Paul Smith’s College Partners with Clarkson University in Regional Food Waste Audit Project

By Ariah Mitchell, Casella Climate Resilience Fellow

Paul Smith’s College Center for Sustainability has been awarded a $7,500 grant as part of a regional food waste audit research project with Clarkson University, backed by NYS Pollution Prevention Institute. The goal of this project is to develop a qualitative and quantitative understanding of food waste in facilities of higher education within our region. Under the direction of Sustainability Coordinator and Instructor Katharine Glenn, we will be hiring a team of student interns to complete a comprehensive audit of food waste on campus. With assistance from Clarkson University and Compost for Good, our Food Waste Audit Interns will collect and track data regarding our current composting efforts and our goals for the future, and engage our campus community with awareness of food waste management practices. 

As an institution, Paul Smith’s already composts 100% of its food waste with Blue Line Compost in Saranac Lake. Our success in managing pre and post-consumer food waste within our dining facilities and culinary department, as well as our dedication to working with local businesses, can provide an excellent model for institutions across the state who have the goal of becoming more mindful about food waste and supporting sustainable community resources. Not only will the data collected though this study help us to develop a more complete understanding of campus food waste management and help provide an example for other higher education facilities, but it will provide an excellent opportunity for paid student participation and learning in the ever important and growing field of sustainable food waste management. Interested in joining the team as a Food Waste Audit Intern? Please apply by sending a copy of your resume and cover letter to sustainability@paulsmiths.edu and stop by Student Center 101. We’d love to chat with you and answer any questions. 

Follow link for copy of Food Waste Audit Internship Position

Meet Our Staff!

Sustainability Coordinator, Faculty, Department of Environment and Society

I am often asked what a Sustainability Coordinator does, the primary focus of my position is to help make our campus and community more resilient, by mitigating and adapting to the affects of climate change. I focus mostly on reducing the college’s greenhouse gas emissions levels, I champion and oversee renewable energy and energy efficiency projects on campus. I also coordinate our STARS (Sustainable Tracking and Rating System) strategic plan and reporting. This includes various initiatives regarding sustainable dining, waste minimization, and other initiatives related to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. I’ve been teaching for about 7 years. I teach about four classes a year, primarily upper division classes in our Sustainability BS program. check out my faculty page to learn more about myself the classes I teach. I also direct the Center for Sustainability, this semester we have a staff of about 4 student employees and Sustainability Fellows working on various campus initiatives and programs.

Looking to get involved? Have an idea? Have questions? Reach out, I’d love to hear from you. Stop by the Center for Sustainability (Student Center 101) or e-mail me at kglenn@paulsmiths.edu. Check us out on social media @pscsustainability (Instagram) Paul Smith’s College Center for Sustainability (Facebook).

Center for Sustainability Staff

Name: Sean Jackson ,

Title: Sustainability Fellow: Transportation

E-mail: sjackson@paulsmiths.edu,

Major: Sustainability BS

 

 

Name: Nicole Distasio ,

Title: Sustainability Fellow: Sustainable Dining

E-mail: ndistasio@paulsmith.edu

Major: Sustainability BS, Minor: Entrepreneurial Business

Paul Smith’s College Receives STARS Bronze Rating for Sustainability Achievements

Paul Smith’s College has earned a STARS Bronze rating from the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) for its sustainability achievements. STARS, the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment and Rating System, measures and encourages sustainability in all aspects of higher education.

The STARS program, which has more than 800 participants in 30 countries, is the most widely recognized framework in the world for publicly reporting information related to a college’s sustainability performance. Participants report achievements in five overall areas: academics, engagement, operations, planning and administration, and innovation and leadership.

Kate Glenn, sustainability coordinator and lecturer at Paul Smith’s, said that the college performed especially well in curriculum, which tracks sustainability-specific courses such as Sustainable Food Systems, Alternative Energy, and Sustainable Development. Glenn also noted that every department on campus offers courses that have sustainability-related objectives.

“Another area we excelled in was campus engagement,” added Glenn, “including campus outreach, sustainability student employment opportunities, and campus programming that includes guest speakers and trips.”

The college’s Sustainability Grant Program, which provides funds for faculty, staff and students, also plays a role though backing a wide variety of projects. Meanwhile, energy initiatives announced earlier this year include the installation of a wood pellet boiler that has offset 28,000 gallons of oil annually and a partnership with Northern Power & Light and the Northern Forest Center’s Feel Good Heat Initiative, which focuses on locally-sourced wood fuel. Paul Smith’s also signed on with Northern Power & Light, a Saranac Lake-based company with a hydroelectric facility in nearby St. Regis Falls.

