THE NINE ELEMENTS OF A SUSTAINABLE CAMPUS

Mitchell Thomashow

Mitchell Thomashow is the President of Unity College. He is the author of

two books, Ecological Identity: Becoming a Reflective Environmentalist
(The MIT Press, 1995) and Bringing the Biosphere Home (The MIT Press,
2001) and he is a Steering Committee Member of the American College &
University Presidents Climate Commitment (ACUPCC).

From the Whole Earth Catalog to a Sustainable Campus

Forty years ago, in the late 1960s, I was a college student in
New York City. Every Friday afternoon I would hop on the subway, get
off at Bleecker Street, and wander through the record stores and
bookshops. It was an exciting time to be a student given the profound
social, cultural, and political changes. Every week there would be new
books, magazines or records in the shops and I wanted to read and
listen to all of them.
One day I spotted an unusual, oversized paperback book with a
stunning picture of the earth on the cover. Laced across the top in a
familiar 60s San Francisco style font was the title: The Whole Earth

Catalog. I flipped through the pages and glanced at the sections

whole systems, natural history, land use, community, learning, tools
and each page was organized like the things to do books I used to
play with as a kid. The catalog recommended books to read, maps to
peruse, ideas to consider, and tools of all kinds. Implicit throughout
the text was a message of sustainability posed as a challenge for an
impending era of ecological limits. For many years and through many
editions I did the best I could to track down the various resources in
the Whole Earth Catalog. It became my most treasured reading list
and guide.
In retrospect The Whole Earth Catalog served as a visionary
inspiration for living a sustainable life. It provided an enduring,
resilient, community-based, do-it-yourself, hands-on guide for living
and learning. Forty years later, I realize that my entire career path is a
response to that challenge. Now as a college president this is the
educational philosophy that continues to guide me. Sustainability is
not just a LEED certified building or providing more local foods in the
cafeteria. It is a powerful philosophy of life, derived from ecological
principles, common sense, and a respect for the complex magnificence
of our remarkable planet.
Sustainability as a way of life has a long tradition in American
higher education. Whether its Thoreaus musings and experiments,

Helen and Scott Nearings homesteading, Lewis Mumfords vision of

ecological cities and technology, or the countless attempts to link
character, community, and ecological living (see David Shis pertinent
history The Simple Life), the Whole Earth catalog served to coalesce
and revitalize a perennial philosophy.
Forty year later, the ecological stakes are much, much higher.
Its crucial to understand that sustainability is a response to a
planetary emergency. We are in the early stages of the sixth
megaextinction (a catastrophic loss of species), plunging declines in
biodiversity, and a rapidly destabilizing climatic/oceanic circulation.
This response poses an immediate challenge for all educators.
How do we teach sustainability as a way of life? Make no mistakethis
is the single biggest challenge for higher educationultimately
connected to turbulent economic times, the accessibility and
affordability of schooling, and how we think about the future of the
planet. Our goal should be nothing less than to train a new generation
of sustainability leadership, graduates who understand the intricate
connections between economics and ecology, place and planet, how
we live and the consequences of our actions.
As a means for meeting this challenge, and as a guide for both
curricular and institutional transformation, I propose nine elements of

a sustainable campus, designed to evoke a whole new twenty-first

century catalog of transformational sustainable practices. These
entail three broad categoriesInfrastructure (Energy, Materials, and
Food), Community (Governance, Investment, and Wellness), and
Learning (Curriculum, Interpretation, and Aesthetics). Imagine these
categories as dynamic, unfolding, emergent, and intrinsically
interconnected. Any sustainable practice may involve multiple
categories. For example, a sparkly and ecologically efficient PlatinumLEED building may reduce the carbon footprint of a campus, but if it
doesnt also serve an inspirational curricular or interpretive function, it
may not achieve its full educational potential. These nine elements
arent a checklist, nor are they criteria for measuring success. They
are meant to evoke the necessity of envisioning and applying
sustainable practices to all aspects of campus life.
A sustainable campus requires a balance between protocols,
behaviors, habits and routines, along with creativity, deliberation, and
reflection. We need peer-reviewed protocols such as those developed
by the ACUPCC (American College and University Presidents Climate
Commitment) so we have a common agreement as to appropriate
standards. Such protocols serve as the basis for supporting sustainable
daily life practices, from energy conservation to growing local foods.

