Texas A&M University

College Sustainability Report Card 2008

Texas A&M supports campus sustainability in its master plan. The university Office of Energy Management works with the Energy Conservation Committee to look into energy savings on university campuses. Additionally, the office maintains a website that promotes energy and water conservation, allows reporting of energy or water waste, and informs the campus community about energy conservation.

The university adopted an energy conservation plan in 2005. As part of this plan, the Office of Energy Management engages the campus community in conservation awareness. A pilot energy conservation competition was conducted in the spring of 2007. Significant investments have been made to improve energy efficiency at the university, resulting in a 33 percent reduction in energy consumption per gross square foot over the last eight years.

Texas A&M’s dining services organized a farmers market with organic, locally grown produce in March 2007. The market will be expanded to a weekly event beginning this year. Dining services also recently opened a venue on campus that serves meals made from organic ingredients. Cooking oil is recycled into biodiesel and powers the delivery truck.

The campus master plan stipulates that buildings should qualify for LEED Silver certification whenever possible. The $95 million Interdisciplinary Life Sciences Building, currently under construction, will be the first university facility to be certified as LEED Silver. Two other facilities, currently under construction, will also qualify for the LEED Silver rating. Lighting retrofits have been implemented in 42 of 139 campus buildings.

Biodiesel is used in all 79 of the campus transit buses and in some other campus vehicles. The university provides a free shuttle system for all students, faculty, and staff. A new rideshare web page is being implemented by transportation services that will give students and employees wishing to carpool or rideshare the opportunity to communicate.

The university makes its proxy voting record available only to trustees and senior administrators. Investment managers must be posted on the website per statute, while individual holdings are generally shared only within the treasurer’s office.

The university aims to optimize investment return and is also exploring renewable energy investment funds or similar investment vehicles.

The university asks that its investment managers handle the details of proxy voting.