Stanford University
AC-8: Campus as a Living Laboratory

Stanford Energy System Innovations (SESI), which will reduce campus greenhouse gas emissions by approximately 68% between 2011 and 2017, is an example of campus operations serving as a living laboratory for impact on air and climate. Stanford staff, faculty, and students have worked together since 2007 to design, model, and construct the new energy system. In March 2017, 4.5 MW of on-campus rooftop solar came online, supplementing the 67 MW off-site Stanford Solar Generating Station (SSGS). The Stanford student newspaper, the Stanford Daily, sent student representatives to the official launch of the SSGS in December 2016. Additionally, the student Group Stanford Solar and Wind Energy Project (SWEP) directly supported the on-campus installations. Furthermore, there has been a surge in student class projects related to solar energy, and since the new on-campus solar came online, students are able to use actual campus solar data to inform these projects, many of which evaluate the impact of installing solar on additional campus buildings.

Since the new Central Energy Facility came online in April 2015, staff in the Department of Sustainability & Energy Management have provided tours for many classes, student groups and faculty groups, among others, to encourage hands-on learning through this innovative energy system. In fact, many of the spaces within the new Central Energy Facility were built with the concept of campus as a living laboratory in mind, such as amphitheater-style outdoor seating, large windows for easy viewing of the machinery, color-coded piping symbolizing the hot water and cold water supply and return loops, informational signage offering a self-guided tour, and new conference rooms available for use by any campus group.

For more information, visit: http://sustainable.stanford.edu/sesi

The Roble Living Laboratory for Sustainability at Stanford (ROLLSS) initiative also presented living lab opportunities in the area of Air & Climate by helping students in the fall quarter class develop emissions footprints for Roble as a whole, taking multiple emissions sources into account. Additionally, students in the spring quarter class evaluated the feasibility and potential benefits of installing rooftop solar on Roble Hall. The ROLLSS initiative is described in detail in the Notes section of this credit.

The ROLLSS initiative epitomizes a living laboratory for buildings on campus by turning a student residence into a living laboratory in and of itself. In addition to this new initiative, several other living laboratory opportunities related to buildings are described below.

Many classes use Stanford buildings to demonstrate efficient building practices. For instance, CEE 161C - Natural Ventilation of Buildings uses Y2E2 as a case study for successful natural ventilation and features tours of the building as well as using building data in class projects.

Each year, the Sustainable Stanford Internship Program hires interns to work on sustainability initiatives in Student Housing buildings through Residential & Dining Enterprises (R&DE) and academic buildings through the Cardinal Green Office Program, the Cardinal Green Labs Program, and a variety of targeted plug load programs run through the Office of Sustainability. For instance, R&DE interns conducted a lighting study during the 2015-16 academic year to learn how many hours per day lights are turned on in dorm rooms. The results of this study were able to be integrated into the retrofit plan for an existing freshmen dorm by helping to prove the high return on investment of installing LED light fixtures. Future dorms will now also contain LED lighting as a result of this intern study.

As another example, in summer 2014, the Office of Sustainability hired 10 interns to conduct a plug load equipment inventory, in which interns surveyed equipment in 220 buildings on campus. The initial equipment inventory was such a success that three additional interns worked on an expanded inventory throughout 2015.

Finally, in 2013, a group of Stanford students designed and built a sustainable, environmentally-friendly “Start.Home” that is now home to the Jasper Ridge resident ranger. This solar-powered, efficiency-first house was the culmination of a project completed by a coalition of undergraduate and graduate students as part of the national Solar Decathlon competition. An article from the Stanford Report with more information on the Start.Home is available at the following link: http://news.stanford.edu/features/2014/starthome/

The ROLLS initiative also presented opportunities in the area of Energy through Michael Lepech's class. For instance, students in the winter quarter class evaluated energy-savings opportunities in Roble and found that minimizing excessive lighting fixtures would be one of the most cost-effective options.

There are several other classes offered through a wide variety of departments that teach students about different types of sustainable energy and strategies for implementing and advocating renewable energy on the local, state, and national levels. Many of these courses offer opportunities for hands-on exploration and research in the field of renewable energy, such as projects and on-campus field trips. One of the many examples of courses like this is CEE 107F: Understanding Energy (http://explorecourses.stanford.edu/search?view=catalog&filter-coursestatus-Active=on&page=0&catalog=&q=CEE107). Many of these courses also use actual campus energy data to complement the field trips and inform class projects.

