Green Gryphon Initiative To Spend $26M On Retrofits

Students have helped fund the project, which will improve water and energy efficiency

In a referendum back in 2007, University of Guelph students voted in favour of a $10 per semester student fee that would create a fund to help make campus more sustainable and energy efficient. Those contributions will now start to pay off as the recently launched Green Gryphon Initiative begins to implement various water and energy consumption retrofits on the fund’s behalf.

A launch party for the Initiative was held on March 20 in the MacDonald Stewart Art Centre.

In the 2007 referendum, students agreed to contribute to the fund for 12 years and will have collectively given close to $4.5 million dollars by 2019. The university has agreed to match those funds along the way.

“That’s a pretty hefty chunk of change,” said Brandon Raco, the university’s sustainability facilitator, crediting students for stepping up to the plate.

Nonetheless, significantly retrofitting the entire campus will require much more than that.

“A consulting company was hired to come through and do a full analysis of the campus, and out of that we found $26.2 million in retrofits that would help lower our water, electricity, and C02 emissions,” said Raco.

The rest of the budget is made up by partnerships with groups like Hydro One, who will assist in funding some of the larger projects.

The university has already implemented several of the proposed retrofits. For example, millions of dollars have already been spent upgrading the lighting in McLaughin Library, the University Centre, and MacNaughton Building.

The Green Gryphon Initiative also plans to install a sophisticated heat recovery loop, low-flow toilets, a grey water recycling system, solar heating, and an advanced water storage tank that will help regulate the temperature of the university.

The Initiative hopes to finish the upgrades by 2017.

A more visible retrofit will be the new bike shelter next to Bob’s Dogs. It will be equipped with solar panels that help power Raithby House.

Don O’Leary, Vice President of Finance and Administration, has said that the university currently spends about $20 million on electricity, gas and water annually – which adds up to about $1,200 per student. The university is hoping to save $3 million per year through the Green Gryphon Initiative.

Many other universities have student energy retrofit programs of similar kinds, but the U of G’s is notable for the magnitude of student contribution. Students at the University of Toronto recently had a referendum on the creation of an energy retrofit fund but, even with a far more modest fee of $2 per year, the proposal failed.

By contrast, the University of Guelph’s 2007 referendum passed with a 14 per cent margin.

The steering committee for the Initiative consists of representatives from Physical Resources, Planning, the Sustainability Office, the Student Energy Retrofit Fund, and MCW Custom Energy Solutions, the Toronto-based firm that did the initial evaluation for the project.