Overall Rating Silver
Overall Score 64.62
Liaison Sarah Fortner
Submission Date March 3, 2022

STARS v2.2

Carleton College
IN-48: Innovation B

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 0.50 / 0.50 Martha Larson
Manager of Campus Energy and Sustainbility
Facilities
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

Name or title of the innovative policy, practice, program, or outcome:
Carleton's Utility Master Plan Events & Workshop

A brief description of the innovative policy, practice, program, or outcome that outlines how credit criteria are met and any positive measurable outcomes associated with the innovation:

While Carleton has claimed the outreach portion of this innovation credit before, we are happy to submit for the workshop and other events we have hosted throughout the last year as a part of our outreach efforts. A small summary of our outreach efforts is below, along with our events & workshops for FY19:

1) Tour for the City of Northfield
2) Part of the "open house" for the new Anderson Hall science building (tracking LEED Platinum) for all faculty, staff, and students.
3) Tour for the Upper Midwest Association for Campus Sustainability (UMACS) conference with our construction and planning team representatives.
4) Tours for various classes and student newspaper articles throughout the academic year.
5) Webinars for alumni called Carleton Connects detailing the plan.
6) A day-long workshop for those interested in Carleton's Utility Master Plan as a pre-workshop to the UMACS conference that Carleton hosted.

These events were critical to advancing closed-loop, hot water geothermal/heat pump technology at institutions that are considering it. We understand that we are fortunate to have an administration and board of trustees that allowed us to take this innovative step and we hope to inspire others along the way.

Carleton is undergoing a massive revitalization of its 100-year-old steam heating system. This transformation will switch our district heating system from natural gas and steam based, to geothermal based. This system is innovative, but also extremely disruptive to campus. Three geothermal bore fields have been drilled on beloved green spaces on campus and every building needs upgrades to be able to accept the hot-water system. Because of this, the Utility Master Plan needed an outreach program that was unique from typical facilities projects. This outreach program needed to go above and beyond to educate, inspire, and inform the campus community to the changes to come over a five-year construction period.

There were three big tools that were critical to our success:
1. Quality graphics that told our story. These graphics varied from fun facts to informative maps. They are displayed on the construction site and shared widely with the campus community.
2. The UMP Website. This website is critical to general inquiries from other institutions that would like to do a similar project. While we are busy with construction, it is often difficult to find time to sit down for a phone call with everyone who is interested. The website serves as a landing page for everything related to the geothermal and UMP project. https://apps.carleton.edu/geothermal/
3. The Sustainability Assistants and Environmental Advisory Committee. These two groups of people are trained to tell our story so that the project manager and the Sustainability Program Coordinator can focus on the project. They are our ambassadors to the construction and conduct a lot of on-the-ground outreach.


A letter of affirmation from an individual with relevant expertise or a press release or publication featuring the innovation :
The website URL where information about the programs or initiatives is available:
Additional documentation to support the submission:
---

Data source(s) and notes about the submission:

Link to the UMACS Conference that Carleton hosted, featuring the geothermal system: https://apps.carleton.edu/sustainability/conference/ (note: the pre-conference workshop was invite-only and not included in the public schedule)


Link to the UMACS Conference that Carleton hosted, featuring the geothermal system: https://apps.carleton.edu/sustainability/conference/ (note: the pre-conference workshop was invite-only and not included in the public schedule)

The information presented here is self-reported. While AASHE staff review portions of all STARS reports and institutions are welcome to seek additional forms of review, the data in STARS reports are not verified by AASHE. If you believe any of this information is erroneous or inconsistent with credit criteria, please review the process for inquiring about the information reported by an institution or simply email your inquiry to stars@aashe.org.