Faculty, staff and students have made progress with waste prevention, promoting sustainable food and participating in activities like the Planet Blue Ambassadors program, based on the latest report of the U-M Sustainability Cultural Indicators Program.
The research team compared information from the 2015 SCIP survey about the awareness, attitudes and behavior of students, staff and faculty with results from previous surveys conducted each year since 2012.
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“Participating in sustainability activities is important,” said John Callewaert, emerging opportunities program director at the Graham Sustainability Institute, and co-principal investigator on the SCIP initiative with Robert W. Marans, research professor at the Institute for Social Research. “Even small steps like turning off the lights or opting to take the bus make a difference.”
One of the most positive findings from the report is that the U-M community has become more knowledgeable about waste prevention and sustainable foods, and has reduced waste through specific behaviors, like recycling and composting on campus and at home.
Actions like reusing and recycling, and purchasing items with minimal packaging were noted in the report. Also, it remains critical that the university continue sustainability research, education, and outreach.
SCIP results also indicate students are more likely to walk, bus or bike to campus and are more informed than U-M employees about transportation options available to them.
A significant difference among staff surveyed is that, on average, they live quite a bit further from campus than students and travel more than twice as far as faculty to work. This may mean that promoting commuter options like vanpools, the MRide bus program and park-and-ride lots is more crucial for staff.
“We are actively using data from the SCIP to analyze the knowledge of U-M sustainability efforts among campus communities,” said Andrew Berki, director of the Office of Campus Sustainability. “We can look at specific sectors of the campus population and alter our communication approach to be more effective in reaching students, faculty or staff.”
Berki said several campus projects focusing on waste reduction were rolled out this year, including composting all pre- and post-consumer food waste from residence halls, expanding a formal Zero Waste Events program, and converting Michigan Stadium to a zero-waste facility by 2017. These waste-reduction efforts support one of the university’s long-term sustainability goals: reducing waste sent to landfills by 40 percent by 2025.
Several schools, departments and programs also draw on SCIP data to better educate and engage U-M faculty, students and staff, and to improve sustainability efforts.
“I’m using the SCIP data with master’s students this term,” said Victoria Campbell-Arvai, assistant research scientist at the School of Natural Resources and Environment. “Students developed a testable hypothesis from SCIP survey questions and analyzed SCIP data sets to test their hypothesis.”
Campbell-Arvai remarked on how important it was for students to use a rich data set and focus on real-world problems across campus. Students will compile specific recommendations to improve the sustainability culture at U-M and share these with the SCIP research team. This input will help inform new survey questions and possible interventions to improve sustainability efforts in the future.
The next round of data collection will be in fall 2017 and the research team is working to update the survey based on new U-M sustainability initiatives.
Noah Webster, assistant research scientist at ISR, co-authored the report with Callewaert and Marans. The 2015 SCIP report includes detailed results and findings from the survey and a “Sustainability Indicators Highlights” summary provides key indicators showing trends between 2012 and 2015.
“The feedback we receive from SCIP surveys is critical in understanding how we’re doing and where we should focus additional efforts,” said Marans. “What we’re doing here at U-M is pretty unique.”
SCIP is a collaborative effort of the Graham Institute and ISR, with support from the Office of the Provost. Launched in 2012 to track “sustainability culture” on the Ann Arbor campus, SCIP uses annual surveys to measure and evaluate changes and progress over time.
Doug Kelbaugh
Kudos to the whole team, including Andy Berki and Bob Marans, for progress to date, especially in waste management.
In my opinion, UM needs to focus more on GHG reduction, as it is becoming ever-clearer that Climate Change is the most urgent challenge facing humanity, eclipsing other important environmental challenges. Less driving and more biking and walking, less air travel, less red meat-eating, less electrical lighting, higher thermostat settings in summer and lower in winter – these all seem to be the low hanging fruit we should all be picking.
Keep up, double down on the good work at UM. Go Blue-Green!
Doug
Carolyn McCreary
We need to have receptacles for styrofoam. Recycle Ann Arbor does not pick it up curbside. Our department has styrofoam that comes in packages of supplies and equipment. It really bothers me to see that thrown in the trash. I save it up and take it to the drop-off site in Ann Arbor. For $3 they will take it, compact it and either recycle it or dispose of it properly. In other countries, they are forbidden to use styrofoam. I think it should be outlawed in the USA too or at LEAST on UofM campus.