When a university's energy efficiency is directly related to tuition increases, it's time to start paying attention to the environment.
At Penn, this was one of a multitude of factors that led to the Penn Sustainability Plan, a study spearheaded by Architecture Professor Bill Braham in which every building on campus will eventually be evaluated for energy efficiency and consumption.
Braham presented the findings from the first portion of the study - data from the first 50 buildings - Monday night to the Penn Environmental Group.
"We will be able to answer the question that no one has been able to answer precisely before," Braham said: "We will be able to rank buildings in terms of their performance."
The next 100 or so buildings - the actual number varies depending on which buildings are considered a part of Penn's campus - will be evaluated over the course of the next year.
The audit is part of Penn's pact to the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment, which, among many other environmentally friendly goals, pledges to reduce carbon emissions to zero.
President Amy Gutmann was the first Ivy president to sign the agreement, on February 13.
In his presentation, Braham explained that the first step toward taking such action is determining the current strengths and weaknesses of the University's energy consumption. And while electricity consumption is metered and measured, steam and hot-water power, about 50 percent of the campus' energy supply, are not.
Braham described the absence of this information simply: "If you can't measure it, you can't manage it."
College sophomore Kevin Levy, the director of the Penn Environmental Group, agreed that measuring energy consumption was a critical step toward addressing the problem.
"If we don't know how much energy we're using, there's no way we can assign rewards for environmentally friendly behavior," said Levy.
However, such measurements are complicated by the fact that the University's campus has a multitude of different types of buildings from a wide range of historical periods.
As a result, Braham and his team had to develop an extensive list of factors, including energy use, water use, waste transport, land use, and others to develop an accurate scale for all of the nearly 150 campus buildings.
"Keeping all of these in mind is important," said Braham.
Yet, while Braham's efforts are certainly a step in the environmentally-friendly direction, they are long-term plans that will likely take years to complete.
Both Levy and Associate Director of the Penn Environmental Group and College junior Michael Poll agree that steps can be taken every day, in a multitude of areas, that will help Penn achieve its environmental goals.
"As hippy as this sounds, it's really important for students to make these systems work," Poll said, referring to recycling habits, an area in which Penn has struggled. "At the end of the day, if you don't recycle your newspaper, no one will do it for you."
Levy offered an equally simple proposition.
"One important thing is for people to reduce consumption: if you're not using it, don't leave it on," he said.
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