Sustainable Campus Initiative

Environmental Assessment

The Sustainable Campus Initiative undertook an environmental assessment of the Twin Cities Campus. This project originally began as an ecological footprint, which is an accounting tool for ecological resources. Categories of consumption are translated to area of productive land required to provide resources and assimilate waste products.

This interdisciplinary project worked with students to collect some data on the environmental impacts of the university. We collected information in the following areas:

Sustainability Indicator Data Collected Resources
Energy Transportation Savanick 2004, PhD Dissertation (pdf), Chapter 3 (pdf)
Electricity Savanick 2004, PhD Dissertation (pdf), Chapter 3 (pdf)
Heat Savanick 2004, PhD Dissertation (pdf), Chapter 3 (pdf)
Water Consumption Christi Spak 2002, "Assessing the Ecological Footprint of the University of Minnesota’s Twin Cities Campuses: Water Usage" (pdf)
Storm water Melanie Burns, Mary Gullickson and Della Schall 2001,
"East Bank Campus Watershed Management Plan" (pdf)
Waste Hazardous waste Andrew Dosdall 2002, "Hazardous Waste" (Forestry library)
Solid waste Savanick 2004, PhD Dissertation (pdf), Chapter 3 (pdf)
Grounds Impervious
   surface		 Kylie Paul 2002, "Impervious Surfaces at the University of Minnesota" (pdf)
Fertilizer use Savanick 2004, PhD Dissertation (pdf), Chapter 3 (pdf)
Environmental Policies Pollution
   prevention		 U of MN Regents Policy on Waste Abatement and Pollution Prevention (web)

The Department of Architecture and Landscape Architecture collaborated on this project by working on the "Greening CALA" project. The college is currently collecting information for an environmental assessment of their department. See http://www.csbr.umn.edu/greeningcala.html for more information.

This project was made possible by a grant from the Minnesota Office of Environmental Assistance.