The subsequent behaviors must also be the subject of deliberation.

Why exactly are we doing this and what do we hope to accomplish?
At Unity College in Maine, we aspire that our campus becomes
an exemplary learning and living laboratory for a sustainable culture.
We hope that people who visit our campus (students, parents,
community members, donors) will get dozens of ideas that will in turn
inspire their own practices. We feel that if we can do this in rural Maine
where the winters are very long, at a college that is undeniably
resource strapped we can set an example for any campus anywhere.
Like many other excellent colleges that share similar aspirations, we
are learning how to do this, and many hours of effort and intention
separate our aspirations from our accomplishments. We are
collaborators and learners. Just because Unity College has an
environmental mission, it doesnt mean that we lack controversies,
contradictions, and countervailing influences. Sometimes we slip into
self-righteousness in our efforts to be virtuous. Thats why a healthy
dose of humor is always required. As the poet Jim Dodge writes, purity
is the end of potential!
As a college president, these nine elements are the source of my
motivation and ambition. They reflect how I attempt to apply what I
learned from the Whole Earth Catalog. This is way more than a career
challenge. Its deeply rooted in a search for meaning and purpose, a

values-based orientation, and a commitment to fulfilling my

responsibility as a planetary citizen.
ENERGY
In the late 1970s, the University of Massachusetts (Amherst)
hosted an annual Toward Tomorrow Fair, a showcase for what was
then called appropriate technology. I vividly remember the poster
advertising the fair. It depicted a small city in a campus-like setting,
with windmills, solar panels, passive solar architecture, bicycles,
monorails, and all manner of farms, gardens, and orchards. Imagine a
college campus with a similar landscapebuildings displaying a full
range of renewable energy resources, creating a uniquely educational
energy architecture. Each building serves as a model for conservation
efficiency, ecological design, and interactive learning, powered by an
innovative renewable energy source.
Energy refers to the ability to do work, involving the
transformation of matter to produce heat and electricity. The point of
sustainable energy practices is to maximize the efficiency of those
processes so as to minimize unwanted byproducts. We require a new
energy algorithm that enables us to heat and cool our buildings, move
people and their goods from one place to another, and power our
machines, without simultaneously altering the biosphere.

For colleges and universities a primary challenge is how to

approach zero-carbon energy use. This can be accomplished through a
combination of ingenious technical innovations, renewable energy
sources, and rigorous conservation/retrofitting. Its essential that
these efforts are fully transparent so that all energy users understand
the flow from source to destination to byproduct, or what is typically
described as life cycle analysis.
Energy cost accounting, the foundation of a truthful ecological
economics, should be built into all budgetary approaches,
incorporating not only the short and long term campus dollars and
cents (sense) but also the ecological and climatic ramifications of such
decisions. On a more tangible level we can link the magnitude of
energy choices to the scale of daily behaviors. How does turning on a
switch or turning up the thermostat impact both the traditional
budgetary spreadsheet, but also the planetary carbon budget? I can
think of no better educational project than outfitting all campus
buildings with the capacity to monitor such choices by calibrating all of
the necessary equivalencies and ratios. Campuses can become
monitoring cooperatives, defined by the ubiquity and transparency of
their energy networking systems.
Energy structures serve as instructional landmarks on the
campus landscape. Windmills, solar panels, and geothermal

installations all require interpretive displays that help campus users

better understand the complexity of energy choices, while allowing our
students to develop new habits of thinking about their energy use.

