At the University of Oregon (where I graduated from last June), we established a similar fund, called the Energy Conservation and Alternative Futures Fund (or ECAFF for short) in 2005. Students overwhelmingly supported a referendum to raise incidental fees by about $3.00 per student per year (if I’m not mistaken) to fund a renewable energy credit purchase to cover the electricity use in our student union building (about 5% of campus electricity use). Because we got a great deal from our local utility on the renewable energy credits, we were able to also establish the ECAFF fund with the excess moneys. ECAFF offers a funding source for student-initiated energy efficiency/conservation, renewable energy and energy-related educational projects.

ECAFF had about $25,000 available for grants last year and funded several student-initiated projects in it’s first round of grants, including a grant proposal I wrote to fund a feasibility study assessing the practicality of installing a large solar hot water heater to heat our pool at the Student Recreation Center. This year, several more grant proposals were submitted including funding for the design phase of the solar hot water heater project, as well as a project to install a biorefinery on campus to produce biodiesel from waste oil from the campus housing operations.

The Associated Student of the University of Oregon (the student government) also accepted grants proposals this year for $800,000 in over realized student fees (collected over the past five years or so). Several environmental grant proposals were submitted including the solar hot water heater project and a ‘Climate Neutral Campus’ proposal that would use the funds to create an additional funding source for climate change-related student initiated projects (it would also increase our campus sustainability coordinator position from .25 to .75 FTE). Both proposals are finalists for the grant process and will hopefully receive full or partial funding.

I highly encourage others out there to try to establish student-funded funds like this. They provide a great on-campus funding source for student-initiated projects, empowering students to find and implement solutions on campus to reduce energy use, greenhouse gas emissions and waste.

And if you think students don’t have what it takes to pull off major campus improvement projects, think again! The Ecological Design Center (a student group at the UO that I participated in, see http://edc.uoregon.edu) received a $100,000 grant from the ASUO in 2001 and used it to install 15 kilowatts of solar panels on campus buildings - a major capital improvement project by any standard. Student-funded, student-initiated and student-implemented! That’s the way to get things done!

Best of luck to our friends at UC Berkeley and anyone else who wants to try to start up a revolving fund like this.

Cheers,

Jesse Jenkins

a $7.50 fee levy just passed at Concordia, my university here in Montreal, for a Sustainability Initiatives Fund, which will generate nearly a million dollars in five years. WE CAN DO IT!! Good luck with yours!