“STARS was developed by the campus sustainability community to provide high standards for recognizing campus sustainability efforts,” said AASHE Executive Director Meghan Fay Zahniser. “Paul Smith’s College has demonstrated a substantial commitment to sustainability by achieving a STARS Bronze rating and is to be congratulated for their efforts.”

Glenn said a goal for next year is STARS Silver. Planned efforts include expanding sustainability efforts in the areas of energy, food and dining, grounds, and transportation. Two students will also work as Sustainability Fellows, an employment opportunity geared toward furthering the college’s sustainability goals.

“Paul Smith’s College is committed to being a model for sustainability in our region,” Glenn said. “In addition to lowering our carbon footprint, we want to strive to practice sustainability across all aspects of our institution.”

About Paul Smith’s College
At Paul Smith’s College, it’s about the experience. We are the only four-year institution of higher education in the Adirondacks. Our programs – in fields including hospitality, culinary arts, forestry, natural resources, entrepreneurship and the sciences – draw on industries and resources available in our own backyard while preparing students for successful careers anywhere. For more information, visit www.paulsmiths.edu.

About AASHE
AASHE is an association of colleges and universities that are working to create a sustainable future. AASHE’s mission is to empower higher education to lead the sustainability transformation. It provides resources, professional development and a network of support to enable institutions of higher education to model and advance sustainability in everything they do, from governance and operations to education and research. For more information about AASHE, visit www.aashe.org.

For more information about the STARS program, visit stars.aashe.org.

Getting proactive about fighting climate change Symposium looks at national, community and individual levels

Click here for Full article in Adirondack Daily Enterprise, Article by JESSE ADCOCK

SARANAC LAKE — Around 100 turned out for a climate change symposium at the First Presbyterian Church of Saranac Lake, where the issue was discussed at the national, community and individual levels.

Titled “Climate Action: What are we doing about climate change?,” the symposium was organized by Adirondack Voters for Change, and co-sponsored by the Citizens’ Climate Lobby, Paul Smith’s College, First Presbyterian Church of Saranac Lake and TriLakes350.org.

“I wanted to focus on the action part,” said event organizer Ellen Beberman, committee chair of Adirondack Voters for Change. “For anything to change, it has to go from top to bottom. The whole society has to change. .. so the focuses went national, state, local, individual.

National Level

First to present was Richard Brandt, a research meteorologist from the University of Washington and current manager of SUNY Albany’s Whiteface Mountain Field Station, monitoring air quality.

“We just recently have developed a collaboration with Rochester and Harvard and SUNY Plattsburgh, and have a remarkable instrument that’s measuring the CO2 every few seconds, as well as the methane,” Brandt said, of the field station.

He said they’ve recorded a CO2 level increase from 350 to 420 ppm in recent history, and have been detecting increases in methane as well, from fracking in Pennsylvania. These greenhouse gas buildups cause hotter temperatures, faster ice melt in the world’s polar regions and rising sea levels.

“I wish I could tell more positive stories, but this is the story of climate,” Brandt said. “From the science perspective, what I’m trying to say is time is of the essence.

Next, Paul Smith’s College professor Joe Henderson, Ph.D., presented on the social dynamics of climate change, and the Green New Deal.

“Younger Americans are more worried than older Americans, which makes sense, given that they are the ones that are going to suffer the most from this,” Henderson said.

There is good news: the American people are very slowly moving toward acceptance, according to the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication.

“Gradually, people are accepting it in the United States,” Henderson said. “Doubt around the science has been diminished.”

Henderson said Millennials are most likely to identify climate change as a problem — even Millennial Republicans.

“There’s a generational thing,” Henderson said. “We are the only advanced country in the world that has one political party that denies the science of climate change.”

Cathy Brown, a volunteer with the North Country chapter of the Citizens’ Climate Lobby, presented on the Carbon Dividend Act. It’s a bipartisan piece of legislation that would add a carbon tax onto industries that use fossil fuels, to drive the market toward renewable energy sources.

“At this late stage, I don’t think any one bill is going to be enough. We’re going to need a number of tools and I think this is a really important one,” Brown said.

Community level

At the community level, municipalities have the option of working with the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority to be designated Clean Energy Communities.

Kate Glenn, sustainability coordinator at Paul Smith’s College, laid out the basics of the program — with the state offering incentives, like matching grant funding, for communities that work to reduce their carbon footprint.

