Focus on Sustainability

By Ruth Samuelson • Photography by Tommy LaVergne

The idea of sustainability has been around for nearly 300 years, but only recently have individuals, organizations, and governments seriously begun to consider the consequences of disposability. At Rice, enter Richard Johnson, Rice’s first ever sustainability planner.

Paul Harcombe and Richard Johnson teaching Environmental Studies 302

Johnson’s position encompasses a lot of terrain: he is an advisor, a teacher, an organizer, and a collaborator on the majority of conservation initiatives at Rice. When a construction project is in development, Johnson consults on ecofriendly materials. When undergraduates and PhD candidates have the same environmental goal, he’s the one who connects them. In his short time here, he has helped coordinate a cell phone recycling drive and a shoe recycling drive. He also has monitored buildings’ electrical consumption, adjusting various facets of the intake to minimize costs. And this is only a tiny sampling of Johnson’s activities. Since beginning work in December 2004, he has set up several long-term projects, fortified various established ones, and laid the groundwork for numerous future ventures.

Johnson, who grew up in the Houston area and graduated from Rice in 1992, didn’t begin his professional life with a career in sustainability in mind. Instead, he earned a degree in civil engineering and went on to become a highway engineer in northern Virginia. It wasn’t long, though, before he realized his heart wasn’t in his work, and he left his job to return to school at the University of Virginia (UVA) in Charlottesville. There, he began working toward a master’s degree in urban and environmental planning. For one of his projects, he found himself interviewing William McDonough, a UVA dean who also happened to be one of the world’s leading green architects. The session forever altered his life. “There was reality before then,” Johnson says, “and a new reality after that.”

McDonough’s philosophy—that designers can develop products, industrial systems, and buildings that mutually benefit both the environment and the economy—transformed Johnson’s thinking. Johnson eventually became the dean’s assistant, giving him the opportunity to interact with some of the world’s foremost environmental figures, and he also traveled to Curitiba, Brazil, a city with model sustainability policies.

Johnson now finds himself in a position to make Rice a pioneer in university environmentalism in Texas despite the fact that Houston—Oiltown, USA—isn’t known as the most environmentally conscious city around. But Johnson isn’t fazed. “I see it as opportunity,” he says. “If you’re a priest, sure you could go to the Vatican, but you’re not going to convert anyone there. To make a difference, you should go to Las Vegas. So, if you’re interested in greening a university, you should go to Texas.”

Johnson not only sees opportunity here, he’s seizing it. For example, while RecycleMania—a nationwide 10-week recycling competition between 93 schools—has been going on since 2001, Rice never participated before Johnson arrived. Even though last year marked Rice’s first entry into the event, the university placed 43rd in the “Per Capita Classic,” beating out environmental notables such as Duke University, Portland State University, the University of Vermont, and University of Colorado at Boulder. Under Johnson’s leadership, Rice also was the first school in the state to participate in a nationwide program for college graduates to pledge to meet certain environmental standards. And, Johnson says, there are plenty more potential firsts in the future.

A Policy to Live By

To understand Johnson’s work, you also have to know the history of environmentalism at Rice, which began long before Johnson’s arrival. In those days, Rice environmentalists operated in disparate corners of the campus—often unaware of other conservation efforts. As the various individuals and groups gained synergy, it became obvious that Rice needed a sustainability planner to bring the efforts together. But before Rice could create such a role, it needed to get serious, as an institution, about conservation. In March 2004, the board of trustees did just that by recognizing “the critical importance of sustainability” and passing the official Rice University Sustainability Policy.

A pithy 112 words, the policy is key to Johnson’s role on campus. In addition to fueling his daily efforts, it also provides him the freedom and flexibility to pursue his initiatives. “The policy gives me room to operate,” he says. “It lets me know the university is serious about my position and will have an open mind about the ideas I bring forward.”

The policy has an interesting history—one that continually inspires Johnson as he pursues his goals. As it turns out, creating the environmental mission statement was easier said than done. Faculty, students, and administrators tenaciously drafted and redrafted the policy for years before it was approved. How did the process begin, and who finally saw it through? “Those are questions better answered by Paul Harcombe,” says Johnson. “Paul is the dean, czar, and godfather of Rice campus greening.”

Officially, Harcombe is a professor of ecology and environmental biology. A tall, soft-spoken man with a gentle manner, he has worked at Rice for 34 years. His major research project focuses on tree population changes in the Big Thicket National Forest in East Texas, and since he began the project in 1980, he’s tagged tens of thousands of trees there. Once a year, he and his research assistants venture out to document the health, growth, and death of his trees.

Clearly, Harcombe is not afraid of commitment—and one thing he’s been passionate about during the final part of his career is Environmental Studies 302—Sustainability: Rice into the Future. ENST 302, which Harcombe currently co-teaches with Johnson, is an interdisciplinary environmental studies class dedicated to minimizing environmental waste on the Rice campus. The curriculum centers around student projects, which are carried out in the serveries, the college bathrooms, the floors of academic buildings—wherever there’s an opportunity for conservation. In recent years, students have campaigned to use recyclable carpets in new remodeling projects. They’ve tested waste reduction campaigns in serveries to motivate students to stop throwing away so much food. They’ve convinced construction project managers to use water-efficient sinks that, according to calculations, should save the university $70,000 during the course of several decades.

