The 2010 Imperative, a discussion on global warming and sustainability in the environmental design profession, will broadcast live from New York on Tuesday and will be hosted in Chumash Auditorium.
The 2010 Imperative is part of the 2030 Challenge, an initiative to reduce building energy use in the United States by 50 percent and achieve carbon neutrality by the year 2030.
The College of Architecture and Environmental Design is hosting the webcast in hopes that all departments will get involved. The goal of the teach-in is to promote new educational programs and campus practices that can be implemented to further the sustainability cause.
Sandy Stannard, the leader of the movement and architecture professor, has been working on bringing the 2010 Imperative and the larger 2030 Challenge issue to Cal Poly since last fall.
“Basically the time is now, we have to respond to the global emergency,” Stannard said. “Essentially, this initiative is a culmination of a lot of work that people have been doing for a long time, and now we can get momentum in a more focused way.”
The teach-in was brought to Cal Poly as an idea to put some specific targets on things the design community can do and will give the entire department a goal to work toward.
“If we work as a collective toward some aggressive target it’s a more measurable and stronger way to go about it,” Stannard said.
Stannard also mentioned the involvement of the Empower Poly Coalition in which certain students have been helping her plan the event. The coalition is compiled of numerous Cal Poly clubs like the BioDiesel Club, Poly Greens, the Fair Trade Club and many more that are raising issues related to ecological sensitivity.
Construction management professor Audrey Schultz wanted to get involved in the sustainability movement because it is the key in design in the construction community.
“It’s really where the industry is taking us,” Schultz said. “We need to be more aware of the environment and aware of the products we use so we can be more health conscious.”
That’s when Schultz decided to become part of the Dean’s Committee on Sustainability headed by the Thomas Jones, dean of the College of Architecture and Environmental Design. Through the committee, a meeting was held in which Stannard brought the idea of having the nation-wide teach-in on campus.
“It’s just a fabulous initiative to do this global teach-in,” Schultz said.
Yet, while the webcast is being widely publicized, the College of Architecture and Environmental Design has already been working on sustainability programs that they hope to continue.
“We have a lead class which is a leadership in environmental design course,” Schultz said. “It’s an elective to get lead certified to become a lead professional so you can certify the buildings as you build them, this way you are following what they call ‘green design’.”
Cal Poly students who take the elective course and get certified can help the construction industry practice environmental tactics.
Also in the architecture department, a team of Cal Poly students participated in the 2005 Solar Decathlon held in Washington, D.C. The small, eco-friendly house that Cal Poly brought to the national competition won third place.
Stannard said Cal Poly also won an eco-literacy award for teaching about ecological sensitivity.
The teach-in will see hundreds of thousands of students, teachers, deans and professionals in architecture and environmental design logging on simultaneously to discover the effects construction has on global warming problems and what can be done to make a change.
The 2010 Imperative, a challenge and strategy for transforming design education, will be issued to all schools during the teach-in, and participants will be asked to adopt, support and implement its targets, according to the press release.
“We teach sustainability in our classes,” Schultz said. “But there’s much more to come.”