Bucknell University
PA-2: Sustainability Planning

Bucknell's College of Arts and Sciences has adopted a core curriculum with specific requirements in the following areas relevant to sustainability education: Environmental Connections, Diversity in the U.S., and Global Connections. Each of the Arts and Sciences requirements administrated through the College Core Curriculum (see above) has its own assessment procedure. See the College Core Curriculum document available at this url: https://coursecatalog.bucknell.edu/collegeofartsandsciencescurricula/curriculaoverview/collegecorecurriculum/

The 2009 Comprehensive Environmental Assessment stated several measurable recommendations including:
1. Implementation of the Environmental Connections requirement, including the faculty support necessary for development of new courses fulfilling this requirement.
2. Continued development of “tracks” within the Environmental Studies major.
3. Continued assessment and tracking of environmental literacy among the general student population. The environmental literacy survey should be included as part of freshman orientation as well as the senior exit survey. Doing so would provide reliable and comparable data for measuring progress in this area

The 2010 Climate Action Plan stated several measurable strategies related to curriculum including:
1. Devote a portion of first-year orientation activities to learning about the local environment and necessary campus operations. As an example of progress, human resources department now regularly includes a segment on campus greening in their new employee orientation program. The environmental literacy survey could be expanded and administered yearly to each incoming class.
2. Offer more year-round educational content on issues like recycling and energy use during the first year, perhaps organized through the Office of Housing and Residential Life.

The 2010 Climate Action Plan stated measurable strategies related to campus engagement including:
1. Promote involvement by fraternities and sororities in service activities with an acknowledged sustainability component. Consider amending requirements so that some percentage of these service activities must be relevant to sustainability or the environment. An example might be installing solar panels in a local school or nursing home.

The University Facilities Energy Team assesses energy usage in buildings and systems using a wide variety of resources and provides energy efficiency retrofits and strategies for the community campus wide. Evaluation of performance through continuous tracking of energy use allows team and community education to continuously evolve and improve thus reducing total campus energy consumption. The Energy Team makes its plans and progress available to the campus in a quarterly report. For the last several years, Energy Team has maintained the goal of a 2% reduction in energy consumption each year. Its quarterly report tracks progress toward this goal.

The 2009 Comprehensive Environmental Assessment contained numerous measurable sustainability objectives related to energy including:
1. Collect energy consumption benchmarks from peer universities, and share these, as well as discreet action plans for energy conservation, with the upper administration.
2. Support Facilities’ goal of reducing energy use 2% per year over the next 5 years, for a 10% total decrease through the university budgeting process.
3. Secure funding to replace the heat pump system in Dana Engineering.
4. Implement the energy conservation measures identified by Facilities’ audit process, particularly in the library.
5. Complete laboratory hood upgrades throughout campus, but particularly in the Biology and Chemistry buildings.
6. Secure funding to improve metering on campus, so that every entry point of energy (heating/cooling and electric) in every building is monitored.
7. Add one to two support staff positions to improve monitoring and maintenance of existing and new BAS. These positions would also support expanded energy auditing, including implementing conservation measures.
8. Replace ALL remaining incandescent and less-efficient fluorescent bulbs.
9. Investigate LED technology for both indoor and outdoor lighting.

The 2010 Climate Action Plan stated several measurable strategies related to energy including:
1. Switch 10% of cogeneration facility fuels to renewable fuels by 2020.
2. Achieve an additional 5% reduction in total energy usage by 2030 due to “greener” new construction and retiring/demolition of older buildings.

1. Total cost of sustainability
2. Employee sustainability acumen
3. Value from sustainability programs
4. Number of sustainability innovations
5. % Improvement on sustainability behavior

The Board of Trustee has a subcommittee on environment, social and governance (ESG) and the University is a signatory to the the American College & University Presidents’ Climate Commitment (ACUPCC).

We define sustainability to encompass principles and practices that advance the the long-term viability and resilience of our environmental, social, and economic support systems. These principles and practices work at every scale, from local to global, and are fundamental to creating a more just, equitable and abundant future.

Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN)

https://www.bucknell.edu/meet-bucknell/bucknell-leadership/plan-bucknell-2025

Please see page 12 of the above plan for the specific focus on sustainability:

1. "Bucknell will pursue broad-based environmental sustainability efforts that
address issues such as energy use and sourcing, biodiversity and natural habitat, and waste minimization and recycling, while publicly reaffirming and continuing the pursuit of its stated goal of carbon neutrality by 2030."

2. "By spring 2020, Bucknell will complete the drafting of and begin implementing an Environmental Sustainability Plan."

The above strategic objectives drove the development of the Sustainability Plan at the link below:
https://d31hzlhk6di2h5.cloudfront.net/20230118/70/34/cc/3d/7e4bc5df2b1abe260e7570d9/ocs_20-30_sustainabilityplan.pdf

The Sustainability Plan has 20 SMART Key Performance Indicator (KPIs) summarized in the above document.