EFS Profiles Green Buildings Initiative: The Mueller Report Pennsylvania State University University Park, Pennsylvania Purpose: Greening the Campus, Sustainability Research Please note that the copyright for this profile is retained by the institution. In the Fall of 2000, Professor Chris Uhl of Penn State posed a question to his Biology 450 class: "In what ways is Mueller Building like an ecosystem?" As the discussion developed, Uhl introduced the concept of "ecological footprinting" and asked the class to consider the possibility of reducing the environmental impact of Mueller Building (a biology building on PSU's main campus) by half. Slowly a class project began to take shape. Each student took one "input" category (e.g., paper, cleaning products, carpeting, etc.) and determined: i) Mueller's annual consumption of that input; ii) the environmental impacts of that consumption; iii) low-impact alternatives; and iv) footprint reductions if alternatives were adopted.. During January-May 2001, Austin Mandryk, Dennis Matalavage, Christie Vischer, Loren Byrne, Sara Eisenfeld, and Joshua Pearce took up the work initiated by the Bio 450 class and, under C. Uhl's guidance, completed an ecological analysis of Mueller Laboratory. The most surprising result of the Mueller Report is that changes which foster environmental sustainability will save significant amounts of money -- over $45,000 per year in this one building in electricity savings alone! The report found that by increasing efficiency, using smart technologies, and increasing environmental awareness, changes in Mueller could, among other things: Cut coal consumption by 755 tons and in the process cut CO2 emissions by nearly 2,000 tons per year. Cut water use by over 100,000 gallons a year. Cut paper consumption by 67%. Dramatically reduce waste associated with the disposal of transparencies, diskettes, computers, carpeting, furniture, and printer cartridges. Significantly reduce VOCs, and caustic and toxic chemicals associated with carpeting, paints, cleaning agents and pest control. All these things could be done while in no way compromising the research, teaching, and administrative functions of the building's occupants. If it is assumed that Mueller's resource consumption and waste generation for basic materials (e.g., of paper, computing devices, electricity) are typical of other PSU buildings, the savings would several million dollars a year. Mueller is not unique among PSU's buildings and PSU is not unique among America's Universities. The potential economic savings for all universities made by adopting sustainable practices is truly enormous. The PSU administration and the biology department have already begun to institute some of the Mueller Report's best practices and students are working to take these changes university wide. For additional information: The Mueller Report Green Destiny's Web Page
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