Campus
Sustainability
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Michigan Tech's Carbon Neutral Project
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The Academic Quality Improvement Program infuses the principle of continuous improvement into the culture of colleges and universities. With AQIP, an institution demonstrates that it meets accreditation standards and expectations through ongoing activities that characterize organizations striving to improve their performance.
Sustainable Futures IGERT student Margot Hutchins and Sustainable Futures Scholar Dan Adler, created a proposal for Michigan Tech’s AQIP Carbon Neutral project. Once formed, the AQIP committee developed a carbon emissions inventory for the University and made recommendations to move toward carbon neutrality, including steps to integrate the recommendations into University operations.
Through one recommendation of AQIP, the Green Campus Enterprise was created. During the first semester of work, the Enterprise students worked in three teams to address the following goals:
The Clean Air-Cool Planet Calculator Group: refining the emissions data and compiling additional data to develop a baseline year carbon emissions inventory for Michigan Tech.
The Campus Culture and Attitude Group: raising student and employee awareness about energy conservation. They conducted on-campus energy conservation exercises and proposed a dorm competition to spur energy reduction.
The Wind Turbine Group: conducting a feasibility study of wind turbines to supply power for Michigan Tech. The group will propose detailed steps (e.g. wind metering locations, costs, etc) needed to run the study under several turbine scenarios. Future enterprise classes will gather data from the instrumentation and evaluate the feasibility of a turbine. |
