Sustainable SCU: Research to Action

Sustainable Event Planning

By: Suveer Singh, Lucas Tan, and Tara Weinstein

Campus Partners: Clare Gordon Bettencourt - Residence Life; Tedd Vanadilok - Center for Student Involvement

Conference Services Waste

By: Bri Guingona, Louis Hoffmann, and Maylin Pollack

Campus Partner: Mahal Flores - Conference Services

EV Charging Implementation

By: Annaliese Bunchman, Andy Park, and Tina Zhao

Campus Partner: Leah Nakasaki-Peterson - Parking & Transportation Services

Dunne Solar Thermal

By: Colleen Black, Sean Voelk

As a continuation of SLURPs ‘Solar Domestic Water Heating’ project from last year, this project aimed to obtain CSIF funding to install a highly efficient solar thermal water heating system on the roof of Dunne Hall in order to eliminate the need for electric or gas water heating on that part of campus. The project leaders requested CSIF funding to install an array of flat-plate collectors which have the potential to save the university over 100,000 lbs of CO2 emissions per year. The SLURP team developed an updated set of financial calculations to inform the CSIF Committee of the projected costs and payback time. The CSIF Committee agreed to fund up to $90k for this project.

Dunne Water Meter Project

By: Henry Ferguson, Kimmie Meunier, Tess Gunnels

The original goal of this project was to monitor Dunne Hall resident shower times in order to raise awareness of water consumption and hopefully change some wasteful behaviours. The team partnered with a new small company, FlowLabs, to set up a system of monitors and hubs. By doing so the project team was able to collect a set of baseline data for Dunne - monitoring the usage of every single shower in the residence hall. The original plan was to gather 2 weeks of baseline data, then create signage to educate residents on sustainable water use and then assess the success of the educational outreach via 2 additional weeks of testing. Due to communication gaps with Dunne staff, the signage was never implemented. Thus the team has 4 weeks of highly valuable baseline data. It showed that while the average shower time was 8 minutes, this varied greatly from less than 2 minutes to 1.5 hours and even a 2 hour shower! It is hoped that this valuable Excel data set could be used by future students to further evaluate shower use and develop educational information for fellow students.

SCU's Bright (but not too bright) Future

By: Alex Duncan, Clint May, Adam Murai

This project returned to 2014 and 2015 SLURP lighting data and developed a CSIF proposal for funding. In order to minimize the amount of electricity wasted on campus by lights being turned on in empty rooms, the team focused on the installation of daylight and motion sensing light controls in campus classrooms and common areas. The SLURP team estimated that with the installation of sensors in Kenna, Lucas, O’Connor and Vari halls, the university would prevent the emission of over 40 metric tons of CO2 per year,as well as save roughly $15,000/year. While the initial cost of the project was not cheap, the resultant savings were estimated pay back its entire cost in just over three years. Ultimately, the CSIF Committee and SCU Facilities decided it would be best to fund the installation of both daylight and motion sensing light controls Kenna Hall, and just motion sensing controls in Lucas Hall.

New Neighborhood Unit Landscaping

By: Alicia Manfroy, Alex Piñon

This project is focused on the lawns of SCU’s twelve neighborhood units that they have recently decided to manage, and how the school plans to maintain them in the years to come considering the severe drought being experienced by the state. Housing had indicated that they were interested in removing the lawns and replacing them with artificial turf. However, the SLURP team learned that this is not an approved alternative, according to the Santa Clara Valley Water District (because they still use water and because they heat up, they contribute to the urban heat-island effect). A survey conducted by the project team revealed that the majority of students would ideally like to have real grass in their yards, but almost half of those surveyed actually preferred artificial turf, native tall grasses, or mulch with plants, all of which are far more sustainable alternatives for grass. (Incidentally, the vast majority of those surveyed were males, and the few females that were surveyed had very different preferences.) The use of the more sustainable alternatives would significantly reduce the 4,500 gallons it would otherwise take to water the lawns of the new units. The SLURP team met with Housing and recommended that they conduct a pilot program with mulch and native tall grasses before rolling out changes to the rest of the units.