Each year, the Sustainable Stanford Internship Program hires interns to work on energy initiatives in Student Housing through Residential & Dining Enterprises (R&DE) and academic buildings through the Cardinal Green Office Program, the Cardinal Green Labs Program, and a variety of targeted plug load programs run through the Office of Sustainability. The lighting study and plug load internships discussed above are also applicable here. As another example, Stanford's Cardinal Green Office Program enlists intern support to conduct energy audits of volunteer buildings across campus each year. In the 2015-16 academic year, the Cardinal Green Office Program Intern audited 10 buildings and provided energy conservation and efficiency recommendations.

The Office of Sustainability also leads a training entitled “Sustainable Office Spaces” that is open to students, staff and faculty that trains attendees on energy efficiency measures that they can take in their offices, workspaces, or dorms. This training is offered twice each fall and additionally upon request as part of the university’s Cardinal Green Buildings campaign. For more information on this training, visit: http://sustainable.stanford.edu/trainings.

The ROLLSS initiative included significant new living lab programming in the area of Food & Dining. First, students involved in ROLLSS founded the Roble Growing Club, which is responsible for maintaining the Roble Hall Organic Teaching Garden, which was built in summer 2017 and is operated in partnership with Residential & Dining Enterprises. The Roble Growing Club also hosted dinners for Roble residents made from the garden's yield, with dishes such as spring salad and roasted turnips. The events allowed the club to discuss sustainable food topics, such as eating seasonably, with an even broader group of Roble students.The group also hosted a vegan-sushi night where residents learned to make fish-free sushi and talked about what it’s like to eat a plant-based diet.

Additionally, Matt Rothe, co-founder of Stanford’s FEED Collaborative, and Dara Silverstein, manager of R&DE’s sustainable food program, jointly taught a course in Roble Hall in conjunction with ROLLSS during fall quarter. The class was called Grow It. Cook It. Eat It. and focused on teaching students about sustainable food, design thinking to solve problems, growing food, and cooking food. The final project focused on creating vegan dining hall dishes that would appeal to students through using the design thinking process.

In fact, R&DE Stanford Dining has ten organic teaching gardens, and multiple dorms and co-ops have student-run gardens as well. Stanford Dining also has a greenhouse in one dining hall and hydroponic towers in another dining hall. Student garden managers plant and harvest produce that is used in the dining halls. They are managed by a full-time Farm to Table Coordinator as part of the Sustainable Food Program. The R&DE Stanford Dining organic teaching gardens offer multiple work days a week in addition to workshops to teach students how to grow their own produce. Student volunteers also help manage the BeWell Community Gardens and many graduate and undergraduate students have personal or communal plots in the community garden, including the Graduate School of Education’s Stanford Teacher Education Program, which teaches teachers how to incorporate gardening into their curriculum using the community garden plots. Visit https://rde.stanford.edu/dining/organic-gardens

In addition, the Seed Library run by R&DE Stanford Dining gives students and the Stanford community free seeds each month that they can plant at home or in the gardens by their dorms.

In 2014, the School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences established the 6 acre O'Donohue Family Stanford Educational Farm. The farm is itself a living laboratory offering academic and experiential learning opportunities for the Stanford community and beyond. The farm utilizes agroecological relationships and natural diversity to grow over 200 varieties of vegetables, flowers, herbs, field crops and fruit. Students come to the farm to test new ideas about the biological, social and environmental aspects of farming and gain experience in the practice of sustainable agriculture. On-farm research provides students hands-on learning opportunities. Over the course of a year, the farm harvests over 15,000 pounds of organically-grown produce, and R&DE has bought over 20,000 pounds of produce since the farm opened. Those crops feed into a new farm-to-campus program, with fresh vegetables featured at R&DE Stanford Dining in the dining halls, in campus cafes, and at the Teaching Kitchen @ Stanford, a groundbreaking cooking education program available to the Stanford University community. The 9-week hands-on cooking classes have sustainability information woven into the curriculum, with a focus on vegan and vegetarian dishes. The students visit the organic teaching garden and use produce in their cooking lessons from the garden. In 2016-17, Residential & Dining Enterprises partnered with the Jamie Oliver Food Foundation and the Stanford School of Medicine to test an extra 30 minute sustainability and nutrition themed lecture after the cooking classes.

