Center for the Sustainable Environment

The Center for the Sustainable Environment (CSE)

The Center for the Sustainable Environment (CSE) has many environmentally friendly and sustainable features. Inside are carpets made from recycled plastic bottles and recycled car tires, reclaimed hardwood flooring, recycled cork flooring, American Clay walls, dual-flush toilets, and Mythic paint (non-toxic, zero-volatile organic compounds (VOC) paint). The CSE — along with the Bonchek, Brooks, and Weis College House Commons and Schnader Hall — also features a green roof. Green roofs improve air quality and increase energy efficiency with their thermal properties. 

Solar Panels

The Sustainability House, a residential housing option, and the William M. Hackman Physical Sciences Laboratories have active, energy producing solar panels. 

Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED)

F&M is committed to meeting or exceeding LEED Silver building standards for all new buildings and renovations on campus. LEED is the rating system used by the U.S. Green Building Council to measure a building’s sustainability and resource-efficiency. 

We have several buildings on campus that satisfy LEED Silver equivalent guidelines:

• The Patricia E. Harris Center for Business, Government & Public Policy
• The Brooks College House Commons
• The Bonchek College House Commons
• The Ware College House Commons
• The Weis College House Commons
• The Klehr Center for Jewish Life

All spaces have high-efficiency sinks and toilets, furnishings made from recycled fabrics, motion sensored lights, and perforated storm pipes.

Three buildings on campus — Roschel College House, Shadek Stadium, and the Susan and Benjamin Winter Visual Arts Center (WVAC) — earned LEED Silver certifications. 

Roschel College House

F&M’s Roschel College House was the first LEED-certified building on campus. Designed by Robert A. M. Stern Architects LLP and completed in April 2011, Roschel College House incorporates numerous features to conserve energy and water and to reduce emissions and waste. Roschel College House achieved an 18 percent reduction in energy cost savings with its design. Inside are bamboo floors, an induction stove, motion-sensing lights, and low-VOC paint and caulk. Along the perimeter are rain gardens that help reduce stormwater on campus.

Shadek Stadium

The Shadek Stadium, home to F&M’s football and lacrosse teams, received the 2018 U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) Central Pennsylvania Award for Innovative Project New Construction, and is LEED Silver-certified. Native and adaptive plants have been utilized along with appropriate grass seed/sod and wildflower meadow mixes to eliminate the need for irrigation around the stadium. 

The Susan and Benjamin Winter Visual Arts Center (WVAC)

The WVAC’s natural illumination and ventilation, along with active slab heating and cooling, contribute to its LEED status. The WVAC was designed by architect Steven Holl and earned The Architect’s Newspaper 2020 Best of Design Award in the institutional / higher education category. It also was a finalist for overall Project of the Year. 

Rain Gardens

To help capture runoff from buildings and impervious areas, the College utilizes catchment basins and rain gardens throughout campus. The rain gardens around Roschel College House, in the Race Avenue parking lot, and at Shadek Stadium hold rainwater to be slowly released into the groundwater table.

Native Pollinators

The College is growing its collection of native plants on campus to help support native pollinators. In addition to providing beautiful flowers, these plants help to supply crucial nutrients to bees, butterflies, and other pollinators.

Porous Paving Around Campus

With its rain gardens, gabions and porous asphalt, the Race Avenue parking lot is the only parking area on campus that contains all rainwater on site, thereby eliminating runoff into the Chesapeake Bay watershed. The Admission parking lot and the Weis College House Pathway are also constructed with porous asphalt.

Green Roofs on Campus

Green roofs reduce energy required to cool and heat buildings, and retain water to decrease runoff during rainstorms. F&M has just over 13,500 square feet of green roofs across five buildings on campus.  

Integrated Pest Management

We employ integrated pest management throughout campus, a method that manages pests and weeds without using pesticides. This approach monitors the trees and plants for insects, diseases of foliage, and diseases of soil, ensuring the continued health of the campus arboretum while protecting the environment.

We’re committed to decreasing energy consumption and emissions while at the same time pursuing alternative energy sources and making current systems more efficient. Goals in the Sustainability Master Plan include reducing consumption of fossil fuels and increasing use of energy-efficient and recycled equipment and materials.

Electricity

We work vigilantly to reduce electricity usage throughout campus. The College looks at energy reduction from all angles to ensure as great of savings as possible. Some the initiatives we have implemented to reduce the College’s electrical footprint include:

LED Lighting

LED lighting serves to reduce electrical usage while still providing high-quality illumination both outdoors and in the classroom. The LED lighting projects installed in 2013 and 2014 are expected to reduce F&M’s electricity usage by 2 million kilowatt hours per year.

Solar Panels on Campus

F&M has two photovoltaic systems (systems that absorb the sun’s light and convert solar energy into electricity) installed on campus, serving to promote the use of renewable energy technologies on campus and in the greater Lancaster community. The larger array (a 30.36 kW system) is installed on top of the William M. Hackman Physical Sciences Laboratories. A smaller solar array (300 square feet) sits atop the roof of F&M’s Sustainability House. Both systems help to generate electricity on site and reduce the College’s carbon footprint.    

