University of Pittsburgh
EN-10: Community Partnerships

Pittsburgh’s colleges and universities play a vital role in the city’s success, from developing the next generation of leaders to generating breakthrough discoveries. Similarly, Pittsburgh’s institutions of higher education have accepted responsibility for leading the way in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and banded together to form The Higher Education Climate Consortium (HECC) to cooperatively implement recommendations. HECC meets quarterly in an effort to address the short-term (within 2 years), medium-term (within 5 years) and long-term (beyond 5 years) recommendations on how colleges, universities and their students can reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

Collectively, buildings in Downtown Pittsburgh and Oakland in this Green Building Alliance initiative are actively working to achieve 50% reductions in energy use, water use, and transportation emissions by the year 2030. The University was a founding member in 2014 of the Oakland District and has twice hosted the monthly 2030 District Partner meeting. These dramatic reductions are being accomplished in conjunction with improved indoor air quality, increased returns on investment, and related growing regional successes. The University of Pittsburgh's Dr. Melissa Bilec, Associate Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Deputy Director, Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation, has been working with the Pittsburgh 2030 District to conduct an IAQ pilot to establish an IAQ baseline for individual buildings, the impacts of energy reductions on IAQ, and efforts to develop a scalable IAQ protocol. https://www.go-gba.org/initiatives/pittsburgh-2030-district/

The mission of 412 Food Rescue is, “to prevent perfectly good food from entering the waste stream,” which they accomplish by recovering produce and prepared foods from local businesses and redistributing it through local food assistance programs. Their activities support all three dimensions of sustainability by: 1. Preventing food from entering landfill, reducing the amount of greenhouse gases produced 2. Addressing food insecurity by redirecting healthy foods to those that need it most, as well as providing no-cost cooking and nutrition classes to community members 3. Boosting the local economy by working with small business to create innovative products from surplus food. More information on 412 Food Rescue can be found here: https://412foodrescue.org/ The Pitt Pantry is in its third year of partnership with 412 Food Rescue, and has supplied volunteers to assist with food recoveries and leading cooking and nutrition classes. Additionally, the Pitt Pantry and 412 Food Rescue have worked together to raise awareness of food insecurity and food waste through events such as the University of Pittsburgh Collegiate Basic Needs Dialogue (October 2017) and the Pitt Pantry Annual Hunger Banquet (March 2016 and 2017, and to be held April 2018). http://www.studentaffairs.pitt.edu/pittserves/sustain/pantry/