R&DE Stanford Dining’s new Tasting Table launched in 2016-17 to engage students in learning, trying and tasting ingredients. Several times each week there are menu items or ingredients for students to sample on the tasting table, most of which are vegetarian, if not vegan. R&DE chefs, nutritionist and the sustainable food program manager have designated days where they are working this table. The R&DE Sustainable Food Program also hosts intimate meals with farmers and producers as part of the Know Your Food program, many of which focus on vegan products or producers. Lastly, the Florence Moore Dining Hall’s weekly chef’s table is sold out every week and features a fully vegan menu.

Finally, R&DE works with students in numerous classes and departments for class projects, research projects, theses, and capstone projects that focus on operations, purchasing, or education in the dining halls. Students are very interested in learning more about how the food they eat is grown, cooked, and ultimately disposed of. The Sustainable Food Program works on about 25 class projects each year in classes ranging from The Global Warming Paradox to Design for Extreme Affordability. The R&DE Sustainable Food Program also works with the Earth Systems department to advise about 5 seniors each year on their capstone projects that focus on food and sustainability.

The Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve offers a multitude of educational programs designed to teach Stanford students, professors, and other community members about sustainable land use and grounds practices. These opportunities include formal classes offered through Stanford University as well as other universities in the area, environmental education programs for teachers, K-12 education programs for area schools, and open community programs such as tours, lectures and continuing education classes. A full list of educational opportunities offered through Jasper Ridge can be found here: https://jrbp.stanford.edu/education/classes.

Jasper Ridge also offers a docent training program for Stanford students to become year-long volunteers at the preserve, leading field-based education programs for younger students and community members and participating in projects and research alongside Jasper Ridge staff. This is an internship-like program offered through the Biology and Earth Systems departments to provide Stanford students with the opportunity to learn firsthand what goes into sustainable grounds care by working directly with faculty in those career fields.

Finally, Jasper Ridge has a Ranger Program that draws from the Stanford undergraduate and graduate community, specifically those involved in docent training, Earth Systems, biology, environmental organizations, and/or cycling clubs. A select group of students is chosen from an applicant pool to become Rangers who patrol the perimeter and trails of the preserve two to three times a week by mountain bike. This program provides another avenue for Stanford students to gain firsthand experience with ecological sustainability and grounds care in a preservation setting.

Stanford's Land Use and Environmental Planning (LUEP) group also sponsors several living laboratory opportunities through the Stanford Conservation Program. For instance, LUEP staff teach a Restoration Short Course and act as guest lecturers for the jasper Ridge Docent Course and the California Naturalist Program. They also support both undergraduate and graduate research and ecological field coursework by providing equipment, information and training to students and teaching staff in field methods and ecology.

Stanford also constructed teaching gardens in the Science and Engineering Quad. These gardens mirror the landscaping of Stanford’s original main quad, but were designed specifically as teaching gardens for the interdisciplinary staff residing in each of the four quad buildings to utilize during their classes. Each of the four gardens has a different theme: plants used for dyes, medicinal plants, local and drought tolerant plants, and plants traditionally used by the Ohlone tribe in the Bay Area. Additionally, Stanford’s Building and Grounds Maintenance department constructed a separate Waterwise Demonstration Garden on campus that serves as an example for students and local residents of how to employ alternatives to thirsty residential landscapes. It also has a water meter on display to illustrate its low water consumption and showcases drip irrigation and California native plants.

Finally, in 2015-16, interns with Residential & Dining Enterprises conducted a turf study that evaluated the size, slope, shape, usage, sprinkler head count, and amount of shade present in each of the turf areas surrounding Student Housing. The team of interns evaluated over 800,000 square feet of turf throughout graduate and undergraduate student housing space and found that 4% of that turf could be removed or replaced with drought-resistant plants. The team is also studying the quantity and flow rates of sprinkler heads in each area to estimate water savings from turf removal and determine if any areas are currently being over-watered.

The ROLLSS initiative included programming in the area of purchasing during Michael Lepech's fall quarter course on lifecycle assessments. Students considered purchasing data when developing emissions footprints for Roble Hall. This data included both food purchases and office supply purchases for Roble Hall during the previous year.

Stanford hires a Stanford Dining Intern to research and analyze existing food purchases and make recommendations for new sustainable food purchases. Specific responsibilities include:
• Research on sustainability topics, farms, and vendors
• Analysis of current and future purchasing
• Writing and editing newsletters
• Organizing educational events

Finally, Stanford also hires a Procurement Intern to evaluate sustainable spend in certain categories chosen as part of the broader spend analysis effort being conducted by the Procurement Department. To date, this intern has evaluated spend on sustainable office products using an existing framework and has created an entirely new framework to evaluate spend on sustainable med/lab equipment.

