Since 2002 Northland College students adopted an innovative process to reduce the college’s reliance on fossil fuels. Northland is a four-year, private institution whose curriculum emphasizes environmental sustainability. The students collect from among themselves a special, annual fee for a Renewable Energy Fund. The $20 fee is added to the $220 of fees they collect annually from each student for the student association’s other programs. The lessons learned from their first four years’ investments helped students to become a dynamic force for minimizing greenhouse gas emissions from the campus.
Decisions about the use of the Renewable Energy Fund are made by the student association, a non-profit organization independent from the college. So far, students used approximately $75,000 from the fund to leverage much larger investments in renewable energy and energy conservation on campus. The fund stimulated additional contributions of more than $400,000, including$65,000 in public grants. Technologies include solar hot water heaters, a geothermal heat exchanger, a wind turbine and energy monitoring equipment.
Each year the senior class recommends how to invest that year’s fee. With each round of recommendations, students improved the process for deciding how best to use the fund. They learned three major lessons about how to improve its effectiveness. First, is the difficulty of deciding on “inspiration” investment versus “energy efficient” investment. “Inspiration” investments are those that are highly visible but that may not be the most efficient means to minimize fossil fuel use. For example, wind turbines and solar panels are visible features and a geothermal heat exchange system is efficient but out of sight. The student association decided that both types of investments are important, and they asked the college’s environmental council to recommend annually a set of investment options with information about the pros and cons of each option. The council includes students, staff and faculty. The seniors then propose investments they vote as best. When they recommended installation of a geothermal heat exchange system for the campus center, they allocated part of their funds to install a sign at the center to make students and visitors aware of the systems presence and benefits. That way, they tried to off-set the low “inspiration” effect of an invisible but efficient investment.
A second difficulty is the level of coordination required for students to add new technologies on a small campus. The physical plant staff is a small crew whose time, resources and expertise are stretched thin in simply maintaining the traditional heating, plumbing and electrical systems of the college. While they are grateful for student investments in campus infrastructure, staff members have little extra time for adding new systems, writing matching grant requests and overseeing contractors. The students now are working through the college’s director of sustainability to coordinate these arrangements.
The third difficulty has been providing the maintenance and oversight required to keep the alternative energy systems operating. Because the physical plant crew has limited time to oversee small but complex infrastructure. The students now seek technologies with low overhead costs, and in some cases provide funds for contractors to assist and train college staff in operation and maintenance procedures during the first years of operation.