In April 2009, RIT signed onto the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment, pledging to become Fossil Fuel-Free by 2045. This climate commitment consisted of several reduction targets, including a 25% reduction in purchased energy use by 2025 and a 40% reduction by 2030 (relative to a 2009 baseline). As climate change’s effects become more apparent in everyday life, delivery on the sustainability commitments made by large institutions like RIT becomes increasingly critical.
Jameson Baker, a third year Software Engineering student, serves as the Student Government’s Facilities, Parking, Transportation, and Sustainability Committee Chair. Baker gauges student opinion on RIT’s sustainability efforts through PawPrints, SG’s student petitioning system. Baker found interest in the topic is lacking, with only a small share of petitions addressing on-campus sustainability.
“I do not generally see sustainability as a priority for RIT’s student population,” Baker said, citing that only 2.3% of charged PawPrints (those that earn greater than 200 signatures) related to sustainability in the last five years. “This is not to say that RIT students do not care about the university’s strides toward sustainability; more so, the actionable change students are looking for seems to be focused on other aspects of the RIT community,” he explained.
When asked about RIT’s sustainability progress, Baker commended the university, stating that RIT is far more transparent about its sustainability actions than its counterparts. Despite that, Baker said he is unaware of the specific steps RIT is taking toward sustainability.
RIT celebrates many sustainability initiatives online. These statistics include eight LEED-certified buildings, which are certified by the U.S. Green Building Council as environmentally sustainable, energy-efficient and healthier for occupants. They also include the installation of 13,000 solar panels, which are found on certain academic buildings, including the Engineering Technology Hall and Sustainability Institute, and several annex fields close to campus.
Aside from a 2016 update indicating a 30% decrease in carbon dioxide emissions, RIT’s websites lack up-to-date quantitative data about the university’s climate actions. For example, those 13,000 solar panels have a collective capacity of 4,417 kW. However, this capacity metric reveals little about the actual energy that these panels generate, which depends on several other factors, such as average sunlight hours. Similarly, university websites lack explicit updates on the university’s progress toward the Climate Commitment. Sustainability administrators could not be reached for comment, leaving RIT’s general population — including students such as Baker — in the dark as to whether these sustainable promises have actually been fulfilled.
Finding Alternatives
Research on campus is another significant aspect of RIT’s sustainability policy. Callie Babbitt, a Professor of Sustainability at RIT and a past U.S. Delegate to the 2017 G7 Environmental Ministers Meeting, teaches graduate students about sustainability science and industrial ecology. Babbitt researches the challenge of food waste, explaining that it is a widespread phenomenon in the United States.
“In the US, about 30% of the food we produce is never eaten, and most ends up in the landfill, where it leads to greenhouse gas emissions,” Babbitt noted.
Babbitt’s research group investigates ways to recover the energy and nutrients from unavoidable food waste. Her team studies techniques such as anaerobic digestion, a process that converts food waste into bio-natural gas that can be used the same way as fossil fuels.
A product of sustainability research is circulating at the Kitchen at Brick City in the form of bright green plastic takeout containers. The containers are a part of the pilot of RIT’s Reusable Container Program, a partnership with the Reusables company, which seeks to reduce waste during mealtime. The containers are made from BPA-free polypropylene, a type of plastic that is regarded as one of the most sustainable conventional plastics due to its relatively low carbon footprint and recyclability.
Ultimately, sustainability efforts on campus are demonstrated through the research of sustainability-oriented faculty and continued implementation of greener infrastructure; although specific administrative progress towards fulfilling RIT’s Climate Commitment remains obscure.
