ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES COMMITTEE
January 22, 2004
EMU Board Room

ATTENDEES: Dorene Steggell, Joni Herbst, Julia Heydon, Robyn Hathcock, Kay Coots, Steve Mital, Ben Farrell, Karyn Kaplan, J.R. Gaddis, Jo Rogers, Christine Thompson

Announcements

• The Coalition Against Environmental Racism, 9^th Annual, Environmental Justice Conference is being held January 23 – 25^th
• Everyone is invited to preview ESSLP’s UO energy literacy project presentation on February 24^th from 4:00 – 5:00 p.m. The presentation is approximately 10 minutes, followed by critique. RSVP to Steve Mital.
• Sustainability heroes are needed for the web site. Employees who have already appeared on the site: Karyn Kaplan, Tim King, Fred Tepfer, J. R., and Bill Kasper. Kay will bring a list of nominees to next month’s meeting.

Review of the Comprehensive Environmental Policy

The following changes were recommended:

• Define the University using terms such as all departments or university community.
• Section I through VI are goal statements, eliminate the words and strategies after Goals in the third paragraph heading.
• Section I. – No changes.
• Section II. – No changes. (Suggested that EIC ask Harriet Merrick to e-mail the listserv with a reminder that purchasing is addressed in the policy and to try to include responsible purchasing tips whenever possible.)
• Section III. The word landscapes will be added to subsection C: The university commits to exploring and implementing well-considered and feasible conservation measures in existing buildings, renovations, landscapes, and new construction.
• Section IV. – no changes.
• Section V. The word lowest will be added to subsection A: The university commits to keeping the presence of toxic materials on campus and the generation of hazardous waste within the university community at lowest reasonable levels for work and research on campus.
• Section VI. No changes.

The final section will be reviewed next month. Strategies for implementing goals need to be addressed. It was suggested that the policy be reviewed more often and that assigning letter grades to each section would help monitor progress.

Steve suggested posting an announcement to Inside Oregon regarding EIC’s policy review and provide a link to it. The Recycled Paper Policy could also be promoted in this on-line publication.

 Subcommittee Reports

Ben Farrell, Karyn Kaplan, Jo Rogers, Steve Mital, Christine Thompson, and Bob Jones met with Josh Skov to discuss the work Good Company is doing for Bob Simonton’s office. They are putting together a description of sustainable policies at each of the OUS campuses and plan to submit this by the end of January. The subcommittee will check in with Josh next month.

Steve reported that Paul Elstone said, to the best of his knowledge, there is no proposal on file for environmental projects. It may be covered by other proposals, but Paul does not recall one specific to this topic. He invited the EIC to submit a proposal. Karyn offered to e-mail the one she submitted to George Hecht for the committee’s consideration at next month’s meeting.

Julia Heydon suggested that EIC directly contact the Development Office for assistance in finding donors who are interested in funding environmental projects.

The next Environmental Issues Committee meeting will be held on February 16, from 9:00 – 10:30 a.m. in the EMU Board Room.