Boston University's Ecological Footprint

Well I finally finished my GIS project using the data from my directed study on the ecological footprint of BU. And we found some interesting facts.

We calculated the electricity use of 34 buildings on campus for 1991, 1996, 2001, and 2006. We also looked at the enrollment information for those years.

In regards to electricity use, we concluded that:
The worst building on campus is 19 Deerfield Street because in 15 years the electricity use in that building has almost trippled.

The best building on campus is CGS because in 15 years the electricity use in that building has gone down by a quarter.

20 of the buildings increased in electricity use over 15 years.

7 of the buildings deacreased in electricity use over 15 years.

The university has increased its electricity use by almost 60 million kWh in 15 years, but the student population has only increased by 2000 students, therefore by calculating per capita use of the buildings we had, student use of electricity has almost doubled since 1991.



There are a lot of errors and factors that go into looking at these results. We didn't account for the change in usage of the building or the age of the building. We only calcuated 34 of several hundered buildings owned by BU, so the student usage is not completely accurate. The list goes on.

But the overall point of this study was to show how much BU is using and what we're doing about it. Currently, BU does not have any sort of green planning design. Policies and building strategies do not incorporate environmental sustainability. This is an expensive problem that the administration should reevaluate. Much can be learned by Tufts and Harvard, through their sustainability programs.

In the end, we hope that by publishing reports like this on water usage, paper usage, waste management, etc. the administration will begin to understand how much of an impact our institution has on Boston and on the country, and that it is possible to make positive changes that will benefit the university as a whole.