Location: Olin 103
Time: 4:00 pm
Present Mathias Bell, Mark Krusemeyer, Bessie Schwarz, Alex Chohlas-Wood, Mikaela Hagen, Mark Kanazawa, Steve Spehn
Absent Gary Wagenbach, Rob Lamppa
Secretary: Alex Chohlas-Wood
Subcommittees (not yet fully operational):
Student Revolving Fund
* Mathias, Mark Kanazawa, Bessie, Rob Lamppa
* Description: students can apply for money to help Carleton reach sustainability goals. Currently organizing and revising charter. Approval of proposals by CSA and EAC when they come.
* Currently looking for a student from the budget committee. If not available, then recruitment will go out to the general student body. Also need a EAC/CSA liason.
President’s Climate Commitment (PCC)
Divide committee into smaller groups:
Greenhouse Gas Inventory + Energy+ Heating
* Emphasis on importance of technological and behavioral changes.
Becky Dernbach mentions the Carleton Responsible Investment Committee (CRIC). EAC should contact their committee chair.
Waste/Composting:
* Work on getting information together.
Transportation:
* Meeting next week? Projects: Possible car sharing, replacing Carleton’s fleet vehicles, etc.
* Mathias mentions carpooling effort by KRLX to concerts in the Cities.
* Krusemeyer remembers ride-sharing map run by CSA to coordinate carpooling. Maybe we can work in the same direction – web based instead of physical map?
Announcments
Dining/Food:
* Independent, but they’ll update us on information. Vera Chang updates today.
* Contract is up for bid, and Carleton has not looked at a bid in the past four years. Annual revenue of 6 million. Revenue will likely increase because of increasing number of students at Carleton. Looking into a possible alternative to snack bar/dining hall (a deli). EAC’s role: sustainability should be a strong component in new contract. Can we brainstorm about ideas?
* Bessie: where will food supply come from? Will coop be a possible source?
* Steve: in RFP do we request address of sustainability? Typical requirements are philosophical and vague. Vera – possible benchmarks that we can create.
* Bessie: Will they incorporate student-grown food? Vera — Agroecology class is looking into this. Possible terms of the contract.
* Mark Kr.: Previous amazing spreads of local food at faculty retreat – possible source of information in who organized that?
Separate Resolutions
Energy-Star Purchasing Policy
* Steve’s come up with specific wording on a purchasing policy revision to require the purchase of energy-star appliances (when available).
o Adam: change “more carbon neutral” to “towards carbon neutrality”
o Alex: how will this be enforced? What is policy actually like?
o Adam: good idea to include actual logo on the page.
o Elizabeth: just like LEED building standards, we should encourage the highest energy star rating.
o Mark Kr.: we should advertise this change to separate departments. Mark Ka.: is purchasing decentralized anyway? Steve: yes, as he understands. We could create a possible list of supplies.
o Mark Kr.: what if Energy Star is unaffordable? Could you purchase non-energy star then? Steve – working still.
* Regarding benchmarks set by the PCC, how good are we timewise? We’re pretty good. We have time — let’s wait to make a motion until next weekend. Agreement that we want this to happen, though.
LEED Building Standards
* Steve: Make a recommendation to construction (?) committee. Fred Rogers, etc. Inherent questions – what does LEED silver mean? Inherent costs? Why not further? Our motion today might not be enough… but it might get things started.
* Bessie wants to make a motion to approve movement towards LEED silver certification.
* Adam wonders if this something applied only to new buildings, or to old buildings as well? Steve: only new buildings for now. LEED might be working on old building guidelines.
* Mikaela: Clare Kazanski’s presentation last year could tell us the cost differences between different LEED certification levels. Also, we should make sure that we have people on the “new dormitory buildings” committees that are on the EAC.