Butler University

College Sustainability Report Card 2010

Butler's sustainability advisory council, which includes administrators, faculty, staff, and students, has organized movie screenings, speakers, and workshops addressing sustainability matters. The council has also successfully campaigned for the purchase of green power. All appliances are Energy Star-certified, and all cleaning products are environmentally friendly. A director of sustainability will be hired in the fall of 2009.

Butler has installed high-efficiency boilers and retrocommissioned HVAC systems. A central chilled water loop system with decentralized equipment maximizes efficiency during times when the cooling system is not used heavily. To conserve electricity, the university is replacing incandescent lights with high-efficiency T-5 fluorescent bulbs. Butler purchases 10 percent of its electricity from renewable sources.

Butler's produce distributor tries to buy local items when possible. Locally produced bread, milk, and sushi are offered. All seafood meets sustainable fishing guidelines. There are no trays in the dining halls and biodegradable trash can liners are used. A donation program at the end of the year diverts unwanted goods from the waste stream.

The addition to the pharmacy building meets LEED Silver criteria. Butler has installed low-flow showerheads and faucet aerators in campus bathrooms, and two buildings feature waterless urinals. New buildings feature tiled carpets to reduce the amount of replacement needed. Some buildings feature motion sensor lighting.

The Environmental Concerns Organization, a student group, works on a number of issues including Earth Week programming, an end-of-year donation program, river clean-ups, and sustainability in the dining halls. The group is planning a dorm energy competition for the 2009-2010 academic year. Butler offers eight student jobs related to sustainability.

The campus fleet includes one electric and one flex-fuel car. Campus security officers ride in electric vehicles, and campus police ride bicycles. Free shuttles are available to shopping malls and, on weekends, to additional destinations. To encourage walking and biking, major vehicle roads have been removed from the center of campus and bike racks have been installed.

The university makes neither a list of endowment holdings nor its shareholder voting record public.

The university aims to optimize investment return and is currently invested in renewable energy funds.

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