Campus Sustainability Efforts Rewarded

Springtime heralds the arrival of more than just blooming flowers and warmer temperatures. The season also brings Earth Day on April 22, as well as NC State’s Green Brick Awards, presented by the Campus Environmental Sustainability Team for outstanding contributions to campus sustainability.

Each year the campus community submits Green Brick Award nominations, and a selection committee chooses a student, a faculty member, a staff member and a campus department or student organization to receive the award. This year’s awards were presented on April 17.

The 2015 student winner is interdisciplinary studies major Hannah Frank, co-manager of the Campus Farmers Market and a core organizer for Fossil Free NCSU, the NC State chapter of a student-led campaign for climate neutrality and renewable energy in the UNC system.

The staff recipient, University Dining chef David Johnson, led the creation of a rooftop organic garden that grew produce served in the On the Oval restaurant on Centennial Campus.

Faculty winner Danesha Seth Carley, a crop scientist in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, is coordinator of the college’s Office of Sustainability Programs. Among her many sustainability efforts, perhaps the most visible is her participation in the restoration of the No. 2 golf course at Pinehurst Resort, which was exposed to worldwide scrutiny when both the men’s and the women’s 2014 U.S. Open championships were held there on back-to-back weeks. The renovated course uses more native plants and requires much less water than a typical golf course.

University Student Centers won the campus organization award for its efforts to enhance sustainability during the ongoing renovation and expansion of Talley Student Union. Talley is expected to earn LEED Silver certification when the project is completed. Since the renovated building reopened to the public in 2013, 30 percent of Talley’s waste has been diverted from landfills through recycling and composting.

The City of Raleigh presented its own Environmental Awards on Earth Day, and NC State took home several of those as well:

• The university’s interdisciplinary LEED Lab course won an Institutional Innovation Award.
• The North Carolina Cooperative Extension E-Conservation Program won a Green Building Residential Design Award.
• NC State’s EcoVillage Living and Learning Village won an Environmental Awareness Award for its Sustainable Planning and Urban Sightseers trip.
• NC State student Eric Rizzo won a Youth Award for his leadership of the NC State Stewards, the university’s student sustainability ambassadors.
• NC State student Carson Nguyen won second place in the Donna Jackson Trailblazer competition for his 30-second public service announcement about water conservation.

In addition, NC State’s pizza box composting program won the Carolina Recycling Association’s Outstanding College or University Program award, and Princeton Review named NC State a Green College in its 2015 Guide to 353 Green Colleges.

April was a good month for sustainability at NC State — which means it was a good month for the earth too.