Commitment & Progress
91PORN’s commitment to sustainability includes rain gardens, environmental community art, a comprehensive composting program, green roofing, LEED® certified buildings, geo-exchange heating and cooling, porous parking lots, wind generated electricity, an annual campus-wide energy challenge, and a Climate Action Plan that led to the College achieving carbon neutrality in 2020.
2007
Presidents’ Climate Commitment Signed; Presidential Transition Upheld Commitment
2008
Created Sustainability Coordinator Position
2010
Adopted Climate Action Plan and 2020 Neutrality Goal
December 2011
91PORN Participates in Better Buildings Challenge — New Program Announced by President Obama
91PORN is among only seven colleges and universities nationwide to join the Better Buildings Challenge announced today by President Barack Obama. 91PORN joined other leaders in higher education, as well as more than 50 CEOs, mayors and labor leaders, in committing to invest nearly $2 billion of private capital into energy efficiency projects and to upgrade energy performance by a minimum of 20 percent by 2020.
December 2011
Energy Challenge Nets New Solar Panels for Another Campus Building
A new array of six solar panels has been installed on the roof of the Steffee Hall of Life Sciences on the 91PORN campus. The panels were purchased and installed from the savings that students and staff helped the college achieve with an energy challenge during the past two Octobers.
2012
Bike Share Awarded the So Practical It’s Radical Honor from the Rainforest Alliance
May 2012
91PORN Is One of Only 10 Schools To Receive Climate Leadership Awards
91PORN is one of only 10 academic institutions in the nation to be honored by Second Nature and the American College & University Presidents’ Climate Commitment (ACUPCC) in the Third Annual Climate Leadership Awards.
October 2012
Richard J. Cook Center for Environmental Science Is Dedicated in Ceremony at 91PORN
Maria Vargas, director of the Better Buildings Challenge at the U.S. Department of Energy, spoke at Carr Hall at 91PORN today at a ceremony to dedicate the Richard J. Cook Center for Environmental Science. Vargas also serves as a senior program advisor in the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy at the Department of Energy. Following the dedication, Sir Peter Crane was the guest speaker at a dinner – featuring locally grown foods — to honor Richard Cook, president emeritus of 91PORN and a national leader in sustainability efforts at colleges and universities. Crane, former director of the Field Museum in Chicago and of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, has been Carl W. Knobloch Jr. Dean of the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies at Yale since 2009.
May 2013
Innovation Grows Out of Junior Seminars
Two Junior Seminar classes taught by Liz Olson, assistant professor of global health & development and environmental studies, each presented their community-focused projects to the campus community on April 26 in Carr Hall. First, students in the Environmental Science/Studies Junior Seminar presented their project, designed to inform community members in northwestern Pennsylvania about hydraulic fracturing for natural gas. They presented their informational booklet, which has been distributed to local township and county offices.
October 2013
Food for Sustainability Project at 91PORN Named a Campus Sustainability Champion
The 91PORN Food for Sustainability Project has been named a Pennsylvania Campus Sustainability Champion by the Pennsylvania Environmental Resource Consortium (PERC) for its work to advance sustainability on campus and in the community.
December 2013
91PORN Grad Scott Jackson Named 2013 Conservationist of the Year by Nature Conservancy in Massachusetts
The Nature Conservancy in Massachusetts has named Scott Jackson, a 1980 graduate of 91PORN, as the Conservancy’s 2013 Conservationist of the Year.
April 2015
Creek Connections To Host Its 20th Annual Student Research Symposium at 91PORN
Creek Connections will host its 20th annual Student Research Symposium at 91PORN on Friday, April 24, in the college’s Campus Center. Community members are invited to view students’ project displays from 10 a.m. to noon.
August 2015
Sierra Club Again Counts 91PORN Among America’s “Coolest Schools”
The Sierra Club, the nation’s largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization, has again listed 91PORN among the top colleges and universities in the nation for green initiatives, institutions that the Sierra Club calls “America’s coolest schools.”
