Greening the Campus Green, sustainability in the campus landscape
Allegra Bukojemsky, ASLA, LEED AP
Biohabitats San Francisco Bay Bioregion Leader & Landscape Architect
With sustainability becoming mainstream and being embraced by our younger generations, it is not surprising that Colleges and Universities are taking steps in improving their campus sustainability. Some programs are created and run by students, others by university staff, and sometimes staff positions and departments are specifically created for the cause.
With the growth of sustainability on campus, the ranking of schools based on their sustainability has also increased with reports from the
Sierra Club,
National Wildlife Federation, and the
Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System (STARS). These programs and reviews rate everything from energy and water use, local food production, recycling practices, and incorporation of sustainability topics into the curriculum. However, one element seems to be consistently lacking or, if touched on, limited in scope and depth in both practice and curriculum: the sustainable landscape.
Granted buildings are the big energy hogs and their consumption of resources during construction and operation can easily be measured. The root of sustainability is limiting our impact on natural resources, ecology and human health and well being. So why do sustainability programs focus almost exclusively on limiting off-site impact, when we can also be improving on-site cultural and natural resources?
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Campuses have the potential of providing a great deal of ecosystem services when designed and managed properly. Well structured landscapes can result in functioning ecosystems, while key landscape elements can have a variety of positive benefits. Native plants in natural areas as well as the manicured landscape can provide key habitat for pollinator species such as native and honey bees, and birds. The use of native grass for turf areas can improve soil structure and stormwater management, while reducing chemical inputs and water needs. In appropriate bioregions, continuous native tree canopies and remnant forest canopies can have large positive effects on local microclimates, building heating and cooling loads, providing habitat and travel corridors for many bird, insect and small mammal species. Preserved and restored streams and drainages and LID practices can not only improve stomwater management, but also provide habitat and an aesthetic amenity to campus users. Green roofs can provide habitat and resting spaces for migrating bird and insect species, while also reducing stromwater runoff and building energy needs.
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All-in-all the landscape can manage stormwater, provide recreation and restorative spaces, provide habitat and travel corridors for many animal species, reduce urban heat island effects, reduce building heating and cooling loads, filtering air pollution, sequester carbon, and much more. All of these elements when overlapped can have large local and regional benefits, truly strengthening any sustainability program.
Sustainability programs, to truly be sustainable, must be holistic in their approach. While the specific pieces and targets of water and energy reduction are important, the balance and interaction of all the sustainable choices and practices are what need to be considered. Sustainability measurements and efforts need to go beyond the easily measured elements to provide a more holistic process that include on-site and off-site ecology, human health, as well as providing inspiration and exemplary education. Conservation planning, sustainable landscape design and maintenance, and ecological health are becoming easier to consider, and the tools for measuring these elements are developing constantly. The development of Whole Measures, the Living Site and Infrastructure Challenge, the Sustainable Sites Initiative, and the Star Community Index will all help forward the holistic sustainability practices that include buildings, landscape, infrastructure, and community.
The campus landscape is a key element in the schools identity. Many are designed by respected designers as these campuses are often a place of local identity and pride. So now is the time to embrace sustainability holistically on campus and think about greening the campus green. Universities and colleges can teach a great deal through curricula, but potentially even more by example.
Landscape Lens: Green infrastructure and landscape ecology at the campus scale
Jennifer Dowdell, LEED AP
Biohabitats Landscape Architect
When it comes to sustainability, the university/college campus provides an interesting challenge. Often consisting of housing, medical facilities, classrooms, labs, recreation space, parking, stores and various other facilities and services, the campus is, in a sense, a functioning town for the student body. The legacy of an institution's development over time often determines the amount of open space and natural resource amenities that may still exist.
Yet even in the most urban conditions, there are many opportunities to enhance the ecological value and function on a university campus. But where does one begin?
At the planning table.
Integrating landscape ecology and conservation planning into campus master planning efforts is a critical first step in providing colleges and universities with a sustainable framework for growth.
One must begin this process by understanding the campus as part of broader functioning natural and hydrological systems. Those same systems, at the campus scale, can be enhanced and preserved in a way that strengthens the ecological health of the campus, as well as the overall campus experience.
Many of the observations, analyses, and recommendations made by those of us involved in the ecological aspect of campus planning are related to preserving, restoring, or creating "green infrastructure" on the property. Green infrastructure, at the campus scale, is a combination of natural and designed features that are connected and integrated across landscapes on campus and provide a variety of ecological, engineering, and educational benefits. These benefits include improved habitat, increased plant diversity, heat island reduction, aesthetic enhancement, accessible and attractive teaching or learning spaces, water conservation, and stormwater management.
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This green infrastructure should also be considered beyond the campus boundaries, within the broader, regional ecological context. Observations and suggestions for future planning might explore how woodland or riparian corridors on campus might provide forage and nesting habitat, or stop-over points for migratory birds; or how the stormwater runoff being generated on campus could be treated with practices that may help stream stability within and beyond the borders of the campus.
Working alongside other members of a planning team, the ecological planner/designer can provide a vision of the campus as a living system with the potential for broader ecological health implications - a green spine off of which everything is connected and, to a certain degree, defined. The ecological planner/designer must try to answer the question: how can the buildings, open space, even the hardened infrastructure respond to the natural functioning system in a way that is sustaining and regenerative?
By restoring and highlighting natural resource amenities as they plan for future development, institutions of higher education can construct a sustainable framework that can simultaneously support its mission, future growth, the regeneration of natural systems, and an enhanced campus experience for its entire community.