“It’s a toolkit that the state was able to create,” said Patrick Murphy, village trustee and member of the village Climate Smart Committee. “We can pick and choose exactly what’s going to work best for Saranac Lake.”

Next, Emmet Smith, co-founder of Northern Power and Light, explained the benefits of supporting local renewable power generators.

“My thesis here to today is talk about electricity choices,” Smith said. “There’s a lot of opportunities for people in the North Country to be able to choose a renewable electricity supply. And it’s one of the simpler things we can all do to mitigate our carbon footprint.”

Typically, when a customer pays the utility for their electricity, they might be paying 15 cents per kilowatt hour.

“Your local powerplant gets 1.5 cents,” Smith said. “You can’t build a new solar array on 1.5 cents, even with state subsidies.”

But through community distributed generation, a new power supply option by the state, a customer can buy a share in a local renewable generator in return for a credit on their utility bill.

“It actually results in a much higher rate for electricity going to the generator,”Smith said.

This means a community can preserve existing assets, like old hydro-electric generators, localize the value of electricity and localize the ownership of renewable generators.

“By localizing the value, ultimately that economic power gives you the ability to localize control,” he said.

Individual

Betsy Brooks, head of technical services and automation with the Clinton, Essex and Franklin Library system presented on the “Drawdown” project, which compiled 100 strategies for reversing global warming. Strategies range from city planning, to the individual behaviors to reduce human impact on the environment.

Top solutions included practicing a plant-rich diet, reducing food waste, preserving tropical forests and building offshore wind turbines and rooftop solar panels.

The Rev. Joann White, pastor at First Presbyterian Church of Saranac Lake, presented on faith and climate change. She recounted being in theological seminary, and asking a professor what God created the earth from. White said the professor replied that God used his own self, and therefore, all of creation is sacred. She outlined some of the efforts her congregation has undertaken, from hikes to renovating the building to be more energy efficient.

Beberman said the symposium was not a one time thing, and that Adirondack Voters for Change plans to organize more climate-related community events, like a panel discussion with North Country politicians.

Paul Smith’s College Donates Food Scraps to Local Farm !

This article was written by PSC Student and Sustainability Assistant Hannah Rion

Do you ever think about the amount of food you produce in a day, a week, or a month? How about the amount of food that doesn’t even see a fork or spoon, but just gets tossed in the trash? That has been the sad story for the  food scraps that are produced in our culinary labs here at Paul Smith’s College.  In fact, three years ago there was a campus-wide program known as “Food Scraps for Pigs” where pre-consumer food waste from Cantwell, as well as the dining hall was being used by Atlas Hoofed It Farm, in Vermontville, NY, to feed pigs. There were challenges with pickup and consistent collection of scraps, so the program wasn’t continued, but recently  Emily Sommer’s Farm to Table class has partnered with Sustainability Coordinator Kate Glenn and Jake Vennie-Vollrath of Moonstone Farm, to collect and donate our food scraps to Moonstone Farm for animal feed and compost.

The Farm to Table culinary class, part of the new two-year accelerated culinary program, was visiting Moonstone Farm on a monthly basis, “to get their hands dirty and learn more about the ins and outs of running a small farm in the Adirondacks”, as Jake explained to me. The class also started to brainstorm ideas on how to solve some of the problems the farm was facing. One of these lurking issues happened to be “inputs” and soil health, which Jake was currently sourcing compost from Vermont to solve. Thus caused Emily and the class to start thinking they could have a real potential impact if they were to start diverting the pre-consumer waste from the culinary labs here on campus to Moonstone Farm. Emily then mentioned the project to Kate Glenn, Sustainability Coordinator for the college, and so the wheels began to turn. Kate Glenn then organized a planning meeting with the facilities department, Sodexo, and Emily to develop and establish a written plan and procedures for the project. During the meeting it was discussed who would collect the buckets, how they would be delivered and other remaining logistics. With the purchase of five gallon buckets, funded by the Sustainability Grant, the project was officially up-and-running. Additionally, Kate brought in the support from Sodexo to have the dining hall’s pre-consumer food waste also be diverted to the farm.

