By Nicole Blanchard
This month, the University of Maryland Office of Sustainability partnered with the SustainableUMD network of students, staff and faculty to collect and visualize UMD’s environmental footprint in a new online format called the SustainableUMD Progress Hub.
The website is characterized by its interactive data visualization that helps bring to life the story of UMD’s sustainability progress.
The data includes figures such as the carbon footprint of UMD’s dining service, composting levels, recycling and wastewater diversion activity.
“I tried to provide kind of a one-stop-shop where I can go and find all kinds of data,” said Sally DeLeon, the senior project manager in the Office of Sustainability and one of the creators behind the new SustainableUMD Progress Hub.
The data is organized with an easy-to-use framework that highlights the plans, programs and accomplishments of UMD’s key sustainability goals. It features interactive buttons titled “Explore the Data” that connect the viewer to the various data dashboards of each goal.
Prior to the creation of the portal, a biannual paper magazine was published in conjunction with a weekly newsletter, according to DeLeon.
“Before this, it was hard to get down to the level of detail for each year,” said DeLeon.
DeLeon said that University of Maryland stakeholders, who are constantly implementing strategies to reduce the campus activity’s carbon footprint, are going to particularly benefit from this new portal. The environmental consequence of UMD transportation systems is one specific area that interests stakeholders and is recorded through the new portal.
Another main feature of the new SustainableUMD Progress Hub includes the level of detail it provides on Maryland Dining Services and their sustainability efforts.
“It lets students who are trying to eat a more climate friendly diet to hopefully be able to see the collective impact of their efforts,” said DeLeon.
Allison Tjaden, the assistant director of the New Initiatives program in Maryland Dining Services said that Maryland Dining has consistently excelled at working towards being greener and environmentally friendly. She is thrilled the new portal is showcasing their hard work.
“One of the things I don’t think that people know about is just how ahead of the pack the university was and continues to be with relation to composting,” said Tjaden.
She said that on such a big campus, students sometimes don’t know exactly what happens to their waste. The SustainableUMD Progress Hub now makes it possible to highlight UMD Dining’s successes like their composting and waste programs, according to Tjaden.
The University of Maryland Dining Services have long paved the way in terms of their environmental efforts.
“We were the first organization to take food waste to the county’s composting facility,” said Tjaden. “We were also the first farm to use that final product that composted food waste.”
Tjaden also said that the new Progress Hub will become an excellent tool to document the efforts of UMD’s Signatories of the Cool Food Pledge, which launched in the fall of 2019. With this pledge, Maryland committed to cut the greenhouse gas emissions from the food purchased by the university by 25% in 2030.
“Our next frontier is really thinking about how we help to mitigate climate change through food,” said Tjaden.
Tjaden said that while we often think about driving cars and turning off the lights when it comes to being green, being mindful about the food on your plate is a green choice students can make three times every day
Sarah Alameh, a student at UMD and the sustainability chair for her campus sorority, said she was excited about the introduction of the new SustainableUMD Progress Hub.
“I think that’s so necessary,” said Alameh “You need to be tracking that stuff.”
Alameh said that from the perspective of a student and sustainability leader, the new SustainableUMD Progress Hub is a great way to provide an incentive for groups on campus to work to keep the numbers changing for the better.
Making this information readily available to the campus is an important part of the SustainableUMD Progress Hub, but DeLeon noted that it was also created as a way to recognize everyone on campus for their hard work.
“It is a way of being grateful to all those in the SustainableUMD network for the great work that everyone’s doing to contribute to campus progress,” said DeLeon.
Featured image: Informational posters on recycling hang outside of a waste room. Photo by Sarah Natchipolsky