Photo by Tom Campbell

Purdue student Amelie Davis and other members of the Boiler Green Initiative are seeking funding to enable them to cover this section of the Mann Hall roof with grass and plants.

In addition to the work BGI is doing with the green roof project, Davis and her counterparts also have earned grants to place recycle bins in university residence and lecture halls, libraries, and athletic facilities.

Purdue’s West Lafayette campus now recycles 24 percent of all solid waste, but Robin Ridgway, environmental regulatory consultant in Physical Facilities and co-chair of Purdue’s Sustainability Council, says she’d like to see those numbers and other green projects increase.

“We’re constantly working to decrease the ecological footprint of our campus, but there’s no instant fix. We have a lot of exciting technology, and we’re up to the long-term challenge,” she says. “Given our current energy crisis, the beauty of going green today is that, in many cases, outstanding environmental stewardship has the added benefit of cost savings. So a win for our planet can be a win for the university’s pocketbook, too.”

Some of the campus projects in the works include installation of utility meters in buildings to help monitor energy use, rehabilitation of two buildings as part of an energy-savings grant, and retro-commissioning or “tuning up” older buildings, just to name a few.

As the university continues its quest for environmental friendliness, Ridgway says she hopes to get students more involved.

“We have lots of top-notch students, so it would be great if we could begin the installation of alternate energy forms that classes could use to give those students hands-on experience,” she says. “We have such potential to provide our researchers with resources and our classes with terrific teaching tools. The opportunity to turn our campus into a living laboratory is tremendous.”

Sonny Ramaswamy, director of Agricultural Research Programs and associate dean of the College of Agriculture, agrees with Ridgway that Purdue should continue its quest and keep students involved.

“One of the most important challenges facing humans is to develop more sustainable approaches to dealing with the energy and environmental crises.

Our students and alumni have stepped up to those challenges in numerous ways,” he says. “Our goal for Purdue Agriculture and the university as a whole is to be more sustainable in everything we do — from research and teaching to Extension.”

Research projects in the College of Agriculture range from climate change to reducing parking lot runoff to making agriculture a more sustainable industry. But while they vary widely in subject matter, all have one thing in common: researchers who desire to reduce the ecological footprint of humankind.

“The incredible urgency surrounding our diminishing resources is absolutely mind-boggling,” Ramaswamy says. “We know that we must act now and we must act quickly to mitigate the problems.”