MATERIALS
Just outside of Austin, Texas, the Center for Maximum Potential
Building Systems, has a small complex of office buildings and
residences exclusively using recycled materials, oriented towards
energy efficiency, water conservation, and low cost. With his ingenious
collaborators, Pliny Fisk, the lead architect, has developed a style
resembling advanced tinker toy. The buildings are constructed so there
is a seamless connection between design, sustainability, and
transparency. Visitors and dwellers alike immediately understand the
purpose, function, and origins of all of the materials. This is an
outstanding template for construction approaches on college
campuses.
Materials refers to the manipulation, rearrangement, and heating
and cooling of matter to produce the stuff of our goods, appliances,
dwellings, and toolsfrom laptop computers to Nike sneakers.
Sustainable materials practice emphasizes minimizing the energy use
and byproducts involved in the manufacture of these goods, valuing

resilience, durability, and recyclability. Whether you choose to use

recycled materials in campus construction projects, or initiate
paperless meetings, the mindful use of materials is intrinsic to
countless procurement decisions.
From an infrastructure perspective, life cycle analysis and
ecological cost accounting have a major role to play in coordinating
sustainable materials practices. Every campus purchase has both an
ecological and economic impactfrom using green cleaning materials
to installing recycled carpets. Materials originate someplace on the
planet, derived from the biosphere and delivered to your doorstep.
What do we use and where does it come from? Which materials are
most likely to minimize ecological impact?
A campus is an ecological location with a geographical, cultural,
and landscape context for its materials use. What works best in
Arizona may not be well suited for Maine. However, we can share our
experiences and experiments by developing common expectations
about sustainable materials practice. Why shouldnt this awareness
become a priority for a whole campus pedagogya way to build
interdisciplinary focus and meaning among engineers, architects,
artists, ecologists, and educators? What better way is there to learn
about how we use (and abuse) our place and planet?

FOOD
Conceive of a college campus as a food-producing, edible
landscaping, demonstration-garden laboratory. Lawns are bisected by
garden strips and framed with permaculture shrubbery. Rooftop
gardens supply food for high-rise dormitories. Administration buildings
have small greenhouses attached to their entrances. Cafeterias not
only serve more local and organic food, but they have compelling
exhibits that illustrate farm to garden food pathways, or calculate the
energy costs of different methods of food production. The campus
becomes a local and regional center for cooperative food growing
efforts, a home for intergenerational, culturally diverse, bioregionally
based experiments in food preparation and production.
Everybody has to eat and the curricular potential of learning
about food unveils dozens of learning opportunities from lessons about
biodiversity to practical, real world food-growing skills. Where does
your food come from? How is it prepared? How much energy is used in
its production? What foods are best suited for the ecology of our
campus? Whats the cultivation and domestication history of the food
we eat?

College administrations can lead the way by incorporating food

production schemes into campus master plans, or by looking for
inexpensive and innovative ways to initiate food landscaping
opportunities, or by using more local and organic foods at college and
community events.

GOVERNANCE
How does an organizational culture support and implement
sustainability as a way of life? What is the relationship between
sustainability and participatory governance? How do you use
sustainability as a means to motivate, unify, and inspire an entire
campus?
Benjamin Barber in his groundbreaking book Strong Democracy
describes thin (or representative) democracy as a small group of
elected officials making all of the decisions all of the time. In contrast,
with strong democracy everybody makes some of the decisions some
of the time. This makes good sense for in a setting where all
constituents contribute ideas, voice, accountability, and leadership to
sustainable practices and policies.
On a college campus there must be alignment between mission,
governance, and curriculum. If the motivation is entirely generated

from the grassroots, it will always be a struggle to influence senior

leadership and the Board of Trustees. If leadership for sustainability
comes mainly from the administration, the people may not necessarily
follow. This is why sustainable practices must built into the mission,
master plan, and strategic plan for a campus, conceived as crucial to
its educational philosophy. Otherwise, sustainability will be
marginalized, trendy, and viewed as just another special interest.
Leadership at all levels of an organization provides meaningful
support in dozens of ways: building sustainability initiatives into job
descriptions and performance evaluations, setting curricular
objectives, following reasonable but firm guidelines regarding
procurement, commencement, transportation, and other aspects of
events or operations.
Two caveats: Sustainability is not the political philosophy of an
esoteric, green politics. It is beyond traditional left/right categories,
embodying elements of traditional conservative and progressive
political approaches. Second, decisions related to governance will be
complex and controversial, and not always consensus-driven.