The ROLLSS initiative included programming in the area of transportation during Michael Lepech's fall quarter course on lifecycle assessments. Students considered transportation data when developing emissions footprints for Roble Hall. This data included both emissions from commuters who work in Roble Hall (very few) and an allocation of emissions from the campus Marguerite bus fleet.

Below are examples of how Stanford’s Parking & Transportation Services (P&TS) has directly utilized the campus as a living lab philosophy:
• P&TS worked with the School of Education’s Social Ecology Lab to examine the relationship between learning and travel behavior: which conditions and mechanisms impact that link and the role(s) that institutions do or do not play in commute choices and behavior. Research methods included a survey of employees, interviews and commute documentation with up to 10 employees, observation of transportation-related events (e.g., Bike to Work Day, employee orientation events, Commute Club events), focus groups, and document analysis. Existing survey and other data from P&TS will be used as background and baseline data.
• Working with the Precourt Energy Efficiency Center, P&TS collaborated on a study to evaluate what Transportation Demand Management measures are relevant and applicable to employees’ mode choices. Research included a series of focus groups to understand employee transportation and parking behavior and the underlying factors that determine employees’ attitudes toward existing and hypothetical transportation and parking policies.
• P&TS worked with Stanford graduate students and postdoctoral scholars from the Graduate School of Education, Statistics Department, and Precourt Energy Efficiency Center to improve the research methodology used in developing its annual commute survey.
• P&TS consulted with a group of Summer Undergraduate Research Institute (SURI) students on an opensource transportation modeling system that highlights the benefits of purchasing electric buses compared with conventional diesel, compressed natural gas, or hybrid buses. Once completed, this model could help other universities or municipalities determine institutional benefits realized through the electrification of their fleet, such as total savings compared to initial cost.

Finally, founded in 1989, the Stanford Solar Car Project is an organization of undergraduate students working toward building a car powered entirely by the sun. The group partners with both faculty and operational groups across campus to build a solar car that competes in an international competition in Australia. The Stanford Solar Car Project made great strides during the 2015 Bridgestone World Solar Challenge, placing sixth (and reducing its distance from the leading team) in the biannual competition against engineers from around the world. A Stanford Report article on the Stanford Solar Car Project can be found here: http://news.stanford.edu/2015/10/20/solar-car-race-102015/

The ROLLSS initiative included programming in the area of waste primarily by allowing students involved in the initiative to explore the best ways to make their dorms's biweekly barbecues zero waste. They ultimately did so by avoiding single-serve condiment packages, using compostable plates and washable metal utensils, and ceasing to provide cups (instead, students bring their own reusable water bottles). As part of this initiative, Residential & Dining Enterprises also installed multi-stream recycling bins in every student room in Roble Hall.

Each year during New Student Orientation, the Office of Sustainability works with PSSI, Stanford's waste hauler, and R&DE to host a Zero Waste Lunch. At this event, all incoming freshmen are provided with lunch in 100% compostable containers, and staff and volunteers are present to talk to new students about campus waste initiatives and answer students' questions. The goal of the Zero Waste Lunch is to provide students with a satisfying meal while simultaneously making them aware of recycling and composting practices on Stanford's campus.

PSSI also works with interns annually to improve waste and recycling at Stanford. Student interns work in the areas of cafe composting and developing a cafe rating system, outreach and social media, zero waste efforts at Stanford's on-campus elementary and pre-schools, and planning and execution of Recyclemania, a national recycling competition among schools in higher education. All interns gain experience in the field of waste reduction, recycling and composting, in addition to a deeper understanding of the challenges of achieving a sustainable zero waste society. Visit http://sustainable.stanford.edu/internships.

PSSI is also spearheading a local collaboration to turn food waste into animal feed. During the R&D process for this new technology, Stanford contributed several shipments of food waste for testing.

The ROLLSS initiative included programming in the area of water through student coursework that directly led to building retrofits. Students determined that installation of extra low-flow showerheads and students running full loads of laundry were two of the most cost-effective water savings opportunities in Roble Hall and worked with Residential and Dining Enterprises to install two 0.5 gpm showerheads in the dorm. Data on the usage of these showers and direct user feedback are both now being collected and reviewed by Residential & Dining Enterprises as part of a larger pilot initiative.

