Environmental Initiatives
Fall 2009
Fall 2009
TEAM made significant strides to increase its presence on campus. With this momentum, TEAM members, led by Matt Bacco, Biz Brauer, Ali Connolly, Tierney Dodge, Hailey Karcher, Cam Mullen and Ben North, returned excited to take on new environmental initiatives.
The newly constructed LEED-certified dining hall also came with an updated recycling facility. TEAM has taken on the responsibility of facilitating the school-wide recycling program. All Taft boarders participate in recycling duty, where they are responsible one night a week for bringing the recycling from their floor down to the new recycling room. TEAM members then sort through this material, separating redeemable cans and bottles from the piles. We have raised around $80 in the first two months of returned deposits, a significant amount when every can is redeemed for only five cents. We’ve put this money into our TEAM Sustainability Fund and also used it to purchase cleaning products for our recycling room. Cardboard recycling was also added to our recycling program, which should have a drastic impact on the trash pickup that currently occurs biweekly; we hope to get it down to once a week. It has certainly been exciting to see all of Taft participate and take an interest in the recycling program.
For the first time, Taft also participated in the world-wide "350" event. This international campaign focuses on bringing the carbon parts per million down to 350; the count is currently at 387 ppm. The 350 campaign started by Bill McKibben hoped to influence the climate talks that took place in Copenhagen in December. Unfortunately, these talks did not deliver the desired results; they did not set a carbon emissions limit, but they did support the REDD initiative for preserving forests for carbon sequestration. So, this movement has not stopped, with many people deeming the results "inadequate." TEAM will continue to support this movement, striving to effect real change. We have already had our own 350 event in October, where TEAM organized a special low-carbon dinner with the help of Chef Jerry Reveron and Rogers Orchard in Southington. Informational booths were set up with 350 information, students sold "We Add Up" T-shirts www.weaddup.com), and information about the carbon footprint of different dining hall foods, among others. Much of the food in the dining hall that night was also purchased from local farms.
Looking forward, we're also anticipating the arrival of recycling bins for all the athletic fields this spring, an addition that will greatly increase the amount of recycling done on campus. TEAM is also hoping to work with the dining hall in reducing the amount of cardboard used in the kitchen. Throughout January TEAM will also prepare for the Green Cup Challenge set to take place in February. This will be our second year participating in the challenge. We hope to improve on the results of last year’s competition and prove that Taft values sustainability on a large scale.
—Hailey Karcher ’10, TEAM
Winter 2009
For the first time ever, Taft will participate in the Green Cup Challenge, "The first and only national student-driven, interschool Climate Challenge that supports student efforts to measure and reduce campus electricity use and related greenhouse gas emissions, water, waste and recycling."
The Challenge is sponsored by the Green Schools Alliance, a non-profit organization founded in 1994 to unite, "K through 12, public, private and independent schools uniting to take action on climate change and the environment." This year's challenge will have more than 145 participating schools in 24 states and in Canada.
Taft's efforts first to join and now to compete in the challenge have been completely student run by the co-heads of the Taft Environmental Awareness Movement (TEAM), Nick Tyson , Wells Andres, John Lombard, Diana Saverin, Sydney Low, Ian Overton, and Schuyler Dalton. Said Nick, "We had pretty much separately all thought to get Taft to compete in the Challenge, and when TEAM met for the first time in the fall we, decided to actually get it done this year."
This year's competition stretches from January 26 to February 23, with February 2008 and 2007 serving as base years to determine the average energy use for the month. Each Friday of the month, the school will report the weeks’ energy use on the Challenge’s website. At the end of the competition, the school that reduces its energy usage by the greatest percent, the school that has the greatest total energy savings, and the school that has the smallest energy usage per student or per square foot will all win prizes.
Because Taft is entering for the first time, there is some uncertainty as to how effective our efforts will be. But even if Taft comes in last, there will be a greater incentive to do better next year, and simply bringing the issue to the attention of the entire student and faculty body is the first step in reducing energy use and becoming a “greener” school.
