Christoph Reinhart, a of architecture, described MIT’s present campus facilities and their energy usage, and the extent of improvements that are needed.
A gathering of MIT students, faculty, staff, and alumni took part Thursday in series of talks, polling questions, and brainstorming sessions aimed at spurring the whole MIT community to engage in the process of making the Institute a world leader, role model, and catalyst for how campuses around the world can work to reduce their carbon footprint and create a more sustainable environment. The event, billed as "Creating the Roadmap: Envisioning/Reducing MIT's Carbon Footprint," began with talks outlining the MIT campus' current energy usage and emissions, and the presentation of plans for new buildings and renovations that could have an impact on energy use. During the talks, participants had a chance to register their responses to questions about both factual information on campus energy use and opinions about priorities for improving things. Then, the group broke into small teams for brainstorming about suggestions on specific measures to reduce campus greenhouse-gas emissions. "We're here to engage you all in renewing the campus in a sustainable manner," said Israel Ruiz, MIT's executive vice president and treasurer, who initiated MIT's creation two years ago of an Office of Sustainability. "It's an issue I care a lot about," he said, "how we're actually going to change the world through what we do here." Ruiz pointed out that the campus already faces the need to carry out about $2 billion worth of renovations on its existing buildings over the next five to 10 years, but that need also presents a great opportunity for improving the overall energy efficiency of the campus.
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