Sustainability

Announcing

New England Independent School Sustainability Conference

Co-Sponsored by Loomis Chaffee, Suffield Academy & the Green School Alliance

Meet other educators and students to learn what really works in independent schools. Attend workshops on topics relevant to your school. Meet vendors providing innovative, energy-saving solutions. Enjoy a great meal while chatting with colleagues and students. Get inspired!

Where: Loomis Chaffee, Windsor, CT
When: 9 AM-3 PM, April 15, 2013
Who: Faculty, Staff & Students
Cost: $30 per person (lunch included)
Only $25 before March 15!
For registration and event information, see www.greenschoolalliance.org

Registration is capped at 100 participants, so reserve your place soon. School may send up to 10 attendees.

Faculty and students may volunteer to lead workshops through April 1 by writing Ron Schildge at rschildge@suffieldacademy.org 

The Loomis Chaffee School has a long history of energy conservation and environmental responsibility.

2013-Loomis Chaffee is at the top of the pack in the Green Cup Challenge, trailing only John Dorr Nature Laboratory at Horace Mann School.

2012-The Sustainable Agriculture Plot behind Clark is installed with a hoop house, 10 raised beds, and 8 chickens.

2011- The campus composting program now reclaims, on average, 20,000 pounds of food per year. More than 100 pounds of tomatoes, some serendipitously out of the compost, were harvested by students and used in the dining hall this year.

2010-Composting program reclaims more than 16,000 pounds of food scrap waste since September 2009. Environmental Science students conduct recycling survey for Windsor residents and produce public service announcements designed to raise awareness of recycling in the town. Loomis Chaffee Places second among 48 boarding schools in Green Cup Challenge. 

2009-Chief Engineer Jim Yocius receives accreditation as a Sustainable Building Advisor; Head of Physical Plant Ed Kirk becomes an LEED (Leadership in Environmental and Energy Design) Accredited Professional.

2009-2008-The month-long Inter-dorm Energy Challenge sees several dorms reducing their energy consumption by more than 25 percent. The School announces a move to trayless dining begining in Fall 2008.

2007-  We’ve been putting the final touches on Project Green’s  dorm energy conservation project.  This initiative will allow our boarders to initiate electricity-reduction efforts and view the results on-line.  We expect a competition between the ten dorms to see which can reduce the most energy.  The school has committed prizes of $500, $250 and $100 to the top three dorms.  The web page will also show overall campus electric use.  This fall we will be ready to join an existing competition with Exeter, Northfield Mount Hermon, and Lawrenceville. This year’s Project Green initiatives are to see as many LEEDs (US Green Building Council) features incorporated into the renovation of the Clark Science Center.  They are investigating the feasibility of diverting Dining Hall food scrap waste to a composting system.  Physical plant works closely with our Food Services Director to make our food program more localized and sustainable. A "trayless" week to conserve water and reduce waste celebrated Earth Week this year.

2006- Loomis Chaffee’s Project Green (Student run Environmental Club) hosted a two day environmental forum for area high school students.  Organized by then club president Hannah Belsky, this raised the bar for future Project Green initiatives.  What a success!  Austrailian style shower timers were installed in dorm bathrooms to educate and raise awareness on showering duration, effecting energy and water use.

2006-  In our last update to our school construction standards, we incorporated the environmental and energy saving requirements that we want contractors follow.  It is hoped that this will reduce the disparity between what the school already does to be a good environmental steward and what the construction contractors need to do to supply products and materials and to perform work on campus.  This latest update specifically incorporated clearer material and performance guidelines for recycling, lighting, windows, roofing, heating, ventilation and air conditioning, fixtures, flooring products, motors and appliances.

2005- Began a phase-out of road salt and sand on campus in favor of materials that might be nearly as effective and not so clearly harmful to our wetlands.  The Winter of ‘05/06, brought the smell of soy sauce to our winter weather.  This liquid pre-treat made from soy beans and mixed with Potassium Chlorate keeps the snow from freezing to the pavement.  Some sand may still be needed at our intersections and brick entrances to buildings.

2005- Housekeeping began changing out our cleaning chemicals with less harmful equivalents.  For years we had focused on environmentally friendly paper products and even went paper towel free as an experiment in the Athletic Center.  The initial hot-air hand dryers were not a resounding success, so we added in paper towel dispensers.  This winter we changed out the air hand driers with ones that are definitely more effective.