Occupancy Sensors

F&M has installed occupancy sensors throughout campus in an effort to reduce electricity usage while spaces are not in use.

Energy Star Equipment

As equipment ages and is cycled out of use, we are committed to replacing appliances and other electronics with energy efficient units. We purchase Energy Star Appliances whenever possible in a continued effort to reduce campus electricity usage.

Heating and Cooling

In 2009 and 2010, F&M replaced the boiler and chiller with higher efficiency units. This helped to greatly reduce the amount of natural gas and electricity used on campus. F&M has also been steadily replacing oil furnaces in builds not connected to the central plant. The oil furnaces are removed and replaced with much more efficient natural gas units that use fewer resources and have fewer emissions.

Temperature

In order to increase the sustainability of our campus, we adopted guidelines to promote the conservation of energy. For interior spaces, the guidelines are:

OCCUPIED SPACE

Heating Season: 70 degrees

Cooling Season: 75 degrees

UNOCCUPIED SPACE

Heating Season: 62 degrees

Cooling Season: 83 degrees

MARGIN

Heating Season: +/- 2 degrees

Cooling Season: +/- 2 degrees

Over break periods, we further curtail heating and cooling in areas that are unoccupied. This helps to reduce energy consumption while spaces are not in use.

Local Food in Campus Dining 

F&M’s food service provider, Sodexo, strives to incorporate local food whenever possible. The majority of their produce is sourced and purchased locally and they take pride in partnering with local businesses such as Hershey’s Chocolate in Hershey, Pa., Sweet Street Desserts in Reading, Pa., and Harrisburg Dairies in Harrisburg. Organic and Kosher meats and dairy products are available to students on a regular basis as well as Fair Trade and sustainably sourced coffee.

Sustainable Products

In addition to the continued drive towards sustainable food, Sodexo works to make other aspects of the dining experience more sustainable as well.

Vegan Report Card

More than 1,400 universities across the U.S. are surveyed for Peta’s Vegan Report Card. Seventy percent of them now offer at least one vegan option on their dining hall menu. Franklin & Marshall’s dining services received a B grading in 2017, but currently holds an A+ Rating.

Local Businesses

We work with various local businesses in many capacities. This includes special events and regular offerings. Some vendors we work with include Square One Coffee Roasters. They provide all the beans for the Diplomatic Cafe. 

Food Bank

We provide leftover food to Blessings of Hope on a regular basis during the school year. We also run various food drives throughout the year for the Food Pantry here on campus.

An important step to sustainability is changing the way that we travel from place to place, whether it be to Central Market in downtown Lancaster or getting home during the breaks. 

While Lancaster is a walkable city with many restaurants and shops located less than a mile from campus, we also offer alternatives that can help limit the amount of harmful gas emissions. 

A Bicycle Friendly Campus

F&M was designated ‘Bicycle Friendly’ by the National Bicyclist Group. Our bike loan program provides free bicycles for students to use during the semester. Students are also more than welcome to bring their own bikes to campus. There are plenty of outdoor bike racks to store and lock bikes, two bike repair stations on campus with pumps, and two bike shops within a mile of campus, including Common Wheel, a local nonprofit bike center.

Electric Vehicle (EV) Charging Stations

F&M installed Electric Vehicle (EV) Charging Stations in the College Square, Winter Visual Arts Center (WVAC), and Williamson parking lots. The stations are rated at a level two setting, meaning that they charge at a faster rate than residential chargers. The stations are open for us to the F&M and greater Lancaster community, free of charge. 

Shuttles and Buses

We offer free on-campus shuttle services to both libraries, several of the residence halls, and various off-campus housing locations. Our shuttles also provide a link to Lancaster, offering free transportation to nearby grocery stores and pharmacies, as well as downtown Lancaster, Target, Walmart, and the mall. We also offer transportation to Baltimore-Washington International Airport and Philadelphia International Airport at the end of each semester for a fee. Local buses of the Red Rose Transit Authority also serve the F&M campus, and OurBus runs buses from Lancaster to New York City on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays.

We are always on the lookout to reduce the amount of trash produced on campus. We implemented several initiatives in order to maximize waste-saving efforts, including:

• Improving recycling on campus by using a single stream recycling system, with which all recyclables — including newspaper, cardboard, plastic, and aluminum — are placed in a single bin.
• Reducing paper towels by installing 20 energy-efficient Dyson Airblade Hand Dryers throughout campus. These units help reduce environmental impacts by greatly reducing carbon dioxide output that occurs from the production, transportation, and disposal of paper towels.
• Eliminating plastic water bottles by no longer selling plastic water bottles on campus. Students are given reusable BPA-free water bottles that can be filled at one of 40+ bottle-filling stations around campus. In the first year of the initiative, the bottle fillers dispensed the equivalent of 458,501 (16 oz.) water bottles.
• Implementing composting on campus so organic matter and paper that previously would have been considered trash are now captured and turned into a usable product.

