New Posters and Green Marketing

New posters for TSCP arrived today. I gave a sneak preview of the posters in an earlier post, but here's a better one. Air-conditioning is responsible for a large percentage of the energy usage at the University of Tokyo so there is a strong focus on purchasing energy-efficient air-conditioning system as well as notifying the community about air-conditioning habits. On the Hongo campus, around 31.8% of the power consumption is A/C (2007) and 35.5% for Komaba 2 campus. Here is a promotional item from the University of Tokyo that tells if the air-conditioning is too high or low. It is like a mood ring.Here is a picture of University of Kyoto's sustainability marketing tool- an eco-friendly calendar that gives you 1 green tip a day. The calendar doesn't have the year on it so it just gives the day, making it reusable every year.

Tools of the Trade

Today, I would like to post about interesting Japanese gadgets.
1. Small device that measures Watt hours: If that's not cool enough for you, it also plugs into any computer and can give you the data it has just collected.2. Small equipment that measures temperature and humidity (small square in the middle): If that's not cool enough for you, it comes with a communication base that it connects to wirelessly. Then, the communication base can be plugged into a computer through USB.

Meeting the President of the University of Tokyo

Two important meetings occurred today. In the morning, there was a working group meeting about management and student affairs; also, representatives from Panasonic presented their research on more efficient lighting control systems. In the late afternoon, there was a meeting with the President of the University of Tokyo, Junichi Hamada, about the current progress of TSCP.At the University of California, Berkeley, the Office of Sustainability (OS) is under the immediate Office of the Vice Chancellor.
At the University of Tokyo, Todai Sustainable Campus Project (TSCP) is under the Office of the Executive Vice President, who is currently Masahiko Isobe.

My picture with the Vice President of the University of Tokyo (UT)

My picture with the President of the University of Tokyo (UT)

This is equivalent to me taking a picture with the Chancellor of UC Berkeley.

TSCP Management Working Group Meeting

Today, there was a TSCP Management Working Group meeting; attendees were TSCP core members and its 8 associates, which consists of professors from various departments, Manager of General Affairs, Manager of Financial Affairs, and General Manager of Facilities. A variety of topics and updates for April and May were covered.
1. Current and Future Measures: a large renovation project application is rejected, consolidation of high-efficiency refrigerators and household lamps
2. CO2 emissions for April & May: Hongo campus had +48 ton-CO2 due to heating operations, Komaba 1 campus had a -40 ton-CO2 due to improvement of lighting and air-conditioning, Komaba 2 campus had a -51 ton-CO2 due to stopping the clean room, Shirokane campus had -172 ton-CO2 due to improvement in operations, Kashiwa campus had 89 ton-CO2 due to the activities by the Atmosphere and Ocean Research Institute
3. Carbon Offsets: The Ministry of the Environment is asking for materials about J-VER (Japan Verified Emission Reduction Scheme). There is lots of mention about forest thinning. Here is a very short article about J-VER, Japan's domestic offset trading.
4. Writing Articles and Reports: Submitted reports to Heat Pump & Thermal Storage Technology Center of Japan (about heat pumps), Architectural Institute of Japan, The Society of Heating, Air-conditioning, and Sanitary Engineers of Japan (about air-conditioning)
5. Miscellaneous: 1) New posters proposal 2) discussion about cost-effectiveness regarding long term and short term projects 3) a need for greater student involvement in TSCP efforts

The one on the left has some green tips like turning off your computer when not in use while the right is a tribute to the World Cup and designed for summer months

Fun Tidbit of the Day! Regarding University of Tokyo's waste stream, a main culprit is the hospital building's syringes. Y-axis is tons of waste, X-axis is year. Each bar is divided into waste from 1. Hongo campus (yellow) 2. Hongo Medical building (red) 3. Komaba 1 campus (orange) 4. Komaba 2 campus (purple) 5. Shirokane campus (white) 6. Kashiwa campus (green)

University of Tokyo CO2 Emissions 2009

As much as I would like to write an executive summary on the University of Tokyo's CO2 emissions inventory for 2009, I'm afraid my knowledge is not up to par. Thus, I will give you the minimum that I do know.
Using 2000 as the standard for comparison, the University of Tokyo had a CO2 reduction of 2,462 ton-CO2/year for 2009. Remember that the University of Tokyo is made up of 5 main campuses. Let's do the breakdown-

Hongo Campus: -2,360 ton-CO2 (reduction due to the introduction of the new heat recovery turbo chiller)Komaba 1 campus: -313 ton-CO2 (reduction due to greater energy awareness educations, energy saving stickers)Komaba 2 campus: 178 ton-CO2 (increase due to new computers servers and networks)Kashiwa campus: 401 ton-CO2 (increase due to new buildings built)Shirokane campus: -367 ton-CO2 (reduction due to the manual stopping of 2 of the 6 boilers)
I thought today's piece of information was incredibly interesting. I end with a sustainability tidbit about Cambridge. When calculating CO2 emissions in 2007, Cambridge was the only university to fill out the section titled "Farm Animals." What did it say? 900 heads.