UCF aims to be greener with the formation of a new Sustainability Alliance.
Five key campus departments that focus on environmental sustainability are joining together this fall to replace the previous Environmental Management System and create an all-encompassing alliance.
"The group of individuals that are now in place have a strong interest in preserving the environment and seeing that we have effective energy use," said Lee Kernek, associate vice president of Administration and Finance. "So the group came about because of that common desire for a sustainable campus."
The five departments included in the new alliance are the Physical Plant, the Center for Energy and Sustainability, Campus Landscape and Natural Resources, the UCF Arboretum and the UCF Department for Environmental Health and Safety.
The alliance, still in the beginning phases of creation, is working on drafting a mission statement and a set of objectives that will encompass an environmental policy focused on teaching, research and service.
"We're focusing on operations first because it's achievable for the facilities department within UCF," said Alaina Bernard, assistant director and environmental steward for the UCF Arboretum. "We're going to include research and teaching eventually, but right now, we're focusing on facilities since it is priority."
The alliance was also created in the wake of UCF's budget cuts, which marked some of the group's prospective cost-saving projects.
"I think there are possible financial benefits to having a sustainable environment," Kernek said. "For example, right now we're looking at ways we can conserve energy, and energy is at the table as part of this group."
A main goal of the alliance is to provide members with the opportunity to come together and discuss key issues, keeping one another informed on current and upcoming projects as well as bringing new concerns to the table.
"What we haven't seen in the past is the cross communication and single voice, and that's really what we're looking for with this," Kernek said. "All of these organizations are now communicating about what they have going on, and they're working together on the plans and permits and that kind of stuff."
The alliance is also planning on working with businesses and organizations outside of the campus.
"We will also have one entity that will be in charge of working with the outside organizations," Kernek said. "And then that same individual will be responsible for making sure the back-flow of information occurs among all the groups."
Some of the outside groups the alliance has already been in touch with are Progress Energy, the St. Johns River Water Management District and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.
"We met with Progress Energy to talk about forming a partnership with them to work on energy savings for the campus," Kernek said.
The alliance also intends to eventually reach out to the student body.
"Once the group is really functioning and they're out there and they've set their course, we plan on doing actual outreach - going to student groups and actually going out and talking about ways they can get involved and what the group is doing and how we can have a more sustainable environment on this campus," Kernek said.
Maura Dunn, a freshman statistics major at UCF, said that on-campus residents can start making the campus a more sustainable place right now.
"For kids that live on campus, if they just turned up their thermostat a couple of degrees, that would save a ton of money," she said. "We could also use more recycle bins, especially with all the water and soda that is used. I have only seen two on campus."
To help in their goal to involve students, the alliance will be creating a sub-committee to work specifically on student environmental group Eco-Advocate's Florida Green Fee campaign. The Green Fee is a student fee intended to generate money that will be spent on efforts to increase sustainability throughout UCF.
"The plethora of environmental problems facing UCF are all rooted in a lack of funding and forward thinking on behalf of the Master Plan Committee," said Alex Berkun, environment and sustainability coordinator for the Student Government Association at UCF. "The Green Fee has the potential to solve all of these problems caused by the lack of foresight by the administration, by providing funding for sustainable practices on campus."
"The committee will be composed of students and staff, that way the students' inputs will be heard but also be compounded by what the staff can achieve," Bernard said.
In addition to education and outreach, the alliance and each of the departments within it have a vast amount of current and prospective projects in the works including long-term and short-term payback projects that they hope to see carried out under the alliance.
"We have projects that we see are a good payback, where you can use money now and get your payback within the year and those are really positive kinds of programs for us," Kernek said. "There are also some bigger projects - long-term projects - but there is a multitude of one-year projects."
One of the short-term, good payback projects includes the Center for Energy and Sustainability's building commissioning project. One of this project's accomplishments was giving the air conditioning systems in Colbourn Hall and Classroom Building I a tune-up.
"The results of that project are an $85,000 savings in a 12-month period," said Stacey Radnor, marketing specialist at the Center for Energy and Sustainability.
With UCF being located in an urban environment, one of the main long-term concerns of the Alliance is temperature increase from impervious surfaces.
"One of the more long-term projects that will help reduce the environmental footprint on campus is the planting of pine trees around campus to increase the canopy, which will help decrease the campus temperature," Bernard said. "The idea is you increase your canopy which reduces your temperature, thus saving energy costs."
Ali Khan, a graduate student studying marketing at UCF, said he thinks UCF was doing well environmentally, even before all of the new projects to improve the campus environment.
"My top environmental concerns are global warming and land development issues," Khan said. "UCF does land development but it's more commercial land they use versus, for example, rain forest land. There is nothing being built here that's not useful to the community because it's a learning center and we need the facilities."
Martin Quigley, the director of Landscape and Natural Resources and the Arboretum, reiterated the importance of environmental sustainability and the Alliance's goal to act in accordance with the true definition of that word.
"We can't pollute the air and water, use up non-renewable resources or take profits on short-time business if we are to be responsible for the good of future generations," Quigley said.
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