News-Letter

Media Credit: Angeli Bueno Sophomore Sean Murphy discusses sustainability proposals.

The Sustainable Hopkins Infrastructure Program (SHIP) received funding authorization from the associate financial deans last Friday, officially launching the latest of the University's series of efforts to make Hopkins a leader in sustainability.

SHIP, originally conceived of by sophomore Dan Teran, was endorsed by the Student Government Association last March and is designed to help secure funding for students and employees who have ideas for practical green projects on campus.

Projects must meet the eligibility criteria agreed on by the administration on Friday, which includes reducing the environmental impacts, noninterference with ongoing projects and no ongoing maintenance.

The Krieger School of Arts and Sciences and Whiting School of Engineering and the respective deans of finance of these schools, Frederick Puddester and James Aumiller, are providing the funding.

The proposed projects must meet a "seven-year payback" criterion, which means, according the SHIP charter, it must generate savings equivalent to the requested funding within seven years.

According to Teran, the seven-year payback is unique to Hopkins.

"The programs are much more progressive that the five-year payback used at institutions like Harvard and Macalester," Teran said.

According to Teran, a seven-year window of payback would enable more projects to focus on environmental benefits rather than on financial aspects dictated by a five-year deadline.

"We would be saving resources to capture projects that may have been funded under the restrictive five-year system," Teran said.

"It's wonderful that students will be able to help increase the sustainability on campus," said Julia Blocher, president of the Hopkins Energy Action Team.

According to Blocher, HEAT members have expressed interest in the project and the success of the Green Idea Generator project last year bodes well for SHIP.

"There was so much excitement about the green idea generator project that not all the projects could be implemented," Blocher said. "SHIP will therefore provide an avenue to funding yet more good, green ideas."

Hopkins students were initially inspired to create the program by a similar program at Harvard University, the Harvard Green Campus Initiative, implemented in 2000, which provides revolving funds for sustainability projects.

Continued...

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