Sustainability Resource Library: Sustainable Communities and Campuses

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University communities have the potential to serve as models in the development and application of sustainability principles and practices, not only by what they teach and study, but also by how they operate facilities and engage with off-campus partners. With the oldest endowed campus-wide sustainability program in the country, established in 1997, the University of New Hampshire has become a leader in advancing a campus culture of sustainability. The UNH experience provides a unique window into the development of a new and integrated approach to teaching, learning, research, and operations. It is also a valuable guide for other institutions that aim to enhance the quality of campus life while reducing their environmental footprint. The book's organization along four functional domains (curriculum, operations, research, and engagement) allows faculty, staff, students, and managers to focus on sections of particular relevance to their university roles. Each chapter develops standards of best practices and presents interesting case studies to humanize the larger effort.

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Popularized in the movies Erin Brockovich and A Civil Action, “environmental justice” refers to any local response to a threat against community health. In this book, Julian Agyeman argues that environmental justice and the sustainable communities movement are compatible in practical ways. Yet sustainability, which focuses on meeting our needs today while not compromising the ability of our successors to meet their needs, has not always partnered with the challenges of environmental justice.

Sustainable Communities and the Challenge of Environmental Justice explores the ideological differences between these two groups and shows how they can work together. Agyeman provides concrete examples of potential model organizations that employ the types of strategies he advocates. This book is vital to the efforts of community organizers, policymakers, and everyone interested in a better environment and community health.

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Written by the chair of the LEED-Neighborhood Development (LEED-ND) initiative, Sustainable Urbanism: Urban Design with Nature is both an urgent call to action and a comprehensive introduction to "sustainable urbanism"--the emerging and growing design reform movement that combines the creation and enhancement of walkable and diverse places with the need to build high-performance infrastructure and buildings.

Providing a historic perspective on the standards and regulations that got us to where we are today in terms of urban lifestyle and attempts at reform, Douglas Farr makes a powerful case for sustainable urbanism, showing where we went wrong, and where we need to go. He then explains how to implement sustainable urbanism through leadership and communication in cities, communities, and neighborhoods. Essays written by Farr and others delve into such issues as:

Increasing sustainability through density.
Integrating transportation and land use.
Creating sustainable neighborhoods, including housing, car-free areas, locally-owned stores, walkable neighborhoods, and universal accessibility.

The health and environmental benefits of linking humans to nature, including walk-to open spaces, neighborhood stormwater systems and waste treatment, and food production.
High performance buildings and district energy systems.

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These personal narratives of greening college campuses offer inspiration, motivation, and practical advice. Written by faculty, staff, administrators, and a student, from varying perspectives and reflecting divergent experiences, these stories also map the growing strength of a national movement toward environmental responsibility on campus.

Environmental awareness on college and university campuses began with the celebratory consciousness-raising of Earth Day, 1970. Since then environmental action on campus has been both global (in research and policy formation) and local (in efforts to make specific environmental improvements on campuses). The stories in this book show that achieving environmental sustainability is not a matter of applying the formulas of risk management or engineering technology but part of what the editors call "the messy reality of participatory engagement in cultural transformation."

The authors of Sustainability on Campus report from a diverse group of institutions ranging from two-year community colleges to famous research universities. They tell of environmental stewardship on campus, curriculum changes, green building design, working with local communities, and system-wide initiatives. Their chronicles include the early mistakes and successes of the Green Task Force at Illinois Wesleyan, the history of an innovative interdisciplinary graduate curriculum at the University of California at Berkeley, the planning and construction of a green Environmental Studies building at Oberlin College, the joint efforts of local businesses and students at Allegheny College to promote eco-tourism in northwest Pennsylvania, a donor-initiated multi-university consortium in South Carolina, and the implementation of sustainability requirements for all students at Oakland Community College in Detroit.

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More than a dozen years ago, Ted Bernard traveled to nine communities across the United States to meet residents who were working collaboratively to solve natural resource conflicts. While there may have been different perspectives as to process, their common goal was to achieve higher levels of sustainability as vibrant communities. He visited places as diverse as tiny one-mile-square Monhegan Island in Maine and cities as large as Chicago and Chattanooga and, with Jora Young, wrote about his findings in The Ecology of Hope (1997).

Now Bernard has caught up with these communities again, to discover their progress and see what a difference their collaborative conservation has made in fifteen years. Hope and Hard Times chronicles that journey; the successes, the speed bumps, and the remarkable tenacity and persistence of the partnerships and initiatives driving change during exceedingly hard times. Overall, community-based sustainability initiatives have proved resilient, despite the downward-spiraling of the global economy and the looming problems of global climate change. Their quest points to the need for new perceptions of nature and of humankind, more guidance from nature, and less consumption and materialism. They offer advice on how to live on pieces of land without spoiling them.

These narratives offer hopeful roadmaps for other communities who are working toward a sustainable future, and will appeal to community activists, natural resource professionals, educators, and environmentalists.

Ted Bernard is a professor of environmental studies at Ohio University, and co-author of The Ecology of Hope. He lives in the Shade River watershed in southern Ohio.