On March 25, 2014, Stanford broke ground on a new wastewater facility entitled the William and Cloy Codiga Resource Recovery Center (http://web.stanford.edu/group/cr2c/). Construction was finished in May 2016. The facility is a collaborative effort among university water resource specialists in the Department of Sustainability and Energy Management (SEM) and faculty researchers from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, the Woods Institute for the Environment and the Stanford-led Engineering Research Center for Re-inventing the Nation’s Urban Water Infrastructure (ReNUWIt). Faculty and student researchers will use the facility to test promising technologies for both recovery of clean water and energy from wastewater. Visit:
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2014/march/water-recovery-facility-032414.html
https://news.stanford.edu/2016/04/04/codiga-recovery-center-040416/

In 2017, Stanford's President and Provost launched a long-range planning process that solicits proposals and ideas broadly related to the categories of education, research, our community, and beyond Stanford from the entire campus community, including Stanford students, faculty, staff, and alumni.

Additionally, the Stanford Coalition for Planning an Equitable 2035 (SCOPE 2035) is a student group that supports Stanford's General Use Permit process through Santa Clara County. The group works with Stanford leadership to support planning for responsible use of resources, labor and transportation equity, accessible and affordable housing, and greenhouse gas emissions mitigation both at Stanford and throughout the region.

Finally, in 2015 and 2016, the Office of Sustainability worked with the Stanford Environmental Behavior Group, a group of graduate students focused on sustainable behavior change, to develop the Cardinal Green action network, which is an engagement platform developed by the Office of Sustainability to facilitate sustainability action among faculty, staff and students alike. The graduate students have consulted heavily on aspects of the action network such as the incentive structure and messaging, and the students also participated in evaluation of the pilot results in summer 2016.

The "Intergroup Communication" class is co-taught by Professor Hazel Markus and the Training Director in the Diversity and First Generation Office, Dereca Blackmon. The goal of the course is to challenge explicit and implicit assumptions about different groups and to enhance students' abilities to successfully communicate across the complex web of identity. Throughout the course, students explore four aspects of identity (sexual orientation, race, gender and socioeconomic status) and engage in dialogue at the intragroup, intergroup and interpersonal levels.With a prominent staff member as one of the professors, this course gives students the opportunity to better understand diversity on Stanford's campus and use case studies from actual occurrences at Stanford to study the use of inclusiveness in intergroup communications, ultimately serving to directly improve inclusiveness on Stanford's campus. Over 90 students enrolled in the course in 2015 and 127 in 2016.

Stanford’s Advisory Panel on Investment Responsibility and Licensing (APIRL) contains two undergraduate student members and two graduate student members. These students contribute to all of the committee’s activities and are selected by the Associated Students of Stanford University (ASSU). APIRL also hosts annual Town Hall meetings where students, staff, and faculty come together to engage in dialogue about investment responsibility issues important to the Stanford community. In 2017, the APIRL Town Hall was held on April 18th. More information is available at the following links:

http://events.stanford.edu/events/678/67839/
http://apirl.stanford.edu

Stanford offers many courses that transform the campus into a living laboratory for public engagement. For instance, the course "Sustainable Cities," offered through the Earth Systems and Urban Studies departments, is a service-learning course that exposes students to sustainability concepts and urban planning as a tool for determining sustainable outcomes in the Bay Area. The course focuses on the relationship of land use and transportation planning to housing and employment patterns, mobility, public health, and social equity. Topics include government initiatives to counteract urban sprawl and promote smart growth and livability, political realities of organizing and building coalitions around sustainability goals, and increasing opportunities for low-income communities and communities of color to achieve sustainability outcomes. Students participate in team-based projects in collaboration with local community partners and take part in significant off-site fieldwork. In the past, the class has collaborated with Bay Area non-profit organizations and government agencies, including Redwood City, the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, Friends of Caltrain, the San Mateo County Health Department, and many others. More information about the course can be found here: http://sustainablecities.weebly.com/.

In addition, one of the four tenants of Stanford’s Cardinal Service program is Cardinal Courses. Through this initiative, the Haas Center for Public Service works with faculty on campus to provide hands-on service learning opportunities throughout the Bay Area. Through a group of staff positions focused on expanding community-engaged learning opportunities, the Haas Center is expanding the academic opportunities available to students to partner directly with non-profits, government agencies, and other local organizations while engaging in hands-on learning. Specifically, one Director of Community Engaged Learning focuses only on sustainability initiatives and works with local organizations to identify and incentivize living lab opportunities in public engagement. For further information see https://haas.stanford.edu/students/cardinal-courses.

