It is constructing a biomass plant that will burn locally harvested wood chips for heat as well as produce electricity. Its farm, which provides produce for the college's cafeteria and the local community, is nationally recognized as a model of organic farming methods. Through improving energy efficiency and converting to biomass fuel, GMC will reduce its carbon footprint by more than 50 percent within four years and achieve climate neutrality by 2011.

The journey toward this goal began in 1995, when then-GMC President Thomas Benson challenged his colleagues to commit to a mission focused on environmental sustainability. In response, the faculty developed a thirty-seven-credit Environmental Liberal Arts (ELA) general education curriculum, consisting of four core courses and seven distribution courses, which form the heart of every student's learning experience. ELA is field-based and service-oriented. The college's natural and social environments provide laboratories for learning.

As curricular reforms progressed, campus retrofits helped to reduce emissions and save energy. In 1999, the EPA designated GMC as its first ENERGY STAR campus. It received this honor for retrofitting and replacing more than 2,900 light fixtures and 1,500 light bulbs, which ultimately reduced monthly electricity use from 119,280 kWh in March of 1997 to 84,174 kWh in January, 2000. Still, maintenance and efficiency challenges presented by an aging campus were significant, and climate neutrality was a distant dream.

Over time, the ELA curriculum had a transformative effect. Academic disciplines were bridged to address environmental challenges. Faculty developed a shared understanding of the relevance of all disciplines to environmental problem- solving and discovered opportunities to collaborate on multi-disciplinary offerings, including fifteen-credit block courses where students spend an intensive semester working on such issues as local river pollution. Commitment to sustain- ability education became a criterion for recruiting new faculty.

The transformation resulted in heightened and informed activism focused on campus environmental challenges among students and faculty. In 2004, students enrolled in a course titled Environmental Advocacy, Public Policy and Corporate Responsibility created by the Student Campus Greening Fund (SCGF). This fund, made possible as a result of a student body referendum to increase the fees of each student by $30 per year, was designed to financially support proposals that increase environmental awareness and/or decrease the school's ecological footprint. SCGF proposals are written by students, evaluated by a student committee, and voted on by the student body.

It was a SCGF proposal that fostered consensus for constructing the new biomass plant, the most significant step in reducing GMC's carbon footprint. The proposal originated in a 2005 freshman honors seminar addressing peak oil. Students became concerned that the GMC heating plant burned highly polluting No.6 fuel oil. The class wrote a proposal to investigate converting to a biomass-fueled heating system. Their study showed that conservation would dramatically reduce carbon emissions while achieving significant energy cost savings. Thus, the most influential action aligning the college's philosophy with its physical operations was student-generated.

Students' Demands

Student activism also influenced administrative decisions affecting food services and building construction. Students enrolled in a block course focusing on sustainable agriculture developed the college's sustainable food purchasing policy, and helped create the Rutland Area Farm & Food Link (RAFFL), a local organization that connects farmers with food providers and consumers. Student opposition to building a new dormitory resulted in an approach that supported principles of sustainability, and led to the regeneration of an existing building rather than the construction of a new one. And the remodeled building was to be Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certified, the first of its kind on campus. The students also recommended the inspirational name SAGE Hall (Students for Academic and Green Engagement).

GMC was already on the leading edge of sustainability reform on college campuses when the first meeting of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) was held in 2006, where Provost William Throop represented the college at planning sessions for the American College and University Presidents' Climate Commitment (ACUPCC). GMC President Jack Brennan was among the initial signatories of the ACUPCC, and the first in Vermont.

This commitment created an ambitious goal for the college's sustainability activities: to achieve climate neutrality within a specific time frame. GMC‘s Sustainability Council, chaired by renewable energy economics expert Professor Steve Letendre, conducted a carbon inventory and then developed a proposal for a climate action plan. The Council, and students enrolled in more than ten classes, created a road map that would lead to climate neutrality. These enterprising measures prompted the new GMC president, Paul Fonteyn, to announce during his inaugural address in April 2009: “I can state with confidence that the college will be carbon neutral by 2011. We will be one of the first two colleges in the country to achieve this goal through actually reducing carbon emissions by more than 50 percent.”

The Roadmap to Climate Neutrality

GMC's climate action plan, formally adopted by the GMC community in September 2009, outlines short-term (2011), mid-term (2020), and long- term (2050) goals. By 2050, GMC will produce all of its energy on site, have a climate neutral campus fleet, and reduce emissions from air travel by 80 percent.

Emissions from sources controlled by the college, scope one emissions, will be dramatically reduced by the college's conversion to a 400 horsepower, combined heat and power (CHP) biomass facility. The new facility will shift 85 percent of current fuel oil usage to biomass and burn an estimated 4,397 tons of locally sourced wood chips annually.[1] This will reduce use of fuel oil from 230,000 gallons to 40,700 gallons per year, necessary only on the coldest days of the year. It will also produce 400,000 kWh of electricity per year, reducing emissions from 2007 levels of 106 MT CO2e to 87 MT CO2e. The estimated cost to build the CHP plant is $5.4 million with a payback period of eighteen years. To improve thermal efficiency, GMC will complete the process of replacing all the single- pane windows in its dormitories with high-efficiency double-pane units, at an estimated cost of $712,500. GMC will begin to carry out comprehensive thermal efficiency and electricity audits of all campus buildings to generate a list of measures that can be taken in the mid- and long-term (2020 and 2050). Emissions from the campus fleet will be reduced by replacing current vans with more efficient vehicles.

In 2006, emissions from sources not controlled by the college, scope two emissions, were significantly reduced when GMC made the decision to purchase 50 percent of its electricity through Central Vermont Public Service's Cow Power program, at an estimated cost of $18,000 per year. Cow Power delivers energy from burning biogas derived from cow manure on Vermont dairy farms. The new biomass co-generation plant will further reduce these emissions, as will a range of behavioral changes and efficiency gains that have been proposed by student and faculty groups.


A Better Way to Get Around

Emissions resulting from faculty, staff, and student commuting, institutional ground and air travel, and solid waste, scope three emissions, will be reduced largely through behavioral changes. GMC is conducting a transportation audit to assess and rank order opportunities for emissions reductions in air and ground travel. Institutional ground travel emissions will be reduced by 5 percent by 2011 through the addition of two hybrid vehicles for use by faculty and staff. The cost for the two vehicles is $60,000. Emissions from air travel are projected to remain unchanged.

Incentives for faculty, staff, and students will be created to encourage use of alternative transportation. These may include reducing rates on public transportation, expanding the college's green-bike program, and instituting parking fees to discourage single-occupancy vehicles and promote the use of public transportation. Solid waste will be reduced through educational outreach to bring about behavioral change on campus.