Harvard Gets Energy Award

Harvard University received a Green Power Award last week for its policies toward renewable energy.

The University is the 18th largest national purchaser and the second largest university purchaser of green power—electricity generated from environmentally friendly renewable energy sources.

Nine percent of Harvard’s electricity comes from renewable energy, said Mary H. Smith, manager of energy supply and utility administration at Harvard.

In addition to Harvard, the award was given to 28 other organizations by the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Energy, and the non-profit Center for Resource Solutions.

But the chair of the Massachusetts chapter of the Sierra Club, an environmental group, Mary Ann Nelson, said Harvard students could contribute more to the environment.

“I would hope that all the students and all the other members of the Harvard community will look at their own energy consumption. Harvard students are among wealthiest in country,” Nelson said. “It’s great Harvard got this award, but everyone can do better.”

But students have had some influence on University environmental policy.

The Kennedy School of Government passed a referendum in February 2004—proposed by students—that raised the student term-bill by $5 in order to pay for 100 percent renewable energy. The school administration reacted and agreed to cover the costs.

“We thought it might be a good idea to have a similar referendum,” said Scot M. Miller ’07, historian of the College’s Environmental Action Committee.

Members of the Environmental Action Committee worked with the Undergraduate Council (UC) last year to write a referendum proposing an optional $10 fee to the term-bill to cover the College’s costs of purchasing green power.

Miller said the referendum passed by more than 80 percent and had a “higher voter turn-out than any UC election in history.”

But Dean of the College Benedict H. Gross ’71 vetoed the referendum because he worried that other groups would also want to add optional term bill fees.

Instead, the University responded in March with a $100,000 initiative that would expand the University’s use of renewable energy through research and purchase of green power.

As a result of the referendum, a planning group was created, made up of the co-chairs of the Environmental Action Committee, UC President Matthew J. Glazer ’06, and other environmental activists. The group meets every other week to discuss ways to encourage the College to purchase green power.

Rogers said Gross will give the group $10,000 if they are able to raise $5,000 on their own. Next year, he will donate $5,000 next if students raise $10,000.

Leith Sharp, director of the Harvard Green Campus Initiative, said the group plans to build on the momentum created by the award and past initiatives.

“Renewable energy will have a larger and larger role in assisting in our efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” Sharp said, and cited steps taken by other universities toward this effort.

“Universities are starting to set targets,” Sharp said. “Just over a week ago Yale University committed to reducing its greenhouse emissions to 10 percent below 1990 levels by 2020.”

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions could help the city of Cambridge meet its goals as well.

Michele Sprengnether of Green Cambridge wrote in an e-mail that she hopes Harvard will contribute to the city’s climate plan that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent below 1990 levels by the year 2010.

“The city will need Harvard’s help to reach these goals,” Sprengnether wrote.