“Moonstone Farm specializes in growing heirloom vegetables organically and healthy soils grow tastier vegetables”, says Jake. The food waste serves a variety of purposes on the farm, such as feeding chickens directly, feeding mealworms and black soldier flies which eventually feed the chickens, while the rest is “…composted to create organic matter for our greenhouses, hopyard, fruit trees/bushes, and vegetable fields.” In the short time of a month, the dining hall has collected 218.2 pounds of pre-consumer food waste thanks to the help of Sodexo employees. Meanwhile, the Culinary Department has gathered 251.2 pounds with the help of students and instructors. Evidently, this diversion of food waste is serving an extremely more purposeful objective than it would sitting in a landfill spewing off methane gas Furthermore, this practice allows for a decrease in the heavy food waste facilities has to dispose of, and can be reflected on the college’s Greenhouse Gas Report, which tracks the production of methane.

Pre-consumer food waste is often overlooked when discussing composting practices, causing it to become a growing problem. This type of composting specifically focuses on the scraps that are a byproduct of food preparation. Food loss and waste accounts for about 4.4 gigatonnes of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) per year. To put this in perspective, if food loss and waste were its own country, it would be the world’s third-largest GHG emitter – surpassed only by China and the United States” (“Food Waste Facts”). A large portion of this food waste could be gold for many farmers in helping them restore nutrients to their soil. Jake shares that, “Not only is reducing food waste (or redirecting it to better uses) economically smart, it might be the easiest thing that we can do to address global warming.” The implementation of more programs like these across the United States is essential to help combat the negative effects of food waste. This project serves as a perfect example of discovering an issue and developing a working solution.

Both Emily and Jake believe the program is working extremely well, however, they share high hopes for the future. Jake shared with me that this partnership has inspired him to “think bigger” and someday he hopes “…to soon obtain all of PSC’s food waste for composting and assist the college in making it completely food waste free.” The farm is also currently working on plans for a larger drum composter that could handle more volume and produce compost more efficiently than the existing compost piles. As for Emily and her Farm to Table class, she says, “The main reason for our Farm to Table class was so that the students can appreciate more where their food is coming from, how much work goes into getting it in their fridges and on their tables. So adding the composting buckets was just another step into appreciating our food that much more.”

The Smitty Sustainability Committee fully supports the efforts of all the people involved in this project, especially the students who are filling the buckets with proper pre-consumer food scraps. The committee is currently working with the dining hall to design an effective program to tackle post-consumer food waste on campus. We will be implementing a separate bin labeled compost and providing signage that educates students on what they can scrape into the bin later in the spring semester. Combating food waste is an extremely critical issue that needs action sooner, rather than later. By keeping the conversation and programs like this going, everyone involved hopes to have a significant positive impact.

Would you like to make a difference on campus? You can learn more about the possibility of funding from the Sustainability Grant by reaching out to Hannah Rion, Sustainability Grant and Office Assistant, at sustainability@paulsmiths.edu or by visiting https://www.paulsmiths.edu/sustainability/campus-sustainability-fund/

PSC Students Attend 2017 ADK Youth Climate Summit

On November 8th and 9th Sustainability Coordinator Kate Glenn will lead a team of students from Paul Smith’s College including, Jessie McCarty, Matthew Philips, Hannah Rion, Val Hoffman and Sebastian Huber, will be attending the 9th annual Adirondack Youth Climate Summit at The Wild Center in Tupper Lake. The summit began in 2008 after a student from a local area high school contacted the Director of Programs, Jen Kretzer, with the idea hold a conference for high school students to learn about climate change and strategies to lower their carbon footprint. What started as a small conference with about 5 schools, has now blossomed in to a huge event with over 200 students from 30 high schools and colleges.

The summit consists of two days of plenary speakers, hands on workshops, and some motivational activities. Using the information from those workshops, along with goals the schools set before going to the event, each school develops a Climate Action Plan. The climate action plan is a well developed plan for each school to take steps towards carbon neutrality. In a CAP each school sets Climate Neutrality goals for this year, next year, and the years to come. Since the first AYSC at the Wild Center, Youth Summits have since popped up all across the country and even the world. The Wild centers climate action program has even received recognition from the Whitehouse during the Obama administration.

Paul Smith’s college has attended and sponsored the AYCS since it started. Over the past few years the college has even sent plenary speakers as well as faculty that have hosted workshops. Curt Stager will be a plenary speaker at this years summit. Valarie Hoffman and Kate Glenn will be hosting a workshop. This year the Paul Smiths team hopes to accomplish several things, including the update our current Climate Action Plan so it better suits our school’s current sustainability needs. Including to sync the goals of the STARS reporting system with the updated CAP.  This year’s team will also be focusing on plans to redesign a new food waste management system.  Since the North Elba biodigester project was canceled, we need a new plan for our organic waste. We’re looking forward to another Adirondack Youth Climate Summit!!