St. John’s University Partners with Environmental Protection Agency for Sustainability and Carbon Reduction

James P. Pellow, Ed.D., St. John’s University’s Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer signed a historic Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on December 5 with Alan J. Steinberg, Regional Administrator of Region II for the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), to reduce its environmental impacts by adopting sustainable practices and joining EPA partnership programs.

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• Memorandum of Understanding

 “Today marks the beginning of what promises to be a fruitful collaboration with St. John’s. One thing we’ve learned long ago when it comes to improving the environment is that partnerships are the key,” said Steinberg. “By partnerships I don’t mean just between federal and state governments, I mean partnerships with the greater community, the business community, the non-governmental agencies and above all the academic communities – because you are tasked with the mission of educating the next generation to improve environmental awareness and practices.” 

St. John’s is no stranger to environmental practices. The University was lauded with a Gold Star in a recent press conference held by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg in October for accelerating its greenhouse gas reduction plan to reach its 30% decrease target by the year 2013, as part of St. John’s participation in the “PLANYC 2030 Challenge.” 

“We are excited to have been selected as the first private university in the country for this unique partnership. This program will further help focus St. John’s in pursuing all avenues to make sustainability and carbon reduction a part of the student education and the student learning experience,” said Dr. Pellow. “This program will, most importantly, help to incorporate those initiatives into our organizational culture and change the way we behave at St. John’s.” St. John’s and the EPA have lofty goals for the agreement that include:

• Reducing the energy consumed by the school’s buildings and plants by at least 10 percent and creating a university energy plan, through membership in EPA’s EnergyStar program.
• Adopting water conservation and material re-use strategies guided by EPA’s GreenScapes landscaping program.
• Conducting an energy audit of the St. Albert Hall laboratory (at St. John’s Queens campus) and reducing its energy needs through EPA’s Labs 21 program.
• Continuing to incorporate strategies and tools to reduce waste and increase recycling under EPA’s WasteWise program, of which the school has been a partner since 2003.
• Increasing the amount of coal combustion construction materials, which requires less energy to produce than traditional concrete, to 50 percent at several campus projects through EPA’s Coal Combustion Products Partnership.
• Developing a plan for a combined heat and power generation plant, which will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by generating power from cleaner sources like natural gas, biomass and biogas. For this, St. John’s will consult with EPA’s Combined Heat and Power Partnership.
• Purchasing hybrid vehicles for campus patrol, continuing to only use low-sulfur diesel shuttle buses, maintaining the campus idling policy and adopting strategies to reduce emissions from construction vehicles through EPA’s Clean Construction USA program.
• Enhancing the monitoring of water usage, developing recommendations to it, installing waterless urinals at select locations, and consulting with EPA’s WaterSense program for other water-saving measures.
• Considering the development of a university food waste composting program and the use of alternative energy.

St. John’s will report the progress on its goals to EPA every six months. Based on the reports, EPA will quantify the benefits of the school’s environmental efforts. EPA has similar agreements in place with the New York Mets for the team’s new Citi Field stadium, the Destiny USA mall project in Syracuse, N.Y., and Montclair State University in Montclair, N.J.

For more information contact Dominic Scianna, Assistant Vice President for Media Relations by calling (718) 990-6185 or e-mail inquiries to sciannad@stjohns.edu.  

For more information on EPA’s voluntary programs like the ones incorporated in the St. John’s agreement, visit http://www.epa.gov/partners/. For more information on sustainability in the New York metropolitan area, visit: http://epa.gov/region2/sustainability/index.html.