Composting in The Villas

By: Chonsa Schmidt, Kim Grandi

Being the only residence hall that provides students with full kitchens and cooking facilities, the Villas should be one of the biggest composters on campus. However, all they have are small and rarely used communal compost bins. This project is aimed at obtaining CSIF funds in order for Housing to implement compost bins in the kitchens of the Villas apartments.  The SLURP team conducted a waste characterization at the Villas that revealed that over 50% of the material in the Villas landfill bin was in fact compostable. Ultimately the team was successful in obtaining CSIF funding for a pilot program for in-kitchen compost pails.

SCU Swap Shop

By: Chonsa Schmidt, Kim Grandi

This SLURP team sought to initiate a SCU Swap Shop. It would be modeled after SCU Swap for Good events, but was geared towards setting up a more permanent location where students can come in and exchange goods that they would have otherwise thrown away for something that they still like and will use for some period of time. This type of exchange and reuse prevents large quantities of still usable materials from finding their way into the landfill, fostering a culture of sustainability at Santa Clara University.

The SLURP team interviewed students at Portland State University to determine how they were able to initiate a ReUse Room on campus and seek insights about challenges they had at PSU. The SLURP students obtained significant positive feedback from the Sustainability staff and it is hoped that this project will move forward.

Eco-Tray & Dishware Return

By: Megan Michel, Alicia Manfroy, Erin Arslanoglu

Aimed to help Santa Clara achieve it’s goal of becoming “Zero Waste”, the project objective was to limit excess waste from togo serviceware & incorrect disposal in Benson dining facilities. The project consisted of an advertised weekly one hour pick up in Swig for all eco-trays and Benson dishware in which volunteers walked the halls of Swig going from door to door collecting eco-trays and Benson serviceware from the residents. The pilot showed promising signs as well as revealed potential improvements to current dining systems such as removing the ‘to-go’ option altogether, or implementing a security system to prevent students from removing any dishes or utensils from the Benson building.

Improving Santa Clara University’s Waste System and Habits

By: Vanessa Caustrita, Zachary Chien, Marianna Moore

This project helped improve student waste diversions at the university through a week long event called ‘Waste Week’, as well as use of walkthroughs and worker trainings to help improve kitchen worker diversions. Waste characterization results show that 80-90% of Benson waste headed for the landfill was recyclable or compostable. The project uncovered the need for more/ continued staff training in the future, due to frequent turnover and other demands on staff time. There remain significant opportunities to reduce the quantity of waste SCU sends to the landfill.

A Colder Load for a Cleaner Conscience

By: Annie Underwood, Sammie Yamashita

This project facilitated discussions with underclassmen in order to educate them on the effects of using sustainable laundry practices in an attempt to lower the CO2 emissions of SCU’s student body. The team conducted surveys on people’s knowledge of how to do laundry sustainably and worked with Housing to create permanent signage in residence halls about completing work orders for broken machines.

Zagster: Taking Off the Training Wheels

By: Christy Chow

The Zagster bikes were brought to SCU as the result of a SLURP project in 2014 in which one SLURP student worked closely with Transportation Services to evaluate bike share options. Zagster was subsequently brought to campus. This Year 2 project focus was to conduct outreach and determine why the bikes were getting such little use. Initially the greatest obstacle faced by the project was a lack of promotion and public knowledge, however with increased signage, advertisement, and tabling, it is hoped that Zagster will see increases in usage.

Water Conservation at SCU: On-Campus Fixture Audit

By: Dylan O’Reilly, Gabriella Carne

In order to remediate the effects of the drought and to preserve water in case of future droughts, it is imperative that SCU do all it can to limit its use of potable water. This project focused on unnecessary water usage resulting from inefficient fixtures around campus, included a water fixture audit in some older and at-risk buildings, as well as determined other areas of weakness in order to establish recommendations for future SLURP projects & Facilities action. Research showed that some sink aerators in campus residence halls actually function at lower flow rates than they were rated at (which is a good thing!) perhaps due to calcification resulting from the high mineral content of the groundwater restricting water flow. Therefore, rather than changing aerators in campus sinks, the better way to reduce water use from sinks is to reduce time of use.   

SCU Water Conservation

By: Julia Homaechevarria, Lauren Hall

Taking one step closer to achieving Santa Clara’s goal of becoming Zero Waste and Climate Neutral, this project attempted to reduce potable water use in campus buildings through toilet and sink fixture audits in older residence halls as well as assessments of the last three years of SCU toilet maintenance. Results showed that some campus buildings have toilets that are operating at more gallons per flush than modern efficient toilets. Facilities staff, however, have indicated that the amount of water per flush is dependent on what floor the toilets are on. Upper floors of a building have lower water pressure and therefore demand more water per flush in the toilet bowl.

