Easy Being Green

Jeremy King remembers the exact day–Monday, December 19th, 2005–that his wife called him from work and said five words that changed his life: “I can’t do this anymore.” It’s a moment he now recalls with a laugh. “I thought she was breaking up with me,” he says.

Instead, King’s wife (Susan Studer ‘96) was asking that the couple make good on a promise they wrote into their wedding vows, recited on the steps of Doane Library five years earlier. “We said we wanted to help make the world a better place,” he says. They applied to the Peace Corps the very next day. Eighteen months later–after selling their house, most of their furniture, and their Toyota Prius–they found themselves in Ecuador.

King, who is now Denison’s first campus sustainability coordinator, was no stranger to green living before his service in the Peace Corps. He was raised in a family that grew some of their own food and vacationed in national parks, and he and his wife biked to the grocery store, composted their food waste, and bought second hand whenever possible. In his ten years teaching science at Circleville High School in Ohio, he tried to impress basic environmental ideals on his students.

But in Ecuador, King saw places where sustainability was a matter of life and death, not lifestyle. During his two-year service, he worked on a watershed conservation program to protect drinking water for the town of Puyo, and he taught community members and local school children about deforestation, pollution, erosion, remediation, and conservation. When he visited schools to do presentations on water conservation for the students and help teachers incorporate environmental education into their curriculum, he became known as “mago,” or magician, for the magic tricks he performed using water. Smaller amounts of his time in Ecuador were spent building composting toilets to keep rivers clean and rainwater collection systems to combat dry conditions, teaching farmers to compost so crops could grow in nutrient-poor soil, and establishing fish ponds to provide food and sources of income. And through all of it, he lived without the usual creature comforts like television (he read 70 books instead).

King’s approach to his new job at Denison reflects some of what he learned during his service. “As a Peace Corps volunteer, you don’t just jump in and start changing things,” he says. “You see where the community is, what they need, and what they want. I don’t plan on being Denison’s ‘sustainability czar.’”

“When I was in college, you were a ‘tree hugger’ if you were environmentally aware, but being green is now commonplace. That makes the job a lot easier, because I don’t have to bring people to that side. They’re already there.”

After all, King doesn’t have to start from scratch. Denison already has a recycling plant that services the entire Granville community and a composting system that turns food waste into fertilizer. The library is equipped with solar panels, and Barney-Davis Hall underwent a green renovation in 1996. And of course, the campus Homestead program has promoted sustainable living since 1977–long before “sustainability” was even in the vernacular. In many small ways all over campus, the folks in the physical plant office are also trying to reduce the college’s carbon footprint: They use low-VOC paint and eco-friendly cleaners, replace incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescents, and salvage construction debris for recycling. “When I was in college, you were a ‘tree hugger’ if you were environmentally aware, but being green is now commonplace,” says King, who also holds a master’s degree in natural resources from The Ohio State University. “That makes the job a lot easier, because I don’t have to bring people to that side. They’re already there.”

But in hiring a staff member devoted to environmental sustainability–something many Denison-sized schools have yet to do–the college is taking its commitment to the next level. “Especially given the economy, this speaks volumes for what Dr. Knobel thinks about sustainability, and that should be encouraging to everyone,” King says.

When you ask him about his grand vision for Denison, King quickly brings you back to Earth: Finding common ground on campus–including a unified vision for what sustainability looks like at Denison–is his first order of business. That means talking extensively with faculty, staff, and students to find out what kinds of projects they most value.

Still, it’s clear he has a wish list. He says Denison’s food service could become a model for other schools, with local and organic choices, programs to cut plate waste, and biodegradable packaging. He’d love to see faculty incorporate more sustainability-focused discussions into curricula. And, of course, there’s the fact that nearly all of Denison’s power comes from coalburning facilities. “Finding a cleaner source should be our ultimate goal,” he says.

King hopes to influence what people do, not only on campus, but also out in the world. “We can do these incredible initiatives here, but what happens when staff members go home for the evening or students go home for the summer? We need to instill an ethic of sustainability that carries into our lives beyond Denison.”