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Santa Fe Community College's Sustainability Commitment
In 2006 SFCC developed a new five-year strategic plan with the active participation of the governing board, administration, faculty, staff, students, and the community. As an integral part of the plan, the college made a commitment that all its actions include sustainability, adopting a green and system-wide approach, and adapting new and emerging technologies.
President Sheila Ortego is an original signatory to the American College and University President's Climate Commitment. SFCC is making great strides shaping the institution into a model of energy generation and conservation, and applying the principles of sustainability to all aspects of campus life and academic, administrative, and plant operations.
SFCC already has a number of education and workforce development programs underway in the areas of renewable energy, green building, environmental technology, and sustainability.
Among the Sustainability initiatives now underway are:
- Campus wide recycling program
- Campus wide low-consumption lighting
- Biomass training unit at Early Childhood Development Center
- Automated biomass heating system in place to heat entire campus
- Recycling wastewater for campus irrigation
- Installation of computerized control system to maximize efficiency of HVAC
- Solar thermal collectors heating campus swimming pool
- Electricity being generated by a grid-tied solar photovoltaic system
- Campus wide use of recycled copy paper
- Free filtered water available to reduce plastic bottle usage
- Foodservice utensils made from biodegradable material
- Green Task Force of faculty, students, staff and community at SFCC
- Campus Sustainability Plan under development to:
- establish campus-wide sustainability core values
- institutionalize policies, procedures and practices supporting sustainability
- provide all members of the campus community with tools, best practices and information encouraging them to instill sustainability in both the operations and curriculum of the entire institution
- develop sustainable course/program learning outcomes across entire academic curriculum
- submit grant proposals to bring resources to SFCC for development of additional sustainable technologies programs
- Gain NM Higher Education Department acceptance of green courses, such as Introduction to Sustainability, as a part of the state-wide general education course offerings through the Social Sciences making them acceptable as a transferrable course between institutions
Among the Sustainability initiatives on the drawing board:
- Carbon Calculator:
- As part of the American College and University President's Climate Commitment, SFCC is completing a profile of campus energy usage and calculating carbon (CO2) emissions. The profile of 2007 consumption and emissions will serve as a benchmark for analysis of future efforts at energy efficiency and reduction of carbon emissions.
- As part of the American College and University President's Climate Commitment, SFCC students in Principles of Accounting completed a profile of campus energy usage and calculated carbon (CO2) emissions. This benchmark is used when analyzing energy efficiency and reduction of carbon emissions.
For more information, please contact Randy Grissom, Director, Sustainable Technologies Center , (505) 428-1641, randy.grissom@sfcc.edu.