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Although Baruch College does not have an organized sustainability program in place, the college is working on numerous projects right now that can go a long way to making the campus greener.
One major project in the works is a joint effort from CUNY, Dormitory Authority State of New York and Baruch to do retro commissioning of the Newman Vertical Campus and the Information and Technology buildings. Those two buildings together consist of about two-thirds of Baruch's total space.
Retro commissioning is a process by which a group of experts come in and determine how building equipment and systems function together. This would be a major step for Baruch.
"When you do retro commissioning, you're 90 percent of the way of getting to a LEED certified building. It's probably the most recognized certification program in the world," said Assistant Vice President of Campus Operations Jim Lloyd.
LEED, the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, created by the Green Building Council is perhaps the most recognized certification program in the world.
This project kicked off on Monday, April 28 and the process of identifying the opportunities to reduce energy will take about a year. In addition, Lloyd pointed out that obtaining some capital funding from the state to make some corrections to the facilities could take upwards of five years on the North Campus. On the South campus, he feels Baruch has a huge opportunity with the renovation of 17 Lexington to basically design and build a sustainable building.
Other green projects that the school is working on include the selection of the new cafeteria vendor. In that scope of work, Lloyd has required that the chosen vendor develop a sustainable operation, which does not mean just getting rid of Styrofoam cups. It also includes the water and energy usage reduction and where the vendor chooses to buy their food.
"Buying locally, organically and fresh all fits into the sustainability program. To the extent that you have waste, do what you can to minimize what goes to landfills. Food scraps can go to a composting pile somewhere outside of Manhattan," said Lloyd. Baruch officials said they will be naming the new vendor within the next four weeks.
Another project in the Vertical Campus and the Information and Technology Building involves the replacement of all the sink valves in the restrooms with automatic shut-off valves.
"When the building was originally built, they put automatic shutoff valves in but they didn't work. They stuck and they stay on and water just runs and is wasted. About a year ago and half ago, we installed a new model in the third floor of the men's room Vertical Campus building and been watching how they have been working and they work great," said Lloyd.
The college has ordered 970 valves and the plumbers are gradually replacing every one of those valves. This project should be finished by June 30.
Lloyd also mentioned that Baruch received funding about two years ago to install and upgrade the exterior lighting of the North campus. As a result, Lloyd required the vendor to come up with sustainable solutions for that lighting.
The college is looking at light-emitting diode bulbs which, according to sciencedaily.com, "use less power and can be more efficiently manufactured than current technology."
Prior to his arrival at Baruch, Lloyd, who has been studying sustainability since 1997, was an associate vice president at Oregon State University, which was just named a Top 25 High Education Sustainable Campus in the United States. For Lloyd, making a green Baruch makes perfect sense.
"It's been something that has been thought about a lot. We need to move to a more robust sustainable program," said Lloyd. "CUNY said 'You established a council and need to reduce your carbon footprint by 2017 by a certain amount' and so there is a need to comply with that."
Lloyd also offered a very interesting perspective with regards to sustainability at Baruch, what he referred to as the "three P's."
"When you do a sustainable building, you're looking at savings in three areas: Profits, which you're saving in utilities, People, which is their health and the Planet which is saved."
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