2004-  Installed our first waterless urinals in the public restrooms of the Richmond Art Center, Batchelder and Taylor Halls. Although fresh water is abundant in New England, we began using testing and devices that conserve water use and reduce impact to waste treatment plants.  We are currently using water-saving faucets throughout campus and are reviewing shower heads that remain effective while conserving water use.

2004-  Installed a cogeneration unit to supply our campus electrical needs.  This 830KW, natural gas-fired reciprocating engine can produce 100 percent of our electrical needs in the event of a power outage.  We produce steam from its exhaust and heat domestic hot water and the pool. We heat Brush Library, the alumni office, the  powerhouse and Ammidon and Flagg Halls with captured heat from the unit’s cooling water.  This unit’s emissions meet the stringent limits set for the Hartford area.    This unit, now in its third year of service has produced  10 million KWH of electricity.  The heat we capture and use has helped to reduce the school’s use of oil by the equivalent of about 125,000 gallons per year. This installation has allowed us more energy purchase options, which is expected to allow Loomis to be less dependent on any one fuel. It also allows us to enroll in some load shedding incentive programs.  We hope to add absorption cooling in the future, which would allow the school to take advantage of the unit’s excess heat and reduce overall electric use during the summer cooling season.

2003-  Discontinued the farming of vegetables on our 50-plus acres of fields in the river flood plain.  We now grow hay, eliminating the multitude of tillings, frequent fertilization and the herbicide, pesticide and fungicide use.  A switch to haying is consistent with our environmental initiatives in our ecologically sensitive river and wetland watershed areas.

2002-  Began insisting on certification that purchased wood products we intended to use on campus were not harvested from rain forests.

1998-  Our Grounds crew began a process to add trees to campus.  For every tree removed, our goal was to plant two new trees somewhere on campus.  As part of this process we sought to diversify the number of species of trees found on campus.  In nine years, we have planted nearly 100 new trees, representing more than 40 new species.  There is recent and growing interest in producing a walking guide and map of the significant trees on campus.  We currently have 11 trees on Connecticut’s most significant (top ten of every known species of tree) tree specimen list.

1998- Implemented a campus-wide Integrated Pest Management program to minimize harmful pesticide use in our buildings and on our grounds.  We discontinued the use of fumigation and spraying for pests and took a more proactive approach to eliminating the conditions that attract pests.  Through employee and student awareness programs, we try to eliminate the food supply first.  We bait, trap and use larvicides instead of other, more harmful approaches.  With turf and landscaping, healthy grass, trees and shrubs will naturally ward off infestations and be less susceptible to large scale damage.  We implemented our chemical use reduction program with the help of two key contractors and well before it became an industry-wide requirement.

1997- Revamped our campus wide recycling program.  Loomis Chaffee generates about 550 tons of trash per year.  We have been diverting 100 percent of our yard waste from the landfill, but are only separating out about 26 percent of our remaining 550 tons to be recycled. In the last 12 months, we have diverted 39 tons of plastic, glass and metals from the landfill.  We collect and divert from the landfill just about every type of paper and cardboard product, amounting to about 99 tons over the last 12 months.  In the last eight years, we have recycled 935 tons of waste!  In the last several years, students have helped us to improve our end-of-year recycling of books, furniture, clothing, electronics, fixtures and appliances.  We require our construction contractors to follow our campus recycling guidelines.

1985-  Throughout campus, and for a period of nearly ten years, incandescent lighting and other forms of lighting, were replaced with more energy-efficient fluorescent fixtures.  Lighting is the single largest consumer of electricity on campus and continues to offer opportunities to replace older styles of fixtures with newer ones that deliver more light for less energy.  Our next projects involve replacing metal halide fixtures in athletic spaces with the latest occupancy-triggered fluorescent fixtures and bulbs.  As we strive to improve lighting in classrooms and dorm rooms, we are able to deliver more useable lighting with less glare.  This fall, we initiated programs to replace incandescent bulbs in dorm room task lighting and faculty housing. 

1985-  Improved heating controls were installed throughout campus.  We started with individual control valves in each space.  By 1995, the temperature in every room in our buildings could be monitored by a new energy management system and adjusted as appropriate.  It allowed the school to identify and correct wasteful areas and gave us the ability to reap energy savings through night set-back controls and shutting ventilation units down when the spaces were not scheduled for use.  This system continues to be enhanced for better space comfort control and to maximize energy savings.

1975-  Installed solar hot water heater panels for the pool and dormitory domestic hot water.  Although these were early commercial applications, the panels are still in use and have saved us the equivalent of 92,000 gallons of oil during its 30 years of use.