Location: Sayles-Hill 253

Time: 5:00 pm

Present Phil Camill, Richard Strong, Kirk Campbell, Dennis Easley, Kelly Kollman, Dave Holman, Gary Wagenbach, Cailey Gibson

Absent Andrew Navratil, Tricia England

Secretary: Lauren Miller

** = Action to be taken

On last meeting/minutes:

~ Lauren reminded everyone of notes from last week, asking assistance from the group with the minutes of 11-04-04, asking Dave to supply the ppt document of their Green Roofs presentation and asking general members to help supply info on who some of the extra attendees of that meeting were.

Compact fluorescent lightbulbs:

~ Nina Mukherji came to represent Green House, and agreed that Green House would be responsible for distributing CFLs this year and the beginning of next year (via Res Life and the RAs). Richard wanted to know how many and if we should get 40, 60, and 100W bulbs; it was decided to just get about 160 60W bulbs for this year.

~ **Kirk is to contact Nina about this.

Announcements:

~ Earth Day April 22nd. Earth Week 18th-22nd. Contact Lauren with ideas for events, speakers, etc.

Compost:

~ Lauren asked for update on status of composter at St Olaf.

~ Richard: They’re going ahead with it.

~ Dave: How much is this costing them?

~ Richard: ~$150 000, plus cost of constructing building, etc.

~ Dave talked to Joe Winegardner about composting; Joe said that it wouldn’t require any major staffing or operational changes if we were to start composting, b/c employees already have to stand at dishline and scrape plates.

~ Dennis mentioned that they have centrifuge-like dehydrator device at Olaf that removes water thus reduces waste stream

~ That would require operational changes b/c we don’t have anything like that.

~ Lauren brought up that Olaf is buying biodegradable silverware, cups, etc. www.recycleholics.com

~ Olaf’s composting will take all their pizza boxes – pretty neat.

Paper use:

~ Kelly talked with Julia. The default to send to depts is recycled, so about ~65% of what they send out is recycled (30% post-consumer). The non-recycled is eucalyptus. General agreement that eucalyptus isn’t the best solution, b/c eucalyptus plantations have a lot of negative env impacts. Julia also named a few offices that have standing orders for non-recycled paper, eg. Pres Ofc and Alumni Affairs

~ General doubts expressed about these numbers – we should investigate this.

~ Rika: report on libe and CMC – Troy Barkmeier says there is “no rhyme or reason” to whether they get recycled or non-recycled their. He said that currently up to 60% post-consumer content is fine for printer/copy machines.

~ **Decided a phone survey of the depts. (aimed at dept secretaries when possible) is the most effective way to go about this. SOPE can conduct the survey under the name/sponsorship of the EAC so that work is allocated to students but it seems official.

~ **Kelly will get back to Julia to get more info and also look into getting some 60% post-consumer paper.

Phil’s Service Learning/sustainability class:

~ EAC folks welcome to come to next discussion session – significant to larger sust initiative

~ Next topic will be Sustainability Guidelines/LEED stds etc.

Sustainability initiative:

~ Phil: want to get everybody on board: Building Committee, Budget Committee, Planning and Purchasing, Grounds, Academic side of things (Jen)

~ ** Lizzy: Voice article (Thursday)

~ Jen: get academics involved

~ Phil: get Mary Savina involved, ECC, Deborah Appleman

~ Jen: Sustainability models

~ Sustainability distro

Website:

~ Cailey: could we get draft page going? At least to put up ideas, get orgs together, SOPE, MPIRG, GreenHs, Farmhs, etc.

Actions:

~ Set up conversations with the following groups:

× President Oden

× VP Fred Rogers

× Staff

× Buildings/Facilities/Grounds

× Academic Depts

~ Important events to do this:

× Staff Meetings

× Dean’s Meeting

× President’s quarterly meeting

~ ** Phil: will draft page on the sustainability initiative – something punchy, include reasons, Ethical, Monetary, Admissions, etc.

~ Kelly to think out a business management approach, something like ISO 14000.

~ Dave and Lauren: Should frame this as part of/integrated with the 100-yr plan

~ Ric: trustee statement.

~ Dennis: not to be grouchy, but maybe we should divide into subgroups to be more effective and actually manage to get through everything at meetings:

× Student: Cailey, Lizzy, Rika, Lauren, Dave (Andrew and Tricia probably)

× Academic/Sustainability Statement Draft: Phil, Jen, Rich, Kelly, Lauren

× Building and Grounds: Dennis, Richard, Kirk

Next Meeting: Thurs, February 10th, 5:00pm, Sayles-Hill 251

(Note – following meetings, Feb 24th and Mar 10th, will be in S-H 253!)