To address sustainability issues on campus, such as energy consumption, building construction and operation, land use, transportation, and material use, President Nancy S. Dye entrusted an advisory committee of students, faculty members, administrators, and facilities personnel to develop a far-reaching environmental policy.

Adopted by the College’s Board of Trustees in March 2004, the policy has led to a number of campus greening initiatives, such as a car sharing program and a monitoring system to measure energy and water use. The stewardship plan was taken even further last June when the Board voted to seek LEED certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. The LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) rating system is the nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction, and operation of high-performance green buildings.

“Oberlin will achieve a LEED rating of a least silver for new construction and major renovation projects, unless, with regard to a particular project, it is determined that either doing so would be financially imprudent or that specific alternate steps would allow Oberlin to achieve superior environmental performance at a cost similar to that involved in the LEED standard,” reads the new plan.

To earn LEED certification, a building project must meet certain prerequisites and performance credits within each category. Projects are awarded certified, silver, gold, or platinum certification depending on the number of credits they achieve.

“This move is significant in that environmental decisions made at Oberlin teach our students and the larger world about how this institution views and values the future,” says Associate Professor of Environmental Studies John Petersen ’88, a key player in the development of the environmental policy since its inception.

“Adoption of the LEED silver policy for all new construction is one of many small steps that we can and must take to teach lessons of optimism, responsibility, and leadership,” Petersen adds. “The generation we are currently educating faces unprecedented environmental and economic challenges associated with the end of the fossil fuel era and rapid global climate change brought on by this era.” 

Petersen points out that the overwhelming scientific evidence suggests that environmental decisions made over the next few decades will profoundly affect all aspects of human culture across the globe. “It is not hyperbole to say that the survival of human culture as we know it is at stake,” he says. “Given the lack of positive national leadership on environmental issues, college and university campuses are playing an increasingly important role as leaders in environmental stewardship.”