These projects often engender real, lasting, and cost-effective changes on campus. But Harcombe has another impetus for his assignments. He says that, while he always believed and hoped his research was useful, he knew that data alone would not inspire real change. The world’s environmental problems need more proactive, informed fighters. In addition to covering the scientific elements of environmental problems, ENST 302 teaches environmental policy and activism. “It’s not the projects that the students take with them,” Harcombe says. “It’s the ability to do projects.”

The class instructs undergraduates how to research new environmentally friendly products and processes, network with influential people, and present new ideas in a persuasive and compelling yet factual manner. The Rice campus thus becomes a training ground for the outside world.

Guyton Durnin with Rice’s new biodiesel reactor

ENST 302 began in 1999. That year, Harcombe co-taught the class with political science professor Don Ostdiek. The next spring, Harcombe went on sabbatical while his class went forward without him. But in his absence, ENST 302 continued to develop its voice on campus, beginning a long-term undertaking that would dramatically change Rice environmentalism. That semester, a guest lecturer told the students that if they really wanted to advance conservation on campus, the university needed to adopt a sustainability policy. The class rallied around the idea.

Although ENST 302 was not offered in 2001, the following year’s class resumed efforts to create a sustainability policy. It drafted the initial statement and passed it on to the administration for approval. By the end of the semester, the project found itself in limbo, but even so, a few students persevered.

One of them was Guyton Durnin, an ENST 302 student who also was heavily involved in practically all of Rice’s environmentally-related undergraduate groups. A Los Angeles native, Durnin joined his first environmental club in seventh grade. Throughout high school, he led various conservation efforts, including restoring a canyon, and maintained his own garden and compost pile. His zeal did not diminish at Rice. In 2002, he founded the Student Recycling Council, which coordinates recycling efforts on campus, and he also led the Environmental Club.

Now in his fifth year at Rice and pursuing a master’s in civil and environmental engineering, Durnin became chair of the Student Association’s Environmental Committee the year after he completed ENST 302. In his new role, Durnin picked up where the class left off. Eventually, the administration approved the policy in fall 2003, and the board of trustees backed it in March 2004. Though the project took four years to win approval, Durnin never doubted his mission. “As an economist, then-president Malcolm Gillis recognized the policy was something that might cost more in the beginning,” Durnin says, “but it would get students more interested in the environment, and it would help Rice save money in the long run.”

Fueling Initiatives

To this day, Durnin remains an integral part of Rice environmentalism, though now that he’s toiling toward his master’s, he isn’t as heavily involved in the clubs of his undergraduate years. These days, his chief interest is the Rice University Biodiesel Initiative (RUBI), one of the most exciting long-term sustainability projects currently at Rice. It is based on the simple chemistry involved in creating a diesel fuel out of old cooking oil used to make French fries and other fried foods.

In spring 2005, Durnin discovered that junior Lizzi Clark had written an independent feasibility analysis on biodiesel at Rice, and during the summer, the two corresponded about the idea. But, unknown to them, they weren’t the only ones interested in biodiesel. That same summer, graduate students Matt Yarrison and Christine Robichaud had begun researching the possibility of producing biodiesel with feedstock from the university’s kitchens. In the fall, Johnson linked the two undergraduates with Yarrison and Robichaud, and RUBI took off.

During the 2005–06 academic year, the group used a one gallon reactor to produce various biodiesel blends up to B20 (20 percent biodiesel). This year, using a new 70-gallon reactor housed on the loading dock of Sid Richardson College, RUBI plans to produce between 50 and 100 gallons of biodiesel weekly. The finished biodiesel now runs lawnmowers crawling across Rice’s fields, and tests with a biodiesel-powered shuttle bus began this fall. If the experiment is successful, all the shuttles eventually will run on Rice-produced fuel. And in true “circle of life” form, the Office of Housing and Dining recently purchased a new van that will run on biodiesel created from its own cooking waste.

Right: Eusebio Franco Jr.

Mark Ditman, associate vice president of Housing and Dining, assisted from the start in providing feedstock for RUBI. He also wholeheartedly embraced Johnson’s suggestion to buy a diesel-powered van. RUBI found another natural friend in Eusebio Franco Jr., director of Custodial and Grounds. It is Franco’s fleet of lawnmowers that first tested the biodiesel, and he welcomes the new clean-burning fuel. “We can use whatever they make,” he says.

Franco, whose staff assisted with RecycleMania, is definitely part of the posse of conservationists on campus. He continually has introduced innovations that make Rice’s cleaning services less wasteful, toxic, and detrimental to the environment and the health of his custodians and technicians. Since arriving at Rice in 1979, he has introduced natural cleaning products from the ecofriendly company EnvirOx. In the same vein, Franco does not preemptively blast the entire campus full of pesticides; he identifies insect problem areas before spraying chemicals.

