Wellesley College: Sustainability

About Wellesley College Sustainability

The landscape of Wellesley College has played a vital role in the life of the college and, as a consequence, efforts to ensure its integrity for future generations formed the foundation of sustainable practices at the college. The 1998 Landscape Master Plan recognized that education at Wellesley is inextricably linked to the landscape, and the mission of the college remains central to our thinking about sustainability. The college has approached sustainability with the dual goals of instilling in our students, and the college community at large, the knowledge, skills and values necessary to living a sustainable lifestyle and of implementing institutional practices and policies that reduce the institution’s impact on the environment.

In 2005, the Sustainability Advisory Committee was created by President Walsh and charged with studying the complexities and tradeoffs involved in a range of potential policies and programs and making specific recommendations about the most effective areas in which to focus our efforts. In its first year, this multi-constituency committee successfully established important communication among the relevant functional areas of the college and began the ongoing process of the education and awareness-raising of the community. Among other things, the committee has sponsored annual participation in a nation-wide ten-week competition among college and university recycling programs, has hosted "Sustainability Month" each October, and has run several week-long energy competitions among the residence halls.

A number of important principles have guided the work of the committee and have shaped its recommendations. Since its inception, the committee has understood that, like any organization, the college operates under a variety of constraints, including fiscal and human resource. Therefore, in many cases, decisions to alter operations or introduce new programs, policies or practices inevitably require making choices among competing demands as well as among competing values. As part of its deliberations, the committee is always mindful of attempting to strike a balance between proposals which require alterations to institutional operations and those which require individual behavioral change. The committee has consistently endorsed an approach that favors recommending institutional change only after members of the community have demonstrated a commitment to behavioral change. The committee believes that an emphasis on the importance of reduced consumption should be a central feature of the college’s approach to sustainability.

As is clear from this website, the college is involved in many initiatives across a broad range of activities. This, of course, is appropriate at an institution which is committed to "considering sustainability as a factor in all institutional decisions," and reflects the interest and involvement of individuals and departments across campus. However, and appropriately, the college is also thinking broadly about future directions that sustainability efforts might take. Thus, we have identified four aspirational goals that will shape the development of policies and programs at the college and focus our expenditure of resources over the next five years:

Landscape: As was indicated earlier in this document, the landscape is an essential feature of Wellesley College and has been central to our thinking about sustainability. We believe that Wellesley can serve as an exemplar of sustainable landscape practices, modeling the use of Integrated Pest Management, the reclamation of landscape from cultivated greens to more natural plantings and the principle of orienting members of the community to an appreciation for their natural environs. Our goal is to utilize cutting-edge techniques in our landscape, to promote our efforts actively and to generate interest nationally as a model institution.
Water Conservation: As a self-sufficient institution relying on our own wells and water treatment facilities, Wellesley would be remiss not to pursue water conservation aggressively. Building on past success, our goal is to reduce water consumption by an additional 25% by 2013 (for a total reduction of 50% between 1999 and 2013).
Waste Reduction: The sustainability committee has articulated its belief that reduction in consumption should be a hallmark of sustainability efforts at Wellesley College and reducing our production of solid waste follows directly from that approach. A significant reduction in solid waste would benefit the institution from the reduced costs associated with hauling both trash and recyclable materials from campus and would also serve as an important way to engage and educate the community. Our goal is to increase the amount recycled to 25% of the waste stream while decreasing our total solid waste stream by 20% by 2013.
Energy Use Reduction: This goal, too, flows naturally both from the principle of focusing the college's efforts on reduced consumption as well from the significant financial benefit to the institution from a reduction of energy use in light of current utility costs. Our goals is to further reduce our consumption of electricity by 13% by 2013 (for a total reduction of 25% between 2003-2013) and to reduce our consumption of other energy by 15% as buildings and systems are upgraded.