SUNY New Paltz awarded SUNY Small Grant Sustainability funding

SUNY New Paltz is one of nine SUNY campuses to receive 2014 Small Grant Sustainability funding, which aims to promote sustainability across SUNY by incentivizing cross-campus collaborations that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and energy use and have a potential to be replicated elsewhere within the system.

“The Small Grant Sustainability Fund gives SUNY an opportunity to support innovative concepts and designs by faculty and students across the state, while reducing the system’s carbon footprint,” said SUNY Chancellor Nancy L. Zimpher. “This program’s built-in incentive for projects that have the potential to be replicated elsewhere within SUNY is a driving force as we answer our strategic-planning goal of contributing to an Energy-Smart New York. Congratulations to all of the projects selected this year.”

The funding will help support a local food cost premium study at the College. Led by SUNY New Paltz business professor Michael Sheridan, this project will establish a database tool and a process to determine the price differential and carbon emissions of local food served in SUNY New Paltz dining halls. The College will use the study’s findings to better understand the financial impact that increasing local food offerings on campus will have on the cost of meal plans.

“This important award is reflective of the commitment put forth by the Campus Sustainability Office in collaboration with Sodexo, Campus Auxiliary Services, and the School of Business to increase the amount and diversity of locally grown food available on campus,” said Assistant Vice President for Facilities Management John M. Shupe. “I applaud their efforts.”

Lisa Mitten, campus sustainability coordinator at SUNY New Paltz, said successful implementation of this project will create an updatable database with the capacity to generate reports and queries, and support the “SUNY Commits” program by creating a routine process to identify local products that are competitively priced.

“We are very excited to have the opportunity to learn the true cost of local food in terms of dollars and carbon emissions,” Mitten said. “We will also be able to identify those local products that are cost competitive, so we can be sure to feature those items in campus dining halls. Over time, it will be fascinating to study how prices change as local farmers and distributors scale up to meet institutional demand in the Hudson Valley.”

According to Tim Killeen, president of the Research Foundation and SUNY vice chancellor for research, with a required campus funding match of 2 to 1, the awards generate approximately $150,000 for innovative and collaborative campus sustainability initiatives and research across the SUNY system.