On May 3rd, 2019 the Student Green Fee Administrative Committee chairperson presented the Student Green Fee budget for fiscal year 2019-2020 to the EvCC ASB Senate for approval. After a few questions and a brief discussion, the 2019-2020 Student Green Fee budget was unanimously approved!

A large part of the budget has been set aside for student-led sustainable projects. The Student Green Fee Advisory Committee is in the process of finalizing the guidelines and processes for students seeking to utilize Green Fee funds and intends to begin accepting applications for projects beginning January 2020. If you are interested in getting involved in the Green Fee Committee please contact us at sustainability@everettcc.edu or 425-388-9484!

Portions of the budget will also fund three student employment opportunities in the Office of Sustainability. Applications for Sustainability Officer, Event/Media Coordinator, and Program and Data Coordinator are being accepted until July 15, 2019.

EvCC’s remaining Index Hall Building B is slated for demolition beginning mid-August 2019. Following EvCC’s commitment to sustainable practices all furnishings and equipment in Index B have been carefully evaluated with an emphasis towards reallocation elsewhere on campus.

We are pleased to announce that we have a new pilot paper towel composting program in Jackson Hall restrooms brought to you by the EvCC Custodial Services. Both Jackson Hall restrooms now have specifically labeled receptacles for used paper towels. The materials collected will be composted along with EvCC kitchen and other compostables collected by Cedar Grove Composting.  Cedar Grove also collects food waste from the EvCC Early Learning Center kitchen. To learn more about Cedar Grove Composting processes, go to: https://cedar-grove.com/for-your-business
Thank you to EvCC Custodial Services for helping to pilot ways to keep EvCC Sustainable! 

On November 6th, late in the evening in the Jackson Wilderness Room, two students working on the Student Green Fee Initiative presented the final draft of the Financial Code, the document that outlines the governance and policies for the new fee. After a short power point presentation, a round of congratulations was in order as the BOT adopted the Green Fee and Financial Code unanimously.

After 22 long months, the hard work and dedication from the dozens of students who supported this initiative finally paid off. The next steps include the collection of the fee, beginning in Winter Quarter 2019. Prior to the start of the quarter, an interim Student Green Fee Administrative Committee will be convened to draft a temporary budget proposal, which will go before the ASB Senate for approval.

This limited budget is only intended to hire at least one of the student positions that are to be created with this new funding, as this is an important step in the coordination of the Green Fee Administrative Committee and the budget development for the upcoming fiscal year. On this note, the Office of Sustainability is currently seeking to recruit additional students for the committee. As it stands when this post was published, there are openings for three more students, at most. Email sustainability@everettcc.edu to learn more and (hopefully) get involved!

The newest sustainable energy addition to campus comes in the form of a parasol. But, this isn’t just any ordinary parasol, as it has several solar panels attached to the top, which feed a battery that sits on the surface of the picnic table it rests upon. From there, you can plug in any device that can connect to a USB port and charge away – guilt free – knowing that the energy that is charging your device is supplied completely from the sun. Pretty cool, huh?

We encourage everyone to use this new piece of equipment, and let us know what you think!

The day was Monday, September the 17th. A crowd of spectators, made up of some EvCC students and employees, Everett Transit and City of Everett Officials, even our US Representative, Rick Larsen, gathered together across the street from Whitehorse Hall. What for, you may be asking? Well, Everett Transit has officially introduced its first ever 100% electric bus, and it was here, at EvCC’s College Station, that they held the ribbon cutting ceremony.

According to the official statements from Everett Transit, the bus is just one of many more to come. In fact, they plan to electrify about half of their fleet by 2021. All of this is in large part due to a $3.4 million federal grant through the USDOT’s Low or No Emissions Vehicle Program, which was developed to help with replacing old and polluting public vehicles, such as transit buses.

As Mayor Franklin pointed out during her speech at the ribbon-cutting ceremony, by 2022 there will be 18 of these new vehicles, replacing Everett Transits decades old fleet. These new buses wills save Everett Transit more than 10,000 gallons of fuel each year. This also reduces the Everett Transit systems carbon footprint by more than 100 tons each year. That’s the same amount of CO2 produced by driving an average passenger vehicle for about 250,000 miles.

This is a very exciting development that only proves that local governments are stepping up and leading the way toward a sustainable, environmentally conscious future.

