Sessions explore environmental sustainability issues, goals for 'green campus' initiatives
Nathaniel Edwards
Issue date: 2/16/07 Section: News
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The event was organized by Clayton Miller, an architectural engineering graduate student, and facilitated by Clay Nesler, the vice president of innovative service for Johnson Controls. It focused on sustainability issues that face UNO.
Environmental sustainability is the practice of meeting present needs without affecting the future generations' ability to meet theirs. The question that was presented at the session was whether UNO was sustainable and what could be done to make UNO "greener."
The hosting company, Johnson Controls, is a business that focuses on "helping clients develop strategic plans focused on sustainability issues," Nesler said
The sustainability navigation session was conducted in two parts.
First, there was an evaluation of the sustainability issues on campus, including meeting environmental standards, maintaining healthy indoor and outdoor environments as well as maintaining a higher standard of energy efficiency. Attendees evaluated these by ranking the importance of issues to UNO as well as the value and efficiency of UNO in handling the issues.
Afterwards, attendees were given the opportunity to give feedback and make suggestions about how UNO can make itself more sustainable. Nesler pinned up a large poster that had the attendees' 12 biggest issues written on it. They then used sticky notes to write ideas on how UNO can do a better job with the issues and what they felt was the best solution.
The sessions were brought to UNO after Clayton Miller had gone through a similar experience at the U.S. Green Build Conference in Denver, which focused on environmentally friendly engineering.
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