University of Arizona
PAE-4: Sustainability Plan

The process to develop a campus plan for the University of Arizona encouraged broad participation throughout a two-year planning period. During this time the planning team participated in hundreds of meetings involving more than 1,000 people. The work is the effort of a team of campus and community leaders, professional staff from Campus and Facilities Planning and Facilities Design and Construction, and the consultant group. The 2003 Comprehensive Campus Plan was broken into phases in which presentations and meetings were held. Specifically, the phases were: Observations; Principles and Concept; Precinct Studies; Design Guidelines; and Final Plan. In the 2009 Update to the 2003 Comprehensive Campus Plan, the planning process was similar but only had three phases: Observations; Concepts; and Final Plan. The six month planning process was led by a Project Steering Committee and managed by the Department of Campus & Facilities Planning. Three interactive workshops, open to faculty, staff, students, neighbors and representatives of community groups, were planned. The Update completion was overseen by the then newly formed Planning, Design and Construction unit (PDC).

The Comprehensive Campus Plan focuses on eight areas in pursuit of sustainability: Institutional Action; Educational Initiatives; Integrated Processes and Systems; Operations; Energy; Regional Position; Transit; and Waste Stream. Each area has a list of recommendations that would improve the University of Arizona's commitment to sustainability. The goals range from the creation of committees; improvement of community services like bus transit; improvement of facitilities and grounds; and fostering behavioral change by students, faculty and patrons. For more information please visit http://www.cfp.arizona.edu/files/DG_Chapter_5B.pdf .

The Arizona Board of Regents requires that The University of Arizona develop a comprehensive campus plan to guide the long-range physical growth of the campus, and calls for an update every five years. Progress in meeting the University's sustainability goals as outlined in the Comprehensive Campus Plan are reported in the latest update in the Observations section. Recommendations and plan changes can be found in the Executive Summary or the Implementation and Recommendations section. For more information please visit http://www.cfp.arizona.edu/

The University of Arizona incorporates sustainability into its strategic plan and comprehensive campus plans. As of this writing, a separate sustainability plan is currently under development that will focus more closely on the education aspects of sustainability in addition to physical aspects covered in the Comprehensive Campus Plan and Strategic Plans as well as other guiding documents on campus.