The cornerstone of Franco’s philosophy is “cleanology,” the study of cleaning effectively with the least damaging products. Franco has developed several cleanology programs for his employees, and basic training is mandatory. “The classes keep people learning and open to change and using the least toxic products,” Franco says. “The whole purpose is to make their job safer.” But as Johnson points out, the program has other advantages. “When our custodians go through the cleanology program, sometimes it’s the first graduation they’ve ever gone through,” he says. “It gives them a level of professional certification that their colleagues in the custodial world don’t get. It helps to train them to be supervisors and that sort of thing. It’s job training, and it’s a ladder-up.”

Class Action

Harcombe likes to believe that ENST 302’s sustainability policy project ultimately was responsible for bringing Johnson to campus. He’s proud of this accomplishment and its ramifications. “When there is somebody who has the job to think of newer and better ways to do things,” he says, “things begin to happen.” But a lot remains to be done.

Harcombe recently has devoted a lot of energy to Rice’s Center for the Study of Environment and Society. He co-chairs the organization, which was founded in 2001 to develop environmental literacy on campus, with English professor Walter Isle. Specifically, the center develops programs, establishes classes, and brings speakers to campus to inform members of the Rice community about environmental issues and the many bureaucracies and obstacles environmentalists must surmount to affect change. “The goal is to try to help all members of the campus community be more informed about environmental issues and be more engaged,” Harcombe says. “We want them to say, ‘Well, of course we’re environmentally responsible. Who wouldn’t be?’”

However, the center is not yet fully engaged. Harcombe wants to institute more regular environmental studies classes, for example. In the past, the center employed a visiting lecturer to teach a class, but it’s hard to steer full-time professors from their usual subject matter. There are a few opportunities on the horizon, however, with some younger faculty interested in focusing on relevant coursework. Given greater funding, Harcombe says, the center could hire more post doctorate and visiting faculty to teach courses.

These frustrations have gnawed at Harcombe a little more than usual recently because he plans to retire at the end of next year and has little time to continue building and securing the center’s future. He has no lofty goal of mobilizing the campus at large; he just wants individuals to be mindful of their personal bearing on the environment. “If everybody recognized that this is important enough for them to do something,” he says, “that would help.”

Which is precisely why it’s important for Rice to have a sustainability planner. For those who prioritize the environment, Johnson is a guiding light. He possesses the know-how and networking abilities to transform seemingly idealistic ideas into reality.

Johnson, for his part, is elated to return to Rice. On a quick jaunt through campus, he can stroll by some of his most significant personal landmarks. Johnson actually met his wife, Lisa Spiro, director of the Digital Media Center in Fondren Library, when they were undergraduates at Rice. Appropriately, they first chatted under a tree. “That’s the one tree on campus that I’ll make sure nothing ever happens to,” Johnson says with a laugh. “She can see that tree from her office, and I pass by it all the time.”

An Ecofriendly Future

Ben Stevenson and Roque Sanchez

Under Johnson’s watchful eye, Rice is transitioning into a campus with model sustainability policies. Last summer, the university announced that all new major buildings will be constructed according to Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standards. The system, developed by the U.S. Green Building Council, targets five major areas: sustainable sites, water efficiency, energy and atmosphere, materials and resources, and indoor environmental quality. The Collaborative Research Center, which broke ground last fall, will be the first building with LEED certification. The next residential college, Burton and Deedee McMurtry College, will meet the standards as well.

The announcement this summer was a great delight. But Johnson already is moving on to other projects. This year, Martel junior Ben Stevenson will test a new dorm ecorepresentative program at his college. Stevenson will launch several waste-reduction initiatives in areas like energy consumption and recycling, and if his efforts yield results, the ecorep program will expand to the entire residential college system. Johnson, along with two faculty members, also has initiated an upper-level chemical engineering class in which students will develop projects that use waste fruit and vegetable trimmings as feedstock to create useful products.

But these undertakings pale in comparison to another possible project: Solar Decathlon, an international sustainable design competition. For the contest, the U.S. Department of Energy doles out $100,000 to 20 preselected universities. Each participating team must design and construct an 800-foot test home showcasing sustainable and renewable design elements. Judges evaluate the entries on 10 criteria, and the entries will be displayed in Washington, D.C. Led by sophomore Roque Sanchez, Rice is developing a proposal to compete in the 2009 contest. It’s a long road, Sanchez says, but both he and Johnson are committed to securing resources and recruiting teammates.

It is clear from all of Johnson’s work that the results not only are beneficial for the general atmosphere and health of the planet, they also are important for Rice. “We who work here see ourselves as stewards of the university,” Johnson says. “We don’t want to waste the university’s resources. Our mission here is teaching and research, and my personal charge is to free up as many dollars as possible for teaching, research, students, scholarships, and so on, rather than spend them on the electric or water bill.”

And if Johnson can teach students to extend the skills they’re learning here to the world at large, so much the better. In essence, the problems outside the hedges are similar, differing primarily in scale, and after making inroads into those problems at Rice, young graduates might not consider the world’s problems indomitable after all.

For information on Rice’s many sustainability initiatives, visit sustainability.rice.edu.