INVESTMENT

Every college campus has a significant economic impact on the

surrounding community. Colleges, communities, and businesses can
work together to transform their regions into thriving sustainable
economies. Colleges serve as dynamic economic multipliers. Their
investment decisions have profound ramifications. What would happen
if these decisions were made so as to train a new generation of
sustainability leaders for a green economy?
Imagine our dynamic sustainable campus with its innovative
energy systems, expansive gardens, and creative use of recycled
materials. Consider these initiatives as the source for partnerships with
green businesses. The campus becomes an incubator, the place where
businesses and faculty work with students and community members to
develop innovative entrepreneurial approaches. Faculty and business
leaders work together to consider the technical skills, life experience
attributes, and knowledge foundation that will best equip the new
sustainability professions.
When large universities support green businesses they provide
secure and stable markets that allow those businesses to reinvest in
research. Smaller colleges can help support local farmers or other
green vendors for whom the extra business may be crucial. By
awarding contracts and opportunities to green businesses, campuses
support the elements of a green regional economy.

Similar approaches can be applied to college investments. Are

our portfolios sufficiently green? Which of our investments support
sustainability initiatives? How might endowment investment guidelines
incorporate rigorous ecological cost accounting? Is investment
measured exclusively by the percentage return in a financial portfolio
or do we consider criteria such as zero-carbon energy initiatives,
ingenious recycling programs, or other green investment
opportunities?

WELLNESS
Ultimately, the point of a sustainable campus is to provide a
nourishing and supporting learning environment that promotes
personal, community, and planetary well-being. Placed in an ecological
context, we emphasize the importance of biodiversity, atmospheric
and oceanic circulations, and ecosystem services in relationship to the
human community. The idea of sustainability necessarily implies that
human health is linked to ecosystem health.
Yet wellness also provides an extraordinary lifelong learning
opportunity. How do we model the importance of sustainable personal
and professional lives? Dont most students, staff and faculty,
complain about being overworked, time stretched, and maxed out? Is

it just the demands of the job, the context of American professional

life, or the culture of higher education? Many campuses deal with a
wide assortment of student (and staff/faculty) human health problems,
often related to stress, including smoking, alcohol, funky diet, and
poor physical conditioning.
Given the urgency of addressing the planetary emergency,
there is no choice but to work intensively and thoroughly. But if work
is perceived as meaningful, purposeful, service-oriented, and
collaborative, it is considerably more fulfilling. This is a crucial
curricular and administrative mandatehow to provide meaningful
work, balanced with a healthy work place, and opportunities for
relaxation and leisure. Working hard doesnt always mean working
well.
As a foundation for campus wellness, I encourage curricular and
workplace efforts that generate reflective awareness about diet,
nutrition, exercise, spending time outdoors, stress-reduction, and
meditative activities. A healthy campus is a more interesting and vital
learning community, provides students with wellness habits and
routines, and may even save money on health insurance. I suggest
that its hypocritical to advocate for a sustainable planet and
community when we dont maximize human wellness.

CURRICULUM
What you know and how you think is always a reflection of how
you live. In my view the best sustainability curriculum is one that
provides the hands-on experience of living, implementing, and
designing a sustainable campus, tangibly linked to the more formal
curricular expectations of programs and majors.
There are countless discussions of what students should know.
Although I have my strong opinions, too (every college graduate
should understand ecological and evolutionary concepts, basic
biospheric circulations, the geological time scale, and spatial and
temporal variation related to environmental change), I also understand
that there is no universal standard for curricular decisions. Curriculum
is contextual and the substantive basis for programs and majors will
depend on the interest, strength, and mission of the institution.
For example, see the AASHE (Association for the Advancement
of Sustainability in Higher Education) website to view the vast array of
impressive and exciting new programsfrom business and medicine to
climate mitigation and engineering, from two year technical training to