Sustainable Landscaping at SCU

By: Allison Carmody, Leigh Pond

With the ever increasing severity of the drought faced by California, this project aimed to make landscaping recommendations to Facilities that would reduce water consumption while maintaining the campus beauty and aesthetic appeal. The most significant changes would be the repurposing of all lawn areas not regularly used for special events or student recreation, as well as replacing current landscape with native plants that are drought and/or recycled water tolerant. Research and calculations showed that roughly 8.3 acres of lawn could be converted into native landscape, and that by using drought and recycled water tolerant plants the University would save up to 244,194 gallons of water per watering session.

Sensors for Savings

By: Ayesha Ahmed, MingFei Xiong, Matt Randolph

Every week roughly 2225 kWh of electricity (equivalent of $270 or 581 Kg of CO2) is wasted as a result of lights being left on in unoccupied rooms around campus on nights and weekends. This project involved conducting fixture audits of classrooms, labs, and conference rooms in Alumni Science, Kenna, Vari, and Lucas Halls in an attempt to save as much of the energy being wasted in empty rooms as possible through the installation of infrared and ultrasonic light sensors. According to research done on campus buildings, over 50% of the time that the lights spend switched on, the room is not being used. The ‘Sensors for Savings’ project hoped to provide insights to Facilities to change that.

Solar Domestic Water Heating

By: Kayla Ayres, Vince Heyman, Nick Matera

This project encouraged the adoption of solar water heating systems on the roof of Dunne Hall. With the use of 30 Heliodyne Gobi 410 solar collectors to trap solar radiation and heat water for Dunne residents the university would save about 84,400 kWh, or about 101,260 lbs in CO2 emissions per year. While initially the system is quite costly, the project was estimated to have a payback period of only 9 years with a forecasted lifespan of 20 - 25 years, resulting in both an increase in the sustainability of the campus as well as significant savings for the University in the long run.

EcoMug

By: Allison Carmody, Kayle Sinnot, Nita Sridharan

This project sought to reduce source waste on campus through single-use coffee cups and promote a reusable mug culture. It was found that many coffee cups are improperly diverted and are excess waste. Limiting the number of necessary single-use cups will help bring Santa Clara University closer to carbon neutrality. Proposed ideas from collected data include an express idea for reusable mug users, an economic discount for bringing a reusable mug as opposed to a disposable one, selling "EcoMugs" and increasing discount incentives on a strategic marketing day (Bring Your Own Mug Monday).

EcoTray

By: Vivian Duong, Lauren Moore, Samantha Yamashita

This project aimed to increase the use of EcoTrays on campus in order to reduce single-use container waste and understand students' resistance to the EcoTray system. The main findings showed that most students were not aware of the eco-tray program; those who were, perceived them to be inconvenient. Some suggested solutions include the creation of EcoTray drop-off stations as well as more marketing to encourage knowledge about the EcoTray prgoram.

Orientation

By: Drea Modugno, Dominic Leventini, Willy Lamb, Logan Morey

This group project's primary objective was to add a sustainability awareness and education portion to Santa Clara University's freshmen orientation by creating something tangible to highlight the current programs and projects available to incoming students. Prior to implementing this component, research about what current students needed to know and would have liked to know was needed first. Results from data collection indicate that SCU students were confident in their ability to divert waste, that sustainability is a defining feature of SCU and that the majority of students wish to learn more about sustainability but were unaware of such programs upon arrival to campus or during their freshmen year. This year's project resulted in the development of a sustainability flyer that all incoming freshmen will receive and a script for a film being produced by student orientation directors.

Powering Down for a Brighter Campus

By: Nathan Ng, Nolin Sasaki, Michael Whalen

By targeting the behavior of professors, the goal of this project was to reduce energy usage. During research, it was discovered that after the last class session of the day, many lights, computers, and monitors are left on overnight and over weekends. Prompts to spur behavior change were implemented in pilot buildings (Lucas Hall and Arts & Sciences) to affect change.

Tackling Climate Change Through Laundry