For those of you familiar with EvCC’s EV Charging Stations located in Parking Lot F (if you fall into this category, we thank you!), you may have noticed that 3 of the 6 charging stations are not currently operational. This is due to a nationwide network issue. Below is a statement issued by Blink Network Support:

“We are currently experiencing a nationwide network outage at this time. Out networking team is currently working on having it brought back up, but we do not have an ETA on when the network will be back online at this time. If you would like to receive an update as to when the network is back online please reply to this message. We apologize for the inconvenience.”

Campus Sustainability will issue a notice when we receive word that the stations are operational again. Thanks for your patience, and check back soon!

 

UPDATE 9/21/18:

EvCC Sustainability is currently waiting on a quote from the vendor that supplies the Blink Charging Stations.  We will provide additional updates as new information becomes available.

EvCC Sustainability and Laura Wild’s Nutrition Spring Quarter class partnered to install 35 Mason bee “huts” across the EvCC Campus in late May 2018.
The project is intended to help EvCC students, employees and neighbors understand the importance of these tiny pollinators to our campus plants, as well as providing a legacy project for Laura Wild’s students to manage each year.  An online EvCC Bee tour will be available online soon, courtesy of one of Laura Wild’s students. The EvCC Mason Bee project will be featured later this month in Crown Bee’s newsletter.

Background

If you were on campus during the week of April 16-19, you probably know what Earth Week is. In celebration of Earth Day, EvCC strives to host creative and fun activities for students, employees and the community, while fostering awareness about the struggles we face in regards to the environment, climate, and resource consumption. Earth Week has become a looked-forward to tradition on campus, but this tradition may not be with us for much longer…

The Green Fee

The EvCC Green Fee is a proposed student fee of 50 cents per credit, up to fifteen credits, not to exceed $7.50 per quarter for each student. It was proposed by a group of students, including the Students for Environmental Action club and members of the student government, in response to concerns over the impending budget shortfalls for the EvCC Sustainability Initiative (more on that here). In accordance with state law, this fee has to be subject to a student body election to determine whether it should be assessed. This election is scheduled for May 21-24, 2018. Ballots will be cast online using the MyEvCC Student Portal.

If it passes the election, three major developments would occur:

1. The creation of the Campus Sustainability Fund (CSF): This fund would serve to fund student projects that focus on sustainability or the environment. A student, or group of students, could submit a proposal to receive a grant from the CSF to pay for their project. The proposal would be presented to a committee of 5 students and 2 employees, who will vote on whether to approve or reject the project proposal.
2. Formalize the Office of Sustainability: While EvCC has a full time staff member with part-time hourly assistants to coordinate the sustainability program, the Green Fee would be used to permanently establish an Office of Sustainability, which would help to manage the fee, the CSF, and its associated programs, while also continuing the effort to green the campus.
3. Student jobs: Within the Office of Sustainability, three student positions would be created and funded each year. These students would serve as the public faces of the EvCC Sustainability program and work to keep the student body actively engaged in making EvCC a more environmentally friendly, socially equitable and fiscally responsible campus.

The relationship of Earth Week and the Green Fee

As mentioned, the funding for Earth Week (which comes from the depleted sustainability budget) is not long for this world. In the past, money left over from grants that were intended for other projects like energy efficiency retrofits was pooled into the Sustainability Grant Fund. This was relied on for all student engagement activities hosted by the Sustainability manager.

After the end of this school year, there will hardly be enough funds in the sustainability budget to get through another years worth of activities. Those lovely green water bottles you may have got for free at one of our events? Paid for by the sustainability budget. The wonderful presentation by Ciscoe Morris? Also paid for by the sustainability budget. Nearly all the events require some kind of payment out of the sustainability budget, and it adds up quick!

Unless a long-term solution is implemented, we can prepare to say goodbye to many of these activities and programs. Dozens of students have expressed their concern about this, and most of us agree that something has to happen to change the status quo on carbon emissions, environmental toxicity, habitat and biodiversity loss, pollution, and many other global challenges.

This is why we, the students on the EvCC Green Fee Committee, are working to hold this election and secure funding for the program. But, we are also trying to change the entire premise of the EvCC Sustainability program. If its funded by a student fee, that would put the power to make the changes we need in our hands, as students. We would determine how the money is spent, what projects get funded, and ultimately how our campus approaches sustainability. So, in the end, we aren’t trying to just save the program by asking the students to pay for it. We are trying to revolutionize it by empowering the students to lead us down the path of sustainability, and ultimately giving ourselves a bigger voice in the long-term development of EvCC.

If you want to know how you can help, visit our webpage: EverettCC.edu/GreenFee, or email sustainability@everettcc.edu.

Also, don’t forget to vote!