advanced PHD research. Arizona State has an entire school devoted to

sustainability (GIOS, Global Institute of Sustainability).
Surely every college and university should have introductory
courses that provide a substantive and experiential framework for
lifelong learning about sustainability concepts. Every major should
have sustainability-related courses that provide a foundation for the
relevant discipline and career. We need more career-oriented
sustainability majors and programs with opportunities for deeper
study.
However, these initiatives are empty without the tangible
application in the campus community. Colleges and universities have
an impressive breadth of educational outreach. Every visitor,
participant, and community member learns something from the
campus environment. The sustainability curricular agenda must be
seen as comprehensive, direct, and intrinsic to the educational mission
of a campus.

INTERPRETATION
Do you remember your most recent visit to a National Park? At
the entrance gate you were given a map that highlights the key
natural features of the landscape and suggests places for you to visit.

If you went to the interpretive center, you saw several educational

displays, explaining the ecological, historical, or geological setting that
makes the place so special.
What if college campuses took a similar approach? When you
arrive on campus you receive a map and guide to all of the campus
sustainability efforts. This would include tours, exhibits, recommended
buildings to visit, and other features of the sustainable landscape.
Campus signage would emphasize these initiatives, providing various
interpretive aides. Admissions tours would point out these features,
too.
Are there organic gardens on campus? Show them on a map and
explain why they are there. Is there a geothermal installation? Develop
a kiosk at the site that diagrams how it works. Is there a LEED building
on campus? Have the special LEED building plaque become the
starting point for a guided tour through the building. Every one of
these initiatives embodies a detailed and rich story of decisions,
choices, innovations, and awareness.
The campus is an ecological place, located in a changing
environment. There are compelling stories that precede and follow
every sustainable action. Lets make them transparent and interesting,
rooted in the history of the campus and projected into the future. If

the campus is in the desert, explain how the ecological setting

determines water usage patterns. If its in a cold climate, explain how
the campus stays warm through innovative energy design. Make these
stories ubiquitous through signage, curriculum, website exhibits, and
all campus publications.

AESTHETICS
In the Autumn of 2008, Unity College organized a program called
The Art of Stewardship. We brought fifty artists, scientists, and
sustainability activists to campus. We asked them to envision the
college as a campus canvas for environmental art. They presented us
with ideas including mandala sand paintings, murals on the sides of
buildings, recycled materials art sculptures, soundscape designs,
native plants sculptures, an arrow of time to represent geological
events, and landscape artwork that captures the movement of water,
grass, and pollen.
These projects ideas can be constructed at minimal expense,
while providing local and regional artists with a venue to display their
work. They also represent terrific opportunities to get students, staff,
and faculty engaged in taking great pride in the campus, as well as
making the landscape much more interesting.

There is also a deeper cognitive advantage. At the core of

understanding sustainability, biodiversity, and climate change is a
perceptual challenge. Art projects use imagination to convey scale.
They are a bridge to scientific understanding. Further, art projects
catalyze some of the emotional responses surrounding these issues,
from despair and grief to wonder, celebration and gratitude.
Ultimately, this kind of collaborative art allows the campus to
experience reciprocity between the built environment and the natural
world.
Sustainability should entail aesthetics every step along the way.
The people who live in a place should have the opportunity to make it
their own through ephemeral and permanent artistic installations. This
has the great virtue of making a campus a more vital and dynamic
place. Even better, every art project contributes to the sense that the
campus is a place in space and time, a living and working environment
that creates an aesthetic mark in the bioregion.

Now its Your Turn

These nine elements are part of my own emerging narrative,
both as a sustainability explorer and a college president. Hopefully,
they provide you with a template of ideas for your campus, adapted to

your roles and responsibilities. I hope that you will find your own
sustainability narrative, that you will come up with an entirely new
catalog of ideas and possibilities, and you will realize that these
initiatives are crucial to your educational position and your planetary
citizenship. When you come up with a great idea, and youve
accomplished something really neat, send me a note and tell me what
youve done. Maybe its something I can write about in a future essay,
or include in my own work, or I can pass on to someone else who will
find it helpful.

