Sustainability Initiatives at Mount Holyoke College
A few weeks ago, during Family and Friends Weekend, I had the pleasure of getting a tour of Mount Holyoke’s campus from a sustainability perspective. I was amazed at all the great stuff that’s been done at Mount Holyoke and received their permission to share their efforts and successes with others.
Our tour guide Sal Cosmedy, a Senior with an Environmental Studies major, did an excellent job of not only sharing a ton of statistics about what has been done at the college but also talking about how these efforts were being implemented and integrated into daily college life.
As we started the tour, it was evident that sustainability is not a ‘hidden’ topic at Mount Holyoke or a topic that is limited to the mechanical buildings and boardroom, they display their efforts and achievements in many locations around campus – which helps to further motivate sustainability actions by the students. Although many of the larger sustainability projects are done by the administration (i.e. solar panels on the roofs), they know that students play a significant part in sustainability as well (i.e. shorter showers to conserve water). Below is just one of several ‘advertisements’ around campus.
Campus Sign Promoting Sustainability at Mount Holyoke
As you can see from the sign, at Mount Holyoke they focus on all aspects of sustainability: Operations, Facilities, and Curriculum. Mount Holyoke has a goal to be carbon neutral by 2037 (their 200th anniversary) and they are well on their way.
Throughout the tour, Sal talked about several areas of sustainability at Mount Holyoke:
- Building Performance and Efficiency
- Food Service
- Dietary Options
- Composting
- Packaging
- Recycling
- Water Conservation
Building Performance and Efficiency
We started the tour with a view into the LEED Certified science building, Kendade Hall.
Kendade was built in Fall of 2003 with ‘Green’ in mind. I’m sure that I did not capture everything, but some of the highlights within Kendade (and other renovated buildings) include:
- Open, natural daylight design with light sensors to dim or turn off lights when natural daylight is sufficient.
Light sensor controlled lights
- LED lights throughout campus – which are 90% more efficient than incandescent light bulbs.
- Energy recovery loop that takes energy from the exhaust steam to heat or cool incoming air – saving 1,980 MMBtu of natural gas per year. During peak operation, this is enough to regulate the temperature in Creighton Hall (a residence hall)!
- Centralized, chilled water loop that produces cool water to be distributed to many campus buildings, replacing the need for less efficient building or window air conditioning units.
- Boiler economizer that captures heat from the flue gas to preheat boiler feed water which provides up to 5% more energy efficiency.
- Solar hot water panels on Creighton Hall and Community Center – 35% of hot water in Creighton Hall is heated by the solar panels on its roof.
Another ‘advertisement’ on a sign within Kendade Hall highlights many of these advancements:
Mount Holyoke sign highlighting sustainability advancements
Food Service
After discussing the numerous building performance upgrades, we made our way to the central dining hall, Blanchard Campus Center and the Dining Commons. Mount Holyoke’s central dining facility was awarded the Green Restaurant Level 1 certification in 2019.
Mount Holyoke Green Restaurant Certification
This is a certification done by Green Restaurant Association with a purpose of providing a transparent way to measure each restaurant’s environmental accomplishments while providing a pathway for the next steps each restaurant can take towards increased environmental sustainability.
Mount Holyoke is also dedicated to buying local food to reduce emissions from food transported longer distances – and to support the local economy. They had a goal to purchase 20% of their food from local and sustainable sources by 2020 and they beat that goal by achieving 20% in 2018! ‘Local’ is defined as anything grown or raised within New England or 250 miles from campus (500 miles from campus for meat due to limited processing facilities. ‘Sustainable’ is any product – local or otherwise – carrying an approved 3rd party certification such as USDA organic, Fair Trade, Rainforest Alliance certified, etc. Again, they are very visible with their ‘buy local’ efforts and promote their local foods as students walk into the dining hall.
Mount Holyoke Local Food Sources
Mount Holyoke Cochary Sign
Not only are they committed to buying food locally, but they grow their own herbs right in the dining hall entrance! The herb garden, or Cultivator (as they call it), contains several customized zones to meet the needs of specific plants. Within each zone they can control the wind flow, water flow, temperature, and amount of light. All seeds are currently Organic and purchased from High Mowing in VT.
Mount Holyoke Herb Garden
Composting
Certainly, Mount Holyoke spends a lot of effort to educate students on the impact of food waste, but for food that is wasted, they compost. Instead of relying on the students to figure out what is compostable versus true ‘trash’, they leverage student workers to sort the food waste (and compostable napkins) from other trash. In the Dining Commons they have two dehydrators which reduce the volume of food waste by 90% – this means that they reduce how often the compost is picked up, which reduces carbon emissions. They hope to someday keep the compost onsite and use it for landscaping, the student garden, etc. Mount Holyoke has achieved the removal of 51% of its trash to composting and they have two dorms that are currently piloting a composting program to reduce their trash further. They are certainly doing their part to minimize the methane gasses that are emitted from our landfills.
Dietary Options
Mount Holyoke also offers a wide variety of dietary options in their central dining hall – from red meat to vegetarian to vegan to kosher or halal. Certainly, students can choose their food based on health, philosophy, or cultural reasons, but they can also choose based on environmental and climate change reasons. (As vegetarian and vegan diets require far less energy to produce.)
Mount Holyoke Dining Commons
Packaging
In 2013, Mount Holyoke removed plastic water bottles from campus. Not only did they stop offering water in plastic bottles, but they installed several water bottle fill stations around campus to allow students to remain hydrated. The only area that still supplies plastic packaging is the ‘grab and go’ shop and a café in the library. Yet still they are looking into re-usable Tupperware options as a means to remove single-use plastic packaging in those areas as well.
Recycling
For the rare occurrences that do result in throw away plastic (shampoo bottles, etc.) or other containers, Mount Holyoke has a robust recycling presence with receptacles positioned in each residence hall and other academic buildings. One of the biggest challenges with recycling is the education related to what can or can not be recycled, so Mount Holyoke spends a lot of time on recycling education – as seen on the receptacle below.
Mount Holyoke Recycling Receptacles
Water
Lastly, Mount Holyoke knows that water conservation is also important and they’ve done several things to reduce water consumption. For example, they promote water conservation via their Eco Reps with memorable tips like limiting a shower length to one song. Additionally, they’ve also focused on restoring the health of Upper and Lower Lakes and Stony Brook by removing sediments from captured and treated stormwater.
In addition to ‘advertising’ sustainability at many physical locations around campus, Mount Holyoke also promotes sustainability on their Instagram (@SustainableMHC) page, their Facebook page , the general Miller Worley Center for the Environment page – and via Eco Reps and the Student Sustainability Committee.
We wish Mount Holyoke the best of luck in meeting (or beating) their goal to be carbon neutral by 2037! They have an excellent start and appear to be well on their way to exceeding the expectation.
We hope that you find the information on our site helpful and invite you to reach out if you have any further questions or if you are interested in how you can achieve carbon neutrality on your campus with our Green Campus Campaign.