Being proactive in protecting the Earth and increasing sustainability are among the top priorities at Kirkwood Community College.
Troy McQuillen, vice president of operations, emphasized the root of the college’s Climate Action Plan being primarily student-driven. “Every year for the past five years, it’s consistently been students wanting our institution to be more sustainable,” he said.
Talks about the Climate Action Plan started around the 2022-23 academic year and finished in 2024, with the bold goal of the college becoming carbon neutral by 2040.
While working toward this long-term goal, Kirkwood has begun implementing sustainable initiatives. “One of our biggest issues is recycling contamination. Right now, everything’s just thrown into those large yards. We want to update our signage. We want to update our bins and containers. We’re also hoping to do composting when it comes to the food waste we have here, as well as some of our animal waste,” said McQuillen.
Additionally, Kirkwood is working on updating LED lights, infrastructure and preserving energy in empty buildings. “We’re evaluating buildings that we know have bad windows, bad insulation, and those types of things students may not always see.”
Kirkwood currently puts $150,000 per year toward new lighting replacements in its facilities, and has replaced over 50% of its lighting so far.
With the wind turbine coming down in June, McQuillen also expressed Kirkwood’s interest in investing in solar. “We’re really looking at pulling together a program to add solar so we can be net neutral. We use over seven kilowatts a day of energy, so that’s going to be quite a bit of solar to be able to add to our campus,” he said.
One of the college’s biggest impacts on the environment currently is its reliance on energy. “We’ve done a good job on that in regard to the geothermal systems we have, so we’re less reliant on gas. So how can we become less dependent on energy, is the question. We’re going to take a look at some of the longer return on investments in regard to solar, but also just general energy inefficiencies. We are going to end up using a software that does an external scan of all of our buildings, where we’d be able to see where we’re losing heating and cooling.”
Kirkwood also plans to reduce energy usage in some of its older buildings in the near future. “We’re also going to be working on some of our oldest buildings like heritage, and some of the original buildings. We know that they’re big energy users, so we’re looking to consolidate some spaces in those buildings and likely demoing those as well,” said McQuillen.
By 2030, Kirkwood aims to implement a 40% reduction in direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions.
The college also plans to convert the campus into a Community Resilience Hub for the local community. “In the case that we have these very disappointing natural disasters that are happening in our areas, we are hoping we are resilient enough to not only continue our operations but support the community through backup generation, storm protected facilities, food service and parking. We’re looking to work with the Linn County Emergency Management here on that,” said McQuillen.
But with Kirkwood’s current success with its climate action goals, McQuillen stressed the importance of continuous student interaction and voice. “We’re a little worried because next year there’s 19 students that graduate from the Sustainability Club, and true to a two-year college, it’s hard to get retention for people to stay. We hope the people that come back will continue to be in the Sustainability Club, and we hope to get new faces as well. That recruitment piece will be crucial because if that doesn’t happen, we will continue to push the momentum from the operations and administration side, but we still need students to bring up the ideas, the conversations, and the education has to come from that, too.”
Even if students are not involved in the Sustainability Club, they can take action to further Kirkwood’s climate initiative plan by focusing on their own habits when it comes to recycling and transportation. “I know some students use the bus and 380 transportation, but we also have a lot of walkers now. We are adding bike racks around campus and supporting the local bike program to get students bikes,” said McQuillen. “I think it’s also the little things, paying attention to what they’re throwing in the trash, about what they’re throwing into the recycling.”
McQuillen also hopes to invest in student-driven climate initiative programs in the future. “We’re hoping in the future that we can offer students and groups dollars to be able to move their initiatives forward. If there’s a campaign you have, or a new recycling bin, we want to try that and have there be money for students to be able to do those things.”
Kirkwood is now preparing to sign its next contract with Verdis Group to move forward in its climate emission plan, and plans to continue working with students and committees to meet its net zero goal by 2040.
You can learn more at Kirkwood.edu/sustainability.
Categories: Campus News, News
