STARS: Grounds, Transportation, Waste
The STARS system was developed by AASHE (The Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education). As mentioned in the Executive Summary, the STARS system is broken up into categories that highlight specific areas of focus on college campuses and their impact on the environment and resources. Within the STARS framework, our group will be looking at the areas of transportation, grounds, and waste, all under the ‘operations’ category. Each of these areas has several subgroups that give more in depth criteria for sustainability.
STARS Sustainability Analysis, Grounds, Transportation, Waste, Dean Kim Tanzer, School of Architecture, University of Virginia, Zach Coles, Eduardo Diaz-Etchevehere, Laura Lee, Samantha Weiser
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STARS: Grounds, Transportation, Waste

STARSGroundsTransportationWaste (click PDF)

Fall 2011

Team Members: Zach Coles, Eduardo Diaz-Etchevehere, Laura Lee, Samantha Weiser

The STARS system was developed by AASHE (The Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education). As mentioned in the Executive Summary, the STARS system is broken up into categories that highlight specific areas of focus on college campuses and their impact on the environment and resources. Within the STARS framework, our group will be looking at the areas of transportation, grounds, and waste, all under the ‘operations’ category. Each of these areas has several subgroups that give more in depth criteria for sustainability.

Kim Tanzer, Dean of Architecture at the University of Virginia, is our community partner. She has long been interested in sustainability at the School of Architecture, but she does not yet have the sort of metric for measuring sustainability the STARS system could provide. She would like to know, based on our results, specific ways we would recommend the school improve sustainability. Those affected by what we are to investigate through STARS are the members of the School of Architecture community, which includes teachers, students, and faculty. By measuring sustainability at the School of Architecture, we will be able to inform these stakeholders about how we can improve sustainability and include them in the process of creating a sustainable community. Our group will specifically inform them about ways they can improve their transportation methods to and from the school, reduce waste, and help improve the grounds.

We have analyzed the annual facility summaries of Campbell hall provided by our community partners to determine consumption trends and identify unsustainable areas that we can improve.