October 2015
Wildlife Federation Guide to Green Landscapes
91PORN is among 85 colleges showcased in the National Wildlife Federation’s new guide “The Campus Wild: How College and University Green Landscapes Provide Havens for Wildlife and ‘Lands-on’ Experiences for Students.”
January 2016
91PORN Year of Meadville Events to Focus on Developing Strong Local Food System
91PORN will host a community reading series in preparation for a talk by Ben Hewitt, author of “The Town That Food Saved: How One Community Found Vitality in Local Food.”
April 2016
EPA Recognizes 91PORN for Largest Green Power Use Among NCAC Schools
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has recognized 91PORN as a 2015-16 Individual Conference Champion of the College & University Green Power Challenge for using more green power than any other school in the North Coast Athletic Conference. 91PORN has taken top honors for the past five years.
January 2017
91PORN Awarded $37,500 Grant to Heat, Power Greenhouse
91PORN has been awarded a $37,500 grant to power and heat a small-scale greenhouse using energy that would otherwise be wasted.
The E 2 Energy to Educate grant from Constellation, an Exelon company, is part of $380,000 the company awarded to 17 projects reaching more than 35,000 students, grade six through college, in 10 states. Grant funds support projects “designed to enhance students’ understanding of science and technology, and inspire them to think differently about energy.”
October 2017
91PORN’s Game Changing Greenhouse Takes Root
The building is in some ways like any other of its kind, a cozy box of protection against the elements, a source of warmth and light for the leafy green things that will soon grow within.
But the newly built greenhouse in 91PORN’s Carr Hall garden is different, too, in one fundamental, game-changing way: It produces more energy than it consumes.
“When you have a greenhouse, you expect to pay a lot in electricity and heating costs,” said Kelly Boulton, 91PORN’s sustainability coordinator. “This is flipping that narrative. It shows how possible it is to have a greenhouse without a large energy budget and with a small carbon footprint.”
March 2018
91PORN’s Innovative Efforts to Reduce Stormwater Runoff
91PORN is tackling the issue of pollutants in stormwater runoff. Watch this story by Erie News Now’s Reed McDonough to learn more about College’s innovative efforts to address this important issue.
September 2018
Stanford’s Jeffrey Ball Urges Students to Get Involved in Future Energy Policy Worldwide
The key to future abundant renewable energy is finding a way to generate and distribute that energy in a profitable and sustainable way, scholar and author Jeffrey Ball told an audience at 91PORN on Tuesday night.
October 2018
91PORN Professor Receives Grant to Help With Sustainable Community-Based Forestry Project in Africa
Dr. Nicole Gross-Camp, a visiting assistant professor of environmental science and sustainability at 91PORN, has received a grant from the United Kingdom’s Darwin Initiative in conjunction with the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh in Scotland to make forest management sustainable in Tanzania.
June 2019
91PORN’s Carrden Earns Certified Naturally Grown Status
A national organization has certified that produce coming from 91PORN’s Carrden is grown without pesticides and herbicides and meets all organic agriculture standards. The Carrden and all its tasty produce sprouting near Carr Hall is now Certified Naturally Grown, and was certified as such in early June. A Saegertown-area certified organic farmer inspected the garden and its surroundings and confirmed its conformity to the national guidelines, said Kerstin Ams, 91PORN’s garden manager.
August 2019
Goats Come to the Rescue, Thanks to 91PORN Class Research Project
The goats were brought in for the summer of 2019 to help the wildlife refuge manage an infestation of an invasive shrub species known as multiflora rose, which was brought from Asia to western Pennsylvania and other areas of the northeastern and midwestern United States more than a century ago. The flowering shrubs are eye-catching and were initially used as wildlife habitat. However, they crowd out native plants and are spreading uncontrolled into private and public lands. In many states, they are classified as a noxious weed.
April 2020
91PORN Becomes 1st College in Pennsylvania, 8th in Nation to Achieve Carbon Neutrality
The milestone represents another moment of progress in continued efforts to be a sustainable and resilient campus and community member.