The Undergraduate Assembly housed environmentalists and prospective UA candidates alike in its second general body meeting of the semester Sunday night.
The meeting, held in Hill College House, featured a Sustainability Town Hall with Penn’s Sustainability coordinator Dan Garofalo.
Before Garofalo spoke, meeting attendees introduced themselves. Most non-UA members were either prospective freshman UA candidates or freshman members of the Nominations and Elections Committee. Others were there to hear Garofalo speak about the Climate Action Plan — Penn’s long-term plan to reduce its carbon footprint — which was presented last Wednesday.
Next, Garofalo spoke about the recently unveiled Climate Action Plan.
In 2007, Penn President Amy Gutmann signed the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment, or ACUPCC, pledging to create a plan to reduce the University’s environmental impact. The Climate Action Plan fulfilled that pledge.
By getting universities and colleges to commit to reducing their carbon footprints, Garofalo explained, ACUPCC could influence state legislatures to make similar changes.
In a similar effort, the Environmental Sustainability Advisory Committee established six areas under which the school can reduce its carbon footprint: utilities and operations, physical environment, transportation, waste minimization, academics and communication.
Garofalo outlined some recommendations for increasing sustainability in these areas. To increase efficiency in utilities and operations, for example, all new buildings will be built to the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, standards.
An improvement in communications — one of the key areas — would enforce the message that individual behavior is essential to improving sustainability. A flaw in communications, Garofalo said, led some of the community to believe that employees who empty garbage bins combine both recyclables and trash without sorting them. A communications improvement would eliminate this myth.
A question-and-answer session followed Garofalo’s speech. College senior Emerson Brooking, a Daily Pennsylvanian columnist and UA member, brought up the general unhappiness among undergraduates with college houses’ new shower heads.
Garofalo responded by explaining that a significant amount of savings will most likely result from the new shower heads, and that the Oxygenics model received the highest ratings of all the energy-efficient models tested. Garofalo added that he had heard that the shower head works better if it is in line with the delivery pipe.
In addition to reviewing the University’s sustainability policies, the UA reviewed updates on two projects. The first of these, college house research fairs — which will publicize research opportunities for undergraduates — inspired Nursing and Wharton and Nursing junior and UA member G.J. Melendez-Torres to say “research is sexy, so do it.”
The second, the Late-Night Dining Survey that went out school-wide last week, received nearly 900 responses, the highest number of responses since the condom choice survey of 2007.