Trash

Trash generated on campus is collected by members of F&M’s Facilities and Operations using the College’s trash truck. The refuse is then taken to the Lancaster County Solid Waste Management Authority (LCSWMA) Transfer Station, less than one mile from campus.  The majority of the refuse brought to that facility is transported to the Lancaster Waste-to-Energy Facility in the south of Lancaster County, where the refuse is incinerated to generate electricity. 

Recycling

In an effort to reduce the amount of trash that is produced, F&M began single stream recycling in 2013. With this change, we converted all existing bins on campus, added additional collection locations, and designed new signage to create a uniform seamless system.

F&M Compost Co-Op Diverts Costs and CO2 in Lancaster

A Franklin & Marshall College compost initiative has evolved into a co-op saving the City of Lancaster $5,215 per year — all while diverting 16,638 pounds of food waste from the solid-waste stream each month.

The Lancaster Composting Co-Ops (LCC) are a volunteer-led, community initiative enabling Lancaster residents to reduce household food waste by creating high-quality compost. Associate Professor of Environmental Studies Eve Bratman piloted the program.

"F&M students have been involved since the outset in helping to inspire and push along the work," she said.

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We seek to be a responsible steward of its water resources by focusing on efficiency, cultivating a climate-adapted landscape, minimizing potable water irrigation and effectively managing waste water.

Conserving Water

The College has installed aerators in sinks and showers as well as low flow toilets throughout campus. This helps to reduce the amount of water used by the College on a daily basis. 

Reducing Stormwater

The College employs rain gardens, catch basins, green roofs and pervious paving to help reduce stormwater on campus and mitigate its impacts on the nearby Chesapeake Bay watershed. 

The liberal arts tradition blends seamlessly with the sustainability movement. F&M offers several fields of study that explore the planet and humanity’s role, with many professors sharing their research and insight on a greener planet. Each major is designed to thoughtfully engage you with concepts and issues related to the earth and its environments through coursework, laboratory and field study, and research.

Biology

The biological sciences expand and advance frontiers of knowledge about all forms of life. From molecules to ecosystems, from oceans to deserts, from the distant past to present day, biology gives you insights into other species, ourselves, and our world.

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Earth and Environmental Science

Explore critical environmental issues of today through a scientific lens. By studying earth and environmental science at F&M, you will build the necessary biological, chemical, and geological foundation you need to study the earth and understand the dynamics between humans and our environment.

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Environmental Studies

Do you wish to better understand how humans interact with and affect the environment around us? Environmental Studies at F&M offers a distinctive approach to building the knowledge you need to tackle the environmental challenges of the 21st century.

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Sustainability Planning Certificate

Sustainability planning is an increasing need in the marketplace. F&M’s sustainability planning certificate provides the glue that bonds biology; earth and environment; and business, organizations and society to prepare students interested in careers in sustainable practices.

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Environmental Action Alliance

Environmental Action Alliance (EAA) is a student-led organization of environmental activists, researchers, and advocates that engage in numerous sustainability and awareness initiatives.

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F&M Food & Sustainability Power Project

This campus-wide club aims to encourage the purchase and consumption of nutritious, ethical, and environmentally friendly foods. By joining the club, you will also learn about the harmful effects that factory farms have on animals, factory workers, and the environment. Whether you follow a vegan, vegetarian, or reducetarian lifestyle or are simply curious about the plant-based movement, you are welcome to join this community!

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Diplomatic Congress

The student government, which includes a sustainability committee chair, is responsible for uniting student leaders from all over the campus to speak on their behalf, foster collaboration and joint initiatives, and meet with the leaders of the Center for the Sustainable Environment and other offices committed to sustainable practices. This is done to support the College's Sustainability Master Plan, and the student representative serves on the campus sustainability committee.

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First-Year Outdoor Orientation Trip (FOOT)

FOOT is a pre-arrival program for incoming first-years during which students backpack along the Appalachian Trail in Pennsylvania for four days.

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Sustainability House

The Sustainability House is a residential option for students of all backgrounds pursuing progress over perfection in more environmentally conscious living.

The CSE maintains relationships with numerous people and organizations, seeking to grow and learn together with others who are concerned with sustainability. Here are a few of our regular partners.

Pennsylvania Environmental Resource Center (PERC)

PERC enables Pennsylvania's colleges and universities to share knowledge and take action towards a sustainable future.

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Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE)

AASHE inspires and catalyzes higher education to lead the global sustainability transformation.

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College Park Climate Action Neighborhood (CPCAN)

CPCAN is a community-driven group committed to identifying and implementing local climate solutions, through convening and working collaboratively with stakeholders for a more resilient future. CPCAN strives to lead by example and inspire other communities to embrace climate action as an integral part of their identity.

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