Karen Chi | Environmental dichotomy

Penn Sustainability Review | The LEED certified New College House will use disposable plates

By Karen Chi 02/03/16 12:57am

For all its hype about being a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Silver Certified building, the New College House has some uncharacteristic features for a dormitory. Namely, the building’s dining hall will use disposable plates because apparently, there will only be one dishwasher.

On the one hand, the New College House meets the criteria for LEED Certification; on the other, its dining hall will be overtly wasteful. What is interesting about the building is its dichotomy between sustainability certification and single-use plates. This situation shows us that there is no reaching an ideal, even with premeditated and calculated creation.

An initial meeting among everyone involved in the project occurred at its inception to lay out the vision and process for achieving a satisfactory result. Those at the table included representatives from many of Penn’s departments, such as Facilities and Real Estate Services and Hospitality Services, as well as the architectural firm Bohlin Cywinski Jackson. Despite the variety of expert perspectives on topics like aesthetics, operations and sustainability, mistakes still happen and problems arise. Rarely do issues have a single point-source. In the case of the New College House, a series of inconsistencies, accommodation and compromise resulted in the need for disposable plates.

Though LEED aims to reduce the ecological footprint of projects like the New College House, this multi-disciplinary team of professionals chose to install only one dishwasher, which is the main reason the dining hall must resort to disposable plates. More intriguing, however, are the underlying issues masked by the physical plates. According to University Architect David Hollenberg, if given more resources to improve the building’s sustainability, “we might have done more with water, we might have done more with heat recovery, we might have done more on any number of things that are more profoundly impactful on the carbon footprint than dishwashers.” Thus, disposable plates are only the surface of greater, structural concerns within the New College House.

Mr. Hollenberg acknowledges that the issue of disposable plates is troubling, stating, “I wish we were not doing this.” Nonetheless, the New College House will make the most of the situation. Director of Business Services and Hospitality Services Pam Lampitt describes the way the dining facility will run: “Breakfast and lunch options will be retail only, once Hill reopens from renovations in 2017, and dinner will encourage family-style dining but also offer traditional buffet-style operations.” Ms. Lampitt asserts that though disposable dishes are not ideal, Business and Hospitality Services is engaging the services of an expert in sustainable dining design to ensure the type of plate and other process details won’t be adding to landfills. She adds that a bio-bin will be installed to help facilitate effective composting of food and waste in the dining hall.

Fortunately, the New College House’s most visible issue — disposable plates — may only be temporary. Mr. Hollenberg emphasizes that “the way the building functions on opening day is not how it will function always, as there will be two-plus years before the New College House and Hill are both operating, and we therefore will have an opportunity to re-evaluate these decisions and respond to student preferences.” Ms. Lampitt concurs, noting the existence of a “greater campus plan” as a common goal at Penn. Hopefully, that goal encompasses the spirit, rather than just the letter (aka LEED Silver Certification), of real sustainability.

Penn is known for its efforts in embracing sustainability; it sources more renewable electricity than any other institution of higher education and took progressive steps with its Climate Action Plan 2.0. Penn aims to promote its vision and goal of environmental stewardship by integrating sustainability into the local community, university operations and campus planning. For instance, organizations like the Ad Hoc Advisory Committee on Divestment do so by offering a forum for understanding issues like divestment and social responsibility. The committee makes comprehensive decisions on where university investments should go. This incorporative approach reflects the ideal that institutions should work together as a system in order to make well-informed and unanimous decisions, which would have benefited the planning and building of the New College House.

The results of the New College House are far from perfect, showing that Penn is not a flawless system. The New College House earned LEED Silver Certification, which is certainly praise-worthy, though I think we can all agree that some aspects of it are more disposable than they are sustainable.

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