UI President Bruce Harreld and others spoke about sustainability at a ceremony on Tuesday.
By Katelyn Weisbrod
A brand-new agreement between the University of Iowa and the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, designed to limit air-pollutant emissions, has put the university’s 2020 sustainability goals within reach.
The agreement consists of a 10-year Plant-wide Applicability Limit permit that restricts the amount of pollutants the UI can emit on a campus-wide scale rather than setting strict limits on each of the 437 emission sources located across campus. On Tuesday, the UI Office of Sustainability hosted a ceremony to celebrate the permit.
“This allows us to do things in a streamlined fashion with respect to our permitting,” said Senior Vice President for Finance and Operations Rod Lehnertz. “This is not only increased efficiency and cost savings, but gives the university flexibility to both test and execute biofuel production and use.”
The permit will be in effect for the next 10 years, and the UI can choose to renew it or convert back to adherence to limit emissions at each emission source.
The UI has set sustainability goals to be accomplished by 2020. One of these goals includes consuming 40 percent renewable energy, mostly through locally sourced biofuels like oat hulls, wood chips, and miscanthus grass.
Lehnertz said that in 2015, the UI consumed an average of 14.4 percent renewable energy per day, and new flexibility from the permit will allow the UI to expand its production of energy from biomass to reach this goal.
The UI will have to track its emissions campus-wide every month and report every year to ensure it keeps emissions under the cap level.
“Flexibility also means responsibility,” Iowa Natural Resources Director Chuck Gipp said. “These are complex and comprehensive permits. Instead of having each source of emissions being regulated and permitted, you take all the emissions points around campus and have an upper limit across campus.”
UI President Bruce Harreld said he was committed to sustainability.
“We’re going to meet our 2020 goals, we’re going to exceed them, but I think we can do a better job,” Harreld said. “As I look at the world that a lot of our students are walking into, the issue of sustainability is going to be one of the most important issues our students are going to have to deal with.”
Another one of the goals for 2020 is to expand UI research in sustainability-related areas, which Harreld said is one of the goals that could use more work.
“I’m encouraging faculty to introduce the notions of sustainability in our coursework, perhaps create new certificate programs, maybe even a degree in this area, but most importantly, to push the envelope in research,” Harreld said. “You know you’re on a good thing in academic environments when the students are pulling you ahead, and that’s where we are to a large extent on this campus.”
