Energy and Greenhouse Gas

Hey students, this Fall you can take reusable mugs and CFLs off your back-to-school shopping list!  Harvard is making it easier than ever to start the new school year off on a green note.

The staff members of the Harvard Map Collection were recently recognized by the Harvard Office for Sustainability (OFS) for earning Leaf One as part of the Green Office Program.

When you’re working away in your dorm or office trying to implement sustainability initiatives, it can often feel overwhelming.  It shouldn’t be that way, especially when there are so many impassioned students, staff and faculty throughout Harvard dedicated to making Green the new Crimson!

Typically when the temperature spikes, so does energy use. It’s pretty simple. Pulling heat and humidity out of buildings, offices, and classrooms – thus making them comfortable to occupy – requires a vast amount of energy.

Achieving Gold certification under the LEED for Commercial Interiors version 2.0 rating system in June 2010, the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences’ (FAS) Jacobsen Lab is an approximately 6,000 square foot organic chemistry lab located on the second floor of Mallinckrodt Laboratory Building at 12 Oxford Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Energy data from the first half of Fiscal Year 2010 (July- December 2009), suggest that Harvard Law School buildings consumed 21% less energy than they used during the same six month period in FY2009.  In the same period HLS has reduced its emissions by 600 MTCDE (metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents) and saved over $300,000 in energy costs.

The Office for Sustainability recently granted money to undergraduates and graduate students from six schools across campus to implement a range of sustainability projects.

Learn more about the projects that received funding here: http://green.harvard.edu/grants

The second round of grants will be distributed this fall- keep an eye out for the application!

CONGRATULATIONS to those of you who participated in the 2nd Annual HSPH "Take the Stairs Competition," sponsored by EcoOpportunity.

Join us on Tuesday, June 29 from 12-2pm in the Cafeteria Atrium in celebration (and to pick up your prizes)!

On May 2nd, more than 50 Harvard students took a break from studying for finals and picked up caulk guns to help improve the energy efficiency of the Phillips Brooks House in Harvard Yard.

The Campaign

The "Take the Stairs" campaign is an initiative aimed at improving human health (by getting people to take the stairs more often) and reducing our environmental impact (by using the elevator less and thereby using less energy).