Take off the hard hat

Vanderbilt University and construction are as synonymous as the New York Yankees and the World Series.

For years, folks driving the perimeter or walking the gut of the university’s West End campus and its adjacent medical complex encountered the whirling buzz of heavy machinery as dirt was moved and walls erected.

But the construction has ceased for a good while. Officials last week confirmed that, as part of a series of spending cuts, all major construction projects are on hold for at least two years. The four large-scale projects already underway — a Vanderbilt Hospital addition, Vanderbilt Health’s 100 Oaks move, an addition/renovation of Cohen Hall and the Children’s Way Parking Garage — will be completed. But previously announced projects such as an addition to Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital, the creation of a 21st Avenue entrance to Vanderbilt University Medical Center and the replacement of Kassam Quadrangle — are going nowhere for now.

During the lull, university officials will promote the ThinkOne Energy Conservation Campaign, which was launched last September with the goal of reducing Vanderbilt’s energy consumption by 15 percent. Originally geared to 24 campus buildings and combining human behavior modifications with updated building systems, ThinkOne is being expanded this year to include medical facilities and other campus buildings.

“Vanderbilt has been on fast-track growth for well beyond 20 years, adding almost 8 million of its current 18 million square feet during that time,” said Judson Newbern, VU’s deputy vice chancellor for facilities and environmental affairs. “That’s 40 percent of Vanderbilt’s facilities in 15 percent of its history.”

The focus on ThinkOne coincides with Vanderbilt’s recent announcement that three buildings at The Commons have achieved Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design gold status. Seven of The Commons’ 11 buildings (four are existing) will be certified, the highest concentration of LEED-recognized buildings in Tennessee.

Newbern said the construction slowdown offers opportunity to address “honing infrastructure for operational and energy efficiencies.” This is key, he said, given the energy required to sustain a daily campus population of about 35,000.

No budget has been announced, but VU will address the following priorities:

- Designing and evaluating a prioritized program to fine-tune 17 million gross square feet of space to emerge more efficient for the next wave of major construction

- Implementing energy-saving measures that offer immediate cost savings

- Understanding VU's carbon footprint, or the amount of emissions it generates

- Educating both the VU community and Nashville in general about ThinkOne via a Web-driven campaign focused on energy-saving behavior. This element includes surveys, e–mail announcements, postcards, signs and stickers.

ThinkOne is derived from the broader Sustain VU initiative, which the Sustainability and Environmental Management Office unveiled in late 2007 to serve as a gathering place for information on campus sustainability events, initiatives and efforts.

“The ThinkOne campaign is about small actions that each person can take to reduce our energy consumption here at Vanderbilt,” said Andrea George, SEMO director. “Some of the actions multiplied by hundreds or thousands of times by Vanderbilt employees and students can really make an impact.”

Updating a four-year backlog

The simultaneous emphasis on ThinkOne and the construction decrease is significant. Mark Petty, assistant vice chancellor for plant operations, said Vanderbilt can focus on installing new systems and assessing their ability to cut costs.

“Using internal staff in the Plant and Planning units to turn their attention from expansion to, instead, focusing on retooling existing infrastructure better positions us for the next round” of development, Petty said.

Petty said massive underground networks of gas, water, sewer, steam, electrical and fiber lines require 16 layers of detailed utility information be stored in a Geographic Information Systems database updated by a small in-house team.

“Making progress on updating a four-year backlog of alterations made to these networks during the building surge will be one way to [benefit from] the slowdown,” he said.

Recent updates will provide Vanderbilt a chance to fully assess ThinkOne in 2009. But indications from projects already underway are encouraging.

“In the past two years, VU Plant Operations has replaced almost 500 bathroom fixtures with water-free urinals and low-flow toilets/faucets, resulting in a water usage savings of 9.2 million gallons per year, or more than $64,000 annually,” Newbern said.

Modifications to specific VU facilities also have proved helpful, he added. Memorial Gym, the Owen Graduate School of Management and the School of Law now have automated heating and cooling systems, while VUMC is saving $60,000 per year from similar system refinements, according to Ken Browning, director of medical plant operations.

Vanderbilt Health’s 100 Oaks campus also is on board with ThinkOne. The new facility’s lighting control system reduces the amount of artificial light used when natural lighting is sufficient, said Cyril Stewart, VUMC’s senior director for facility strategy and management. The system also powers down lights when they’re not needed and some of the facility’s signage will be solar-powered.

It is debatable if VU can serve as a blueprint — or in this case, a “greenprint” — for other institutions.

GreenReportCard.org’s College Sustainability Report Card for 2009 gives Vanderbilt a C-plus, though the modest grade stems largely from VU’s weakness on the study’s weightings of two social metrics rather than its seven environmental metrics. In addition, Vanderbilt officials have not signed on to the American College & University President’s Climate Commitment initiative.

Regarding the latter, Newbern said, “The vagueness of the climate commitment initiative spurred us to seek to establish a base level of parameters so that we could chart our course of objectively measured improvement.”

Still, VU’s efforts have not gone unnoticed.

“The fact that Vanderbilt has focused on water, a scarce resource in much of the South that can be saved through simple retrofits, is positive,” said Emily Curley, senior program associate with the Washington, D.C.-based Alliance to Save Energy.

Alex Tapia, a Nashville-based program manager for the Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance in Atlanta, said he is unaware of a college campus concentration of LEED-certified buildings greater than that at The Commons.

“What Vanderbilt is doing serves as a model to colleges across the region and the country,” Tapia said. “Not only is Vanderbilt building a green future, but they are also teaching their students and faculty how to make sure the buildings perform the way they're supposed to. Without that connection, a lot of the potential energy savings is lost.”