—Wells Andres ’09
Fall 2008
It has long been a tradition at Taft for each graduating class to make a class gift, something to commemorate their time at Taft and also to remember them by. Past gifts have included such items as benches or trees, but recent graduates used their class gift to demonstrate their leadership in the 21st century.
The classes of ’07 and ’08, with help from the administration and the Connecticut Clean Energy Fund, have donated a 12,000-kilowatt solar panel array.
In October, a New Britain-based company, Pioneer Valley Photovoltaics, began installing the system above the squash courts in Cruikshank Athletic Center, an area chosen to provide maximum sun exposure. An added benefit of installing the panels on top of the squash courts will be, in fact, their relative invisibility from the ground.
“We chose Pioneer Valley in part because of the educational component of their system,” said Director of Facilities Jim Shepard. Students can actually monitor the impact these solar panels have.
“We’ve been talking about installing [solar panels] for a long time,” said Headmaster Willy MacMullen ’78, “and it’s not surprising to me that the impetus came from the students.”
Students are excited too. This gift “shows that there is real concern in the student community for the environment,” senior Nick Tyson said. “It’s a more visible change than anything previously.”
While the panels won’t offset the entire electricity use of the gym complex, a significant quantity considering the two ice rinks and two field houses, the array is, according to Shepard, “on an appreciable scale.” A 2001 Department of Energy study found that an average 2,000-square-foot household used 10,656 kilowatt hours of electricity per year, or almost 2,000 fewer kilowatts than Taft’s solar panels will produce. [To see how much energy the panels are producing, click here.]
The solar panels are only part of Taft’s broader efforts to become a greener campus. New students were greeted this year with “goodie bags,” reusable canvas bags with water bottles, compact fluorescent bulbs and important information about energy use. Over the summer, one of three oil burners at the steam plant was replaced with a more efficient natural gas burner, and the facilities office continues to replace old windows with newer better-insulated ones.
—Wells Andres ’09
Summer 2008
The Taft community has made strides to embrace environmentally friendly practices. In early January, the non-recyclable plastic dining hall cups were replaced with reusable hard plastic ones for cold drinks and mugs for hot drinks. The recycling program is once again operational and there seems to be “enthusiasm among the students to make it work out,” according to Rachael Ryan, history teacher and faculty coadviser to the Taft Environmental Awareness Movement, or TEAM.
Progress has come in fits and starts, however. Environmental science teacher and coadviser to TEAM Jim Lehner thinks that, though improving, “[recycling] is not a priority in student outlook. There’s no interest in bringing your recycling to the bin beyond individual ‘quality of character.’ It’s a Sisyphean task without individual interest.”
Schuyler Dalton ’09, who recently returned from the Maine Coast Semester program, agrees, saying, “The administration got new cups but the students are abusing the privilege. I think we really need a cultural overhaul to get all of the community on board with going green.”
The future of environmentalism at Taft, though, is bright. On Earth Day, a Tuesday in April the Taft community gathered in Main Circle during Morning Meeting to hear Maddy Bloch ’08 read Chief Seattle’s famous speech in praise of the Earth’s bounties as students planted a new disease-resistant elm tree. The Taft IT department sponsored a “print-free” day for all public printers and copiers, and the dining hall cooked lunch and dinner using locally produced vegetables and meats.
The overall dining hall renovation, scheduled to be completed by January 2010, will be certified by the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) GreenBuilding Rating System, a program that ensures that “a building project is environmentally responsible, profitable and a healthy place to live and work.”While still unclear what level of certification will be achieved (estimates run between silver, the second level, and platinum, the highest level possible), the willingness of the administration and trustees to invest in an environmentally sound future for Taft shows just how much progress has been made.
Headmaster Willy MacMullen ’78 sees these changes as a widely demanded revolution. “This is a grassroots, individually based decision process. Small changes made by many collectively have a disproportionate impact.”
—Wells Andres ’09
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