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Northwest Community College Strives to Cut Carbon Footprint
Don’t be surprised one day if you come across reports about the smell of French fries wafting through the air at the Northwest Community College on the Bench.
No. It won’t be about a new culinary arts program at the campus. It’ll represent the successful conversion of the college’s vehicle fleet to burn used vegetable oil rather than gas. Such a project is on the list of the college as it tackles the challenge of reducing its carbon footprint.
College president Stephanie Forsyth admits it’s not an easy task. But it’s one in which the college had no choice.
“I had gone to a [college] presidents’ network meeting nationally and challenged them all to take the initiative in their communities to promote sustainability,” recalls college president Stephanie Forsyth. “So now I had to put our money where our mouth was. We had been doing bits and pieces, but nothing on a concerted basis or with a strategy.”
There have been the obvious things – printing on both sides of a piece of paper, making their own notepads from other surplus paper, changing lighting, etc.
The effort has now expanded to changing the way the college operates. That’s complicated because the college has campuses in every northwestern centre. But senior managers have been able to trim travel by increasing the use of video technology. Meetings are scheduled in clusters to avoid back and forth driving. Senior managers now have overnight accommodation on campus so they can have two or three days of meetings before returning home.
Each campus has a ‘green team’ and there’s a college-wide green committee. In Terrace, the campus has a contract with the local Do Your Part recycling firm. One carpentry instructor in Terrace is running a chainsaw on vegetable oil.
“I think the biggest challenge is the mindset, simply changing the way we think so that we’re all on side. That’s hard. We have 468 employees,” said Forsyth.
The college is also finding there’s an expense to reducing its carbon footprint. While the cafeteria here does give a discount for coffee drinkers who bring their own mugs, it has had to raise the price of coffee sold in paper cups because they cost more than styrofoam ones. Buying recycled paper is more expensive than other kinds.
And although the college has taken part in programs such as PowerSmart, Forsyth says more can be done if there were more incentive for energy consumers.
Future projects include composting with the material being used in the college gardens. Another idea is to offer up the college’s Terrace campus as a testing or research site for companies with either energy conservation or generation ideas.
“Can we grow produce through locally generated heat from bioenergy sources?” asked Forsyth. When it comes to ideas on sustainability, Forsyth says nothing is out of bounds.
