Hunter Green Chronology
| 2020-2021 | Throughout the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, Hunter College sustains its efforts to fulfill green reporting mandates, and continue data collection and tracking measures where still feasible and safely possible. The rapid transition to online learning and remote work has a short-term impact of reducing paper waste. Yet similarly, the increased need for natural ventilation within campus buildings temporarily affects operations to be at a lower energy efficiency. Hunter begins working to install energy recovery ventilation systems to address this new challenge. |
| 2019 | The Hunter College Sustainability Council completes an assessment of the 2008 edition of Hunter’s 10-Year Sustainability Action Plan. A thorough review identifies notable milestones that were met as well as new areas of opportunity and improvement. New targets and objectives are drafted into a proposed revised edition of the 10-Year Sustainability Action Plan and put for review to Administration. |
| 2018 | Hunter receives Achiever badge from New York State’s REV Campus Challenge in recognition of the College’s commitments and progress towards emissions reduction and energy conservation efforts. |
| 2016-2017 | Hunter’s Silberman School of Social Work campus becomes LEED certified. |
| 2015 | Hunter College partners with MillionTreesNYC, a public/private organization with the mission to plant a million trees throughout New York City by 2017 — In total, 16 trees are donated to Hunter and can be found on our 68th Street Main Campus and Brookdale Campus. The engagement with MillionTreesNYC serve to beautify Hunter’s urban campus and aid the City in buffering and reducing the levels of storm water runoff.
Following an on-site energy audit of the Hunter 68th Street Main Campus, Hunter Facilities initiates the first rounds of its Steam Trap Replacement Project — Leaky steam traps are repaired and operating conditions for the campus’ steam distribution systems are dramatically improved, resulting in lowered levels of natural gas consumption on the campus. |
| 2014 | Hunter College is recognized and listed among the top 330 colleges in the U.S. and Canada in The Princeton Review’s 2014 edition Guide to Green Colleges — (the College will also come to be included in the 2015 edition of Princeton Review’s Green College Guide). |
| 2012-2013 | With fiscal support from Sustainable CUNY, Hunter Facilities upgrades campus plumbing fixtures to lower Hunter’s water consumption levels. Low-flow showerheads and faucet aerators are installed to help achieve greater reductions in water conservation. |
| 2010-2011 | In demonstration to the influence and power of student engagement, growing student demand and activism by Hunter’s Undergraduate Student Government (USG) and Graduate Student Association (GSA) leads to the campus’ installation of waste-saving water bottle across all of Hunter’s campuses — the fiscal support and advocacy by the Hunter student body is pivotal to the roll-out of this long-awaited initiative. The first water bottle filling station is installed in 2011, 20 more stations are brought on campus in 2012 with funding from (USG) as a class gift to the campus from the Class of 2012.
Through support of Sustainable CUNY, Hunter College hires an energy consultant to perform a campus energy assessment of its Main Campus to identify low-hanging fruits of opportunity for enery and emission reductions. Solar panels are installed on roof of Hunter Main Campus’ North Building to provide students with a living laboratory to learn, study, and observe the impacts and operations of renewables and energy efficiency. |
| 2009 | Hunter College becomes a participant in the New Jersey Transit’s University Partnership Program to encourage and promote the usage of mass transit as a primary means of transportation for its campus body. As a program partner, full-time Hunter students are provided a discount fare for monthly passes on the NJ Transit. |
| 2008 | The Hunter Green sustainability website goes live! Serving as a dedicated platform for the College, the website helps Hunter communicate its achievement, progress and ongoing initiatives towards reducing the College’s carbon footprint and resource consumption. |
| 2007 | Guided by Sustainable CUNY, The Hunter College Sustainability Council is formally established. Throughly monthly meetings comprised of students, faculty, and staff, the Council serves as an effective means to promoting transparency, facilitating student engagement, and implementing innovative projects that act upon our commitment to sustainability. |
| 2006 | The Institute for Sustainable Cities at Hunter College (ISC) is created out of the vision and financial support of Theodore Kheel, prominent labor negotiator, lawyer, and environmentalist. Forged as part of a strategic alliance between Kheel’s environmental organizations the Nurture Nature Foundation and the City University of New York, ISC focuses on serving as a catalyst through which cutting-edge knowledge about sustainability practice and theory is translated to a wide range of audiences within CUNY and beyond.
The Institute for Sustainable Cities at Hunter College (ISC) works to realize cities as part of the solution to global sustainability challenges; seeking to understand and influence the evolution of the urban environment, while connecting the CUNY community, decision makers and the general public to these critical issues. Hunter College’s computers are loaded with Verdiem software, putting the electronic equipment into a dormant state after a period of inactivity in order to conserve energy — By early 2007, most of Hunter’s computers are using Verdiem. Paper-based billing and transcripts are phased out; and students are able to view bills and transcripts online, reducing paper consumption and eliminating the need to travel to the Campus to pay bills. |
| 2005 | Hunter begins participation in the New York Power Authority’s “Peak Load Management” program — Under the terms of the program, the College scales back its electricity usage on up to 15 of the hottest days of summer, helping relieve the heavy demands that are placed on the regional power grid during those times. |
| 2004 | Hunter College campuses realize and attain major electric usage reductions as the majority of campus spaces are retrofitted from incandescent bulbs to self-ballasted fluorescent bulbs, T5 tubes & ballasts that are more energy-efficient.
Flushometers and automatic faucets are installed in a majority of the College’s restrooms — large-scale installation continues into 2005. |
| 2003 | Hunter ceases pouring its darkroom chemicals into the municipal sewer system, instead diverting them to contractors who dispose of them responsibly and recover usable elements from them.
An “e-waste” collection program is established for members of the Hunter College community to dispose of broken and/or obsolete College-owned computer equipment and electrical devices in a responsible manner. |
| 2002 | Hunter implements a program for properly labeling and disposing of chemical, radioactive and biological waste — the College’s program model sets the CUNY-wide example for waste labeling and disposal, and soon becomes adopted by many other CUNY schools. |
| 2000-2001 | Occupancy sensors, which control overhead lighting, replace manual light switches in a majority of the rooms on Hunter’s Main (68th Street) campus.
A new dual-fuel chiller and boiler plant is installed in Hunter’s Main Campus resulting in major energy savings — The apparatus is powered primarily by natural gas, and emits fewer emissions. |