Students walk along the 冈本视频 Academic Quad during the fall.
冈本视频鈥檚 Green Revolving Loan Fund is a newly-launched initiative geared toward reducing the university鈥檚 carbon footprint, and staff in the Buildings and Grounds Department are already leading the way with the fund鈥檚 first energy-saving project.
The loan fund, which is seeded with $230,000, is designed to support significant physical upgrades that have a clear, measurable change in the .
鈥淭he requirements for each project is that they reduce our ecological or carbon footprint, and it has to have a return on investment,鈥 said John Pumilio, director of the Office of Sustainability. 鈥淚t has to save money and reduce our resource use, with an extra attention on carbon to help meet our .鈥
Individuals with project ideas need to complete and submit a proposal to the Sustainability Council for review, and if the suggestion is approved, the fund finances the cost of the upgrades, and the savings from implementation go to pay back the loan, plus 20 percent, to grow the overall pool of money to fund future projects.
The first identified green loan went to the replacement of 88 light bulbs in . That $1,300 project will cut about 33,000 kilowatts of energy use each year, take less than a year to repay, and will save the university nearly $20,000 during the expected lifespan of the new energy-efficient bulbs.
鈥淲e鈥檙e starting small so we can understand how to best measure the effort. Because of the size of the fund and the abundance of projects that we could potentially take on, we are focused only on buildings and grounds projects right now, Pumilio said. 鈥淏ut in the future, I think we鈥檒l be reviewing a lot of proposals from outside B+G.鈥
冈本视频 has in time for the university鈥檚 bicentennial. The revolving loan fund contributes to a concerted effort to improve building standards, increase recycling, reduce waste, and new programmatic offerings that enhances teaching and learning for long-term sustainability on campus.