The Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns football team isn’t the only group that will be competing at Cajun Field this fall.
Tailgating fans can participate in the Game Day Recycling Challenge, a friendly, nationwide competition to reduce waste at football games. The contest is just one way the University of Louisiana at Lafayette is encouraging people to pay attention to the environment and the part they play in it.
“The University started the program last fall, but we’re going to be more active in trying to get folks to reduce waste and remove items that are going into dumpsters, and ultimately landfills, that could be recycled,” said Gretchen Vanicor in a recent interview. In January, she became the University’s first director of the Office of Sustainability.
Although the University has been gradually formalizing its sustainability efforts on campus over the past few years, the concept of conserving an ecological balance by avoiding the deletion of natural resources is hardly new.
“In other parts of the country, being ‘green’ and ‘sustainable’ have become kind of the cool thing to do, but in south Louisiana, those aren’t just trendy terms,” Vanicor said.
“What we call ‘sustainable practices’ are ideas that we grew up with: ‘Turn the lights off. Don’t use more water than you need to. Don’t waste.’ So, this principle of respecting our environment has been in our culture all along.
“It’s not just something we talk about in a ‘green’ sort of way. It’s about loving where you live.”
Vanicor holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in architecture from UL Lafayette. She was a member of a team of students and faculty members who designed and built the Louisiana BeauSoleil Solar Home. The sustainable structure won two awards in the U.S. Department of Energy’s 2009 Solar Decathlon, an international contest to design and build an energy-efficient, solar-powered house.
The BeauSoleil Home had some high-tech features. But it also incorporated an architectural heritage developed by the Acadians, who were exiled from Nova Scotia by the British in the 1700s and settled in south Louisiana.
The displaced Acadians found ways to adapt to the region’s brutal heat and humidity, for example. They positioned their homes to take advantage of prevailing winds and the path of the sun. High ceilings enabled heat to rise and cooler air to settle; cisterns collected rainwater.
In 2010, the Student Government Association began a recycling effort on campus. The Office of Sustainability now manages that program.
Collection bags for paper, plastic, cardboard and aluminum are available in all administrative buildings and faculty offices. There are also receptacles for recyclable materials across campus.
Vanicor said the next major goal is to integrate the program into all residence halls and classrooms by Fall 2014.
In February, the University became a member of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education, one of the largest organizations in higher education sustainability. This non-profit group developed the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment and Rating System™ for schools to measure their sustainability performance.
“We’re preparing to do a STARS assessment in 2015. It uses self-reported data and will include benchmarks so we can compare ourselves to other institutions of our size,” Vanicor said. The assessment will cover areas such as energy and water usage, waste reduction and recycling.
The University has already taken steps to conserve energy and control water use. “We’ve weatherized buildings to reduce energy loads and installed motion-detection lights in offices. We’re also engaged in storm-water management and water-usage reduction,” Vanicor said.
The Student Union, which is being expanded and renovated, will meet international green building certification standards of Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design set by the U.S. Green Building Council.
The Office of Sustainability organizes events, such as Fête de la Terre, the University’s annual Earth Day celebration. And, it’s a resource in the community. Vanicor helped Lafayette Consolidated Government plan an event, “Better Block Bertrand,” for example. On May 31, a section of Bertrand Drive in Lafayette was reduced from four to two lanes to increase pedestrian and bicycle access. The one-day event, which included live music and food trucks, demonstrated sustainability in urban design.
“We can serve as a good role model for other communities and institutions through our sustainable and responsible practices,” Vanicor said.
The Office of Sustainability plans to introduce students to research taking place on campus related to sustainability. Other goals are to establish a minor in sustainability and to integrate sustainability into the core curriculum.