Johnson is an advocate for future Owls as Rice

Johnson is an advocate for future Owls as Rice’s first sustainability planner

BY JENNIFER EVANS
Rice News staff

When Richard Johnson walks the hallways and pathways of campus, he’s not thinking back to his days as an undergraduate at Rice. Rather, as the university’s first sustainability planner, Johnson is looking forward with a mind toward helping Rice develop environmentally sustainable practices to ensure the university can meet the needs of coming generations.

What is sustainability? He likened it to preparing for retirement. “When people retire, they strive to manage their retirement nest eggs in such a way that they live off the income generated by the nest egg without drawing down on the principal,” he said. “If they preserve — or sustain — their principal, then we would say that they have acted in an economically sustainable manner. If they erode their principal, they are acting unsustainably and risk financial ruin. Environmental sustainability is quite similar, only applied to natural resources.”

Since he began in December, Johnson has been assessing the state of Rice’s environmental practices and conditions, including what the Rice community consumes, discards, reuses and recycles. He said he’s “been pleased to find that there are a number of people here who think broadly and carefully about these issues, and others who are definitely interested and are eager for some assistance, which I’m glad to provide.” In fact, Johnson has already had people from across campus seeking his advice on sustainable solutions to issues that arise in their work.

As he continues to build these campus relationships, Johnson also will be meeting the faculty, staff and students who play a central role in sustainability-related issues on campus. In the coming semester, he will work with Paul Harcombe, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, and Harcombe’s sustainability-oriented class, “Rice Into the Future,” as well as with students in the Environmental Club and the Student Recycling Council. Johnson also will be interacting with several of the university’s centers and institutes, including the Shell Center for Sustainability, the Center for the Study of the Environment and Society and the Environmental and Energy Systems Institute. And as a member of the facilities, engineering and planning department, Johnson will be collaborating with the people who play a key role in the day-to-day operations and the future design of the university.

Harcombe said, “Lots of progress toward sustainability is being made by individuals working separately. My hope is that Richard can make people more aware of these efforts and help draw them together into a coherent, synergstic program that showcases Rice as the environmentally responsible campus that it is becoming.”

While Johnson is not yet prepared to give a “state of sustainability” assessment for Rice, his hunch is that the university has indeed made some real strides in this area — from maintaining a campus-wide recycling program to instituting a “green” lights program and using energy-efficient bulbs to creating its own mulch.

“I don’t have the data to draw an accurate comparison between Rice’s environmental performance when I was an undergraduate versus today, but my guess is that environmental awareness and innovation at Rice have matured considerably and permeated more deeply and meaningfully since my student days of the late 1980s and early 1990s,” Johnson said. “I don’t recall ever hearing the word ‘sustainability’ as a student at Rice 15 years ago, and now it’s a serious, growing and transformative body of knowledge.”

In 2004, the board of trustees acknowledged the critical importance of sustainability and approved a sustainability policy, which includes goals of fostering environmental consciousness, mitigating the university’s ecological footprint and evolving university practices to keep abreast of changing needs and new technologies.

Rice joins the growing number of schools across the nation making strides in the sustainability arena. Of the 31 members of the Consortium on Financing Higher Education (COFHE), which includes Rice, Harvard, Columbia, Duke and Yale, Rice is one of about nine schools with a sustainability planner. Several other COFHE schools are looking into creating such a position.

“Yesterday’s pipe dreams are becoming today’s realities,” Johnson said. “This is just the beginning. This is definitely an exciting time to be involved in sustainability on a university campus.”

Johnson has a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from Rice and a master’s in urban and environmental planning from the University of Virginia. Prior to joining Rice, Johnson was an urban planner/analyst with Knudson & Associates, a company that specializes in urban planning, economic development and landscape architecture.

For information about sustainability measures on campus, contact Johnson at 713-348-5003 or <rrj@rice.edu>.