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A CALL FOR UNIVERSITY PARTNERS TO EXAMINE THE CHANGING CULTURE OF SUSTAINABILITY ON YOUR CAMPUS UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN (USA) http://graham.umich.edu/leadership/scip
Robert W. Marans University of Michigan marans@umich.edu John Callewaert University of Michigan jcallew@umich.edu
BACKGROUND
There is an increasing awareness that societal changes are necessary as issues of climate change and environmental degradation become more pressing. While the technological know-how is available to reduce CO2 emissions and conserve and maintain our natural resources, the political and societal commitment to deal with these issues is lacking. That is, it is imperative that we make greater efforts to shift from a “culture of consumerism” toward a “culture of sustainability”. A culture of sustainability requires individuals, households, organizations, and cities 1) to understand the short term and long term consequences of climate change on humans and ecosystems, 2) to understand the means of addressing these challenges, 3) to commit to more sustainable lifestyles, and 4) to adjust behaviors so as to effectively deal with the challenges. THE PROGRAM
Like many other universities and corporations, the University of Michigan (U-M) is working to bring about this change. But unlike other universities, U-M is unique in its efforts to measure and monitor progress in moving toward a culture of sustainability. The measuring and monitoring program
is referred to as SCIP--the Sustainability Cultural Indicators Program. SCIP refers to a broad set of indicators that are being tracked annually. The indicators are derived from annual surveys of its students, faculty, and staff in order to tap their thoughts, understanding, degree of commitment, and behaviors with respect to energy reduction, waste prevention, environmental protection, and consuming healthy foods. These topics stem from the University’s broader sustainability goals dealing with climate action, waste prevention, healthy environments, and community awareness. Furthermore, the program is examining the degree to which the built environment and sustainability outreach programs influence what people say and do. CURRENT STATUS
The University of Michigan is entering the fourth year of a long term-program aimed at changing the “culture of sustainability” among our students, faculty and staff and measuring and monitoring that change. At the beginning of each school year (starting in 2012), two webbased surveys have been administered---one to a large sample of students and a similar questionnaire targeting representative samples of the University’s faculty and staff. In addition to these regular cross-sectional surveys, a panel of undergraduate students has been surveyed each year with the idea of following individuals and tracking their change over time as well as the changes in each cohort of undergraduate students, graduate students, and the faculty and staff. A unique aspect of the work is linking the survey data with existing “hard data” for over 450 university buildings spread throughout more than 1,200 hectares. The hard data collected annually include building energy use (BTU) per square feet, metric tons of CO2 emissions, tonnage of recycled material, and waste tonnage sent to disposal
IAPS - BULLETIN 43 | AUTUMN 2015