The Harvard Office of Sustainability hosted their second annual Green Carpet Award Ceremony in Sanders Theater on Monday, April 11. Complete with an actual green carpet, community members from across the University gathered to celebrate the achievements of individuals and teams contributing to campus sustainability.
Awards were presented to members of 12 Harvard Schools, campus services and central administration. Among the 55 individual winners, four were recognized from the Law School for their outstanding environmental contributions.
Anna Bennett Robertson: Inspirer
Financial Office
Bennett led the Financial Office’s initiative to become a Green Office through changes such as, shutting off power strips nightly, printing double sided and using re-useable silverware.
Gene O’Connor: Innovator
Facilities Management
O’Connor led a renovation project of the North Hall dormitory last summer, an effort which resulted in the North Hall project being awarded a LEED-CI Gold certification. While the original catalyst for this project was required safety upgrades, he found ways to incorporate green building improvements into the scheduled construction.
Hayley Brown: Collaborator
Dean of Students Office
Brown worked to help HLS residents live green in their daily lives, by collaborating with Green Living Representatives on waste-minimization projects such as dorm food sharing and freecycling, and with Facilities to promote energy conservation in dorms.
Jennifer Lee ’11: Role Model
Lee, a Green Living Representative, was described as someone “who inspires her peers with her passion and personal commitment to waste and carbon footprint reduction.” She bicycled in order to travel emissions-free, and led the effort to compost in her dorm, raising awareness about composting.
The event featured several video messages, including one from President Faust, who spoke about the University’s ambitious sustainability goals. She told audience members, “Our success will depend on each one of you.”
Two videos produced by the Office for Sustainability were also shown; the first addressed individual action, and the second featured five Harvard faculty speaking on the challenge of climate change.
In addition to individual award winners, several team projects from HLS were finalists in the Team Project Awards:
North Hall Renovation Project:
The Law School’s green building team was tasked with upgrading North Hall dormitory safety features, but decided to go above and beyond and significantly improve the building’s green features. The success of this project is evidenced by the renovation’s achievement of LEED-CI Gold certification. A major highlight was the installation of three rooftop heat recovery units that capture heat from the building exhaust and return it to the building supply by tempering the supply air, thus reducing building energy use. These new units are expected to save approximately $50,000 each year and reduce the building’s greenhouse gasses emissions by 159 metric tons annually.
Read & Ride Bike share Program:
The Harvard Law School Read & Ride Bike share Program was launched in Fall 2010 as a collaboration between HLS Library staff and HLS Green Living students. The program provides free bike loans to HLS community members through the library system.
Law School Composting:
The Law School has made tremendous leaps in composting over the past year. The Harkness café has implemented back-and-front-of-house composting, and the events team has improved systems to make composting an option at any event hosted on campus. In addition, members of the Green Team and Green Living Program have expanded composting to every dorm, academic and administrative building on campus. HLS Dorm waste audits have shown up to 40% compostable waste in dorm trash. This team’s efforts make composting more accessible to all members of the HLS community who live and work around campus.