Annual Meeting: "Making Progress" PERC's Climate Change & Sustainable Energy Conference

"Making Progress"
Climate Change Action in Pennsylvania Higher Education
Friday November 2nd
Susquehanna University
In response to input from a number of PERC campuses, PERC's Climate Change & Sustainable Energy working team has developed an agenda for this year's Annual Meeting sure to provide usable information for those Member and Affiliate Schools working on making progress on the climate change and sustainable energy. The Conference Packet is available for downloading here.

Co-produced with the Sustainable Campus Team, and located in on the centrally-located Susquehanna University, the event will focus on issues that are believed to be at the very top of the priority list for sustainability programs in higher education.

In this regard, the agenda for this year's PERC annual meeting will include both individual speakers (see below) as well as panels on making progress in three critical areas: GHG inventories, climate achievements and communicating about the challenges.

• Measuring Progress Challenges that need to be dealt with in setting reliable metrics on energy use including energy efficiency and greenhouse gas (ghg) inventories. This will include examination of what is measured, who is responsible for measurement, software issues in measuring energy efficiency and greenhouse gas. Panelists include:
• • Dina El-Mogazi, Director, Campus Greening Initiative
       Bucknell University
    
  • Brittany Prischak, Sustainability Officer
       Mercyhurst College
  • Dan Webster, Sustainability Projects Coordinator,
       Dickinson College
  • Julia Knight, Director, Office of Sustainability
       HACC

• Performance Progress This panel will describe what we currently know about Pa schools’ achievements in reducing greenhouse gases (ghg) emissions from campus activities while sharing experiences of what has and has not worked. How are individual Pa schools doing in leading civil society to reduce the enormous threat of climate change both individually and in comparison to each other?  What can be learned by Pa institutions of higher ed from the efforts of an individual school’s attempts to measure, develop action plans, set emissions reduction targets, and achieve actual ghg emissions? Following initial presentations there will be a discussion of barriers, challenges, and successful strategies for improving Pa schools' performance on making higher education a leader in reducing the threat of climate change.  Panelists include:

• Donald Brown, Scholar In Residence, Sustainability Ethics and Law
     Widener University School of Law
• Julia Knight, Director, Office of Sustainability
     HACC 
• Katherine Schreiber, Professor of Geography
     Millersville University
• Katherine Straub,
  Associate Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences
      Susquehanna University
• Jessica Holtzapple, PERC Intern/ Student
     Millersville University

• Communicating Progress  As people working in the field of sustainability, whether students, staff or faculty, we know that there are many challenges facing us in our efforts toward making our campuses more sustainable. We are not alone, and as members of PERC, we should be able to work together to learn how to overcome some of those challenges, and offer lessons of our own to other members. Through this panel, we will present ways some of our schools have been able to build success on other successes through communication efforts. Our examples will include checking the validity of our greenhouse gas emissions inventories and energy data, successful internal communication and external communication, and how to overcome some specific challenges. We would like to provide PERC members with new ways to view success and the tools to drive that success, to leverage these to the administration in order to get other sustainability projects done; building success on other successes.
  
    Topics and panelists include:
• Using energy data to review, "proof" and understand campus progress:
  Mike Mumper, Director
     High Construction Energy Solutions Group
• Internal communication involved with a successful recycling program:
  Ann Bolla Quinn, Director, Greener Behrend
     Penn State Univ., Erie: The Behrend College
• External and Internal Communication needs for sustainability initiatives:
  Cliff Wills, Director Physical Plant
     Allegheny College
• Benefits of perseverance and patience in   overcoming sustainability communication challenges
  Brittany Prischak, Sustainability Officer
     Mercyhurst College

• Tom Tuffey, Community Energy Inc. on the Building Keystone Solar Curricula,
• Jennifer Hopkins, The Sustainable Energy Fund on free Scholarships to EnergyPath 2013 for PERC members;
• Bill Oppenheim of Summit Energy on their program to encourage renewable energy in your procurement mix; and
• Bill Valentine of the Mid-Atlantic Clean Energy Application Center, highlighting some of the campus application of CHP, including new mini-applications that do not require a central power plant.