Big Idea on Campus: Sustainability research and practice at Alaska's universities.

• Author: Kvapil, Rachael

Leave a place better than you found it: the Campground Rule is well known and practiced by anyone who roams the outdoors responsibly. Given that the Latin word for camp is the root of the English "campus," higher education has assimilated the same ethos.

The three main campuses of the University of Alaska system each have an Office of Sustainability to coordinate efforts to reduce the impact of the institution on the environment and to conserve resources for future generations.

At UAA, the most visible program is gathering, sorting, and processing recyclable paper, cardboard, plastics, glass, aluminum, and even vegetable waste from student food services. The office calls recycling a "gateway to sustainability." Other initiatives include testing the efficiency of light fixtures, landscaping with site-appropriate plants to minimize maintenance inputs, and replacing disposable eating utensils with reusable tableware at the dining commons.

At UAS, three build.ngs at the Juneau campus are heated with air source heat pumps. Also, g ven the high rate of electric vehicle adoption in the capital city thanks to its abundant hydropower, the university hosts two charging ports.

For UAF, students are leading sustainability. In April 2009, the Associated Students of the University of Alaska Fairbanks (ASUAF) approved a $20 per semester Students Initiative for Renewable Energy Now fee. They later shortened the name to the Student Sustainability Fee for clarity, and a student sustainability board formed to ensure student control of the fees collected. For five years, the Office of Sustainability funded more than fifty student-led sustainability programs and projects in the areas of energy, waste reduction and recycling, transportation, food, and education. As the budget landscape changed, steps were taken to restructure the program, and ASUAF voted to make the sustainability fee permanent.

The Office of Sustainability's main mission is to make UAF a model for the Circumpolar North and beyond by incorporating sustainability into curriculum, operations, campus life, and the greater community. In 2014, the UAF Sustainability Plan outlined ways to develop sustainable practices across campus, and UAF Sustainability Coordinator Christi Kemper says at least half of that plan was implemented.

"Early on, we funded a variety of sustainability projects, including energy projects," says Kemper. "Now our focus is on a handful of studentrun programs that advocate waste...