university, why should they care about sustainability as an issue? What can they do to help move the initiative forward?

Smith: For the average student, sustainability is about understanding how the world works and where things come from and where things go. Usually, people’s minds tend not to think about certain aspects of how they live — say, where their food comes from or where their waste goes after they are done with it. Thinking about sustainable concepts really expands your mind to better understand these things.

Students come here from all over the world to gain knowledge about the world, and thinking about sustainability is one of the ways to do that. It’s really something that leads you to think more about how the world works and to challenge yourself to be treat it better for the betterment of not only the planet, but for the human race.

Alexander: From a practical aspect, one of the biggest drivers on this campus from a cost standpoint is energy. Our energy bill on a campus is around $110 million a year, and the more that we can do to reduce that cost, the more investment we can make in programs on campus and with our facilities.

We have a project that’s been underway for a couple of years now called Planet Blue, which is where the sustainability tagline grew out of. The Planet Blue Operations Teams go into buildings and work to fine tune the systems and engage building occupants on how to operate the buildings correctly. Out of the first 35 buildings that we have completed so far, we are seeing about $3 million a year in energy savings. That’s substantial when you think about the budget situation that we are in.

Scavia: I really want to underscore that in our current budget climate, the less we use resources and the more we reuse and recycle, the more flexibility we have to invest in new education programs, new and better facilities, and new and better research. It’s one of these great opportunities where it’s not only the right thing to do, but it’s also the economically smart thing to do.