The Haas Center also awards the Miriam Aaron Roland Volunteer Service Prize each year to faculty “who engage and involve students in integrating academic scholarship with significant and meaningful volunteer service to society.” It was created by alumna Miriam Aaron Roland, ’51, and includes a $5,000 cash award. In 2017, the award was given to William Koski, the Eric and Nancy Wright Professor of Clinical Education and Professor of Law (Teaching) at Stanford Law School, as well as a Professor of Education, by courtesy, in the Stanford Graduate School of Education. An accomplished clinical teacher and litigator, he founded and directs the law school’s Youth and Education Law Project (YELP), through which students get hands-on experience working on behalf of hundreds of disadvantaged children and their families in educational equity, disability rights, and school reform matters.

The Vaden Student Health Center operates the iThrive program. Derived from research studies of the science of happiness, iThrive offers courses, workshops, discussion groups and internships as student opportunities to examine the knowledge and skills of sustainable emotional well-being. Students can explore their natural capacity to thrive, to be happier and accomplished, and to handle challenging situations with more ease, reilience, and confidence through this program. Visit https://vaden.stanford.edu/caps-and-wellness/ithrive-emotional-well-being.

Stanford has also invested significant resources over the last several years in building out its Arts district, which includes buildings focused on the mindset of the user inside. While these are not directly sustainability-related campus as a living laboratory initiatives, they do help enrich the arts culture here on Stanford's campus and contribute to a well-rounded education for all Stanford students.

From museums, such as the new Anderson Collection and the new McMurtry Building, to contemplative centers like Windhover Pavilion, these buildings not only incorporated key sustainability features in their construction, but they also contribute to the overall health, wellness, and vibrance of the campus community by providing campus as a living lab opportunities for both staff and students to both learn about and experience new elements of religion and culture. For instance, Windhover is an elegant and natural contemplative center located in the heart of campus accessible to Stanford students, staff and faculty that houses a labyrinth based on the 12th-century stone labyrinth installed in the floor of the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Chartres, France. The outdoor labyrinth can be accessed by all Stanford visitors, at any hour of day. It offers a looping, spiraling walking path culminating at a rosette at its center. The rhythm and simplicity of following a clear path can quiet the mind, restore balance, encourage prayer, and facilitate meditation, insight, and celebration. The labyrinth has a long past in both cultural and religious belief and practice, and courses at the labyrinth, such as "Walking the Windhover Labyrinth" not only expose students to ancient traditions, but also give them the firsthand emotional and physical experience of walking the labyrinth, allowing the campus infrastructure to directly affect student learning about culture, religion, and identity.

Other opportunities for ongoing active participation in arts and culture include the Arts Theme Dorm (Kimball Hall), the freshman year ITALIC arts immersion program (https://undergrad.stanford.edu/programs/residential/italic), and the Art Focus Lecture Series sponsored by the Cantor Arts Center (https://museum.stanford.edu/participate/classes_study_groups.html).

The Roble Living Laboratory for Sustainability at Stanford (ROLLSS) was founded in 2016-17 as a way to integrate sustainability into everyday life for students living in Roble Hall. Specific initiatives associated with ROLLSS are discussed in the relevant sections. Generally, in addition to operational upgrades to the building itself and student engagement efforts for residents, the initiative also involved the creation of several courses that were open to all Stanford students that allowed them to use Roble as a case study for learning about sustainability. For example, the Hard Earth series is comprised of sustainability lectures from industry experts held once per week at Roble Hall followed by a discussion section for students taking the class for credit.

Additionally, a year-long series focused on assessing and trimming Roble’s environmental footprint was launched in conjunction with this initiative. This series is taught by Michael Lepech, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering.

Students in Lepech’s fall-quarter class produced a lifecycle assessment of Roble that quantified the energy, water, waste and transportation impacts of residents and that, based on that assessment, recommended ways to make Roble more sustainable. The winter-quarter class evaluated each of those recommendations for its costs and benefits, ultimately recommending which potential interventions would produce the biggest environmental bang for the buck.

The living lab initiatives available through the ROLLSS program are described in further detail in the following Stanford Report article: http://news.stanford.edu/2017/04/11/making-stanfords-roble-hall-sustainable-second-century/