Community

Infrastructure

The Nine Elements of a Sustainable Campus (Examples from Maine)

Jesse Pyles
Unity College in Maine is organizing its institutional efforts according to the Nine Elements of a Sustainable Campus. Were
proud to be a part of a statewide culture in higher education that values sustainability, and recognize important
achievements at schools throughout the state that contribute to a more sustainable world.
Nine Elements
At Unity College
Throughout Maine
Energy Completed in 2008, the Unity House is a LEED
The University of Maine at Machias is greening the
Platinum residence for the college president. The OBrien House the designated residence for the
1,930-square-foot, net zero carbon home is
president to demonstrate practical renovation of
expected to produce more electricity than it uses
an old home for energy efficiency.
every year, and is complete with a five kilowatt
photovoltaic system, solar hot water, and a cold
climate heat pump.
Food All community and catered events place a primary In 2008, 20% of Colby Colleges (Waterville, ME)
emphasis on the use of local and seasonal foods.
food budget was spent on local and/or organic
Food produced in the campus community garden food and supplies. These purchases supported 72
is used in the college cafeteria and at the local
local suppliers.
food shelf.
Materials Unity College is committed to environmentally
At Bates College (Lewiston, ME), the annual Clean
sensitive building practices. Maplewood, a
Sweep end-of-year move out swap brings more
residence hall, and its sister building, the Health
than 1000 shoppers from campus and the
Center, feature 100% renewable electricity,
surrounding community. Nearly $12,000 was
super-insulated ceilings and walls, low-e
raised in 2008 by the event and donated to
windows, and low VOC paints, glues and
seventeen area non-profits.
adhesives.
Governance Unitys full-time Sustainability Coordinator
Qualifications for key staff positions at the
reports directly to the president and serves on the University of Maine at Farmington include
Master Planning Committee. Additionally,
demonstrated experience in sustainability. Their
sustainability criteria are an important part of
Facilities Management Director, Food Service
performance reviews for all departments on
Director, and Student Life Director positions
campus.
require a commitment to sustainability.

Bowdoin College purchases renewable energy

credits (RECs) to support renewable energy
production at a certified low impact hydropower
facility seventeen miles from their Brunswick
campus.
The University of New Englands (Biddeford, ME)
Free Bike program for freshman students
provided bikes, helmets, and locks to more than
100 entering college students last fall. The
bicycles were issued for keeps to resident
students agreeing to leave their cars at home.
Curriculum Every degree granted uses the environment as the As part of their core curriculum, every student at
integrating context for learning. The
Saint Josephs College of Maine (Standish) takes
Environmental Stewardship Core Curriculum
the four-credit Ecology and the Environmental
focuses every student on the theory and practice
Challenge course focusing on sustainability issues.
of sustainability.
Interpretation Tours of the Unity House offer campus
The University of Maine at Farmingtons LEED
community members and visitors an up-close
Silver Education Center, opened in January 2007,
look at sustainable design and performance.
was designed as an educational resource for the
Sustainability improvements to the campus
region, offering public tours to highlight such
infrastructure are done with intent to educate all
sustainability components as its geothermal
community members.
heating and cooling system and non-toxic building
materials.
Aesthetics This summer, Unity College will host a four-day
At College of the Atlantic (Bar Harbor, ME) a
Art of Stewardship conference to promote
building slated for destruction was salvaged and
creative inventiveness in response to escalating
renovated to preserve the campus ambience of
environmental issues. Unity publishes Hawk and seaside cottages. The 8,900-square-foot Deering
Handsaw: the Journal of Creative Sustainability
Common student center, previously a family
summer home, is now heated by wood pellets
secured from Maine suppliers.
Jesse Pyles is the Sustainability Coordinator at Unity College in Maine.
Learning

Investment Partnering with the local community

development organization last fall, more than 20
campus participants weatherized dozens of area
homes with financial support from the college,
state, and local agencies.
Wellness In addition to a robust student wellness program,
employee programs such as Sustainable U
encourage lunchtime hiking, walking, yoga, and
meditation activities for college staff.