Today, investigative writer MJ Jewkes joins Emma to discuss his recent print article on the trials and triumphs of sustainability at the U.

Emma Ratkovic: Hello and welcome back to Uncovered. I'm your host, Emma Ratkovic. And on this episode of the podcast, investigative writer, MJ Jewkes is joining me to discuss his recent print story on the trials and triumphs of sustainability at the U. Hi, MJ. Thanks for joining me on the podcast.

MJ Jewkes: Hi, Emma, it's good to be here. Thank you.

Emma Ratkovic: MJ, do you want to introduce yourself and describe what you do for the Chrony?

Emma Ratkovic: Very cool. All right, let's jump right into your new story. So in your story, you mentioned that the U has held a gold rating from the Sustainability Tracking and Rating System. Can you explain what the Sustainability Tracking Rating System is and how they function at the U?

MJ Jewkes: Absolutely, I know it's a mouthful, so don't worry about that. It's the STARS rating. It's essentially a national group of universities that choose to have somebody keep them in check about their work with sustainability. Universities have a very unique role with sustainability and mitigating climate change. And so STARS is sort of been a program for them to track their progress. This is all very new, none of this existed even 20 years ago. And Kerry Case, the woman I interviewed for this story, she's our Chief Sustainability Officer, she's in her interview, she told me about how a lot of this is just kind of been a learning process, not just for her in the university. But for everybody. 20 years ago, we weren't tracking our carbon emissions and how much water we used as universities. But because we have the role of educating up and coming generations, I think it's very important that universities across the country who have a lot of influence and also contribute a lot to carbon emissions, they, they take part in this and so it's it's done nationally on paper, the U has done pretty well in the past.

Emma Ratkovic: Awesome. So what are the ratings offered through STARS?

MJ Jewkes: The rating, it's sort of divided into almost like elementary school, like rating systems of how many stars you get the U is what's called a gold status. However, that only lasts for a certain amount of time. So our gold rating is technically expired. And that, contrary to what you had in first grade is not the highest level you can get. There's actually a platinum star which a couple of universities have done, but as far as universities our size, and in our region, and with our amount of students, gold is kind of the gold standard.

Emma Ratkovic: Very cool. So you note that STARS ratings are self reported, what is the process of self reporting?

Emma Ratkovic: So what is the updated climate change plan? And how will the Climate Commitment Taskforce implement it going forward?

Emma Ratkovic: I think that's such a big issue that our campus is facing, because everybody I know drives to school. And I know for me, I live 30 minutes away. And there isn't any public transportation that's reliable for me to get here. So I think it'd be great to implement more reliable transportation for students.

MJ Jewkes: Yeah, absolutely. And we're going up in population, the amount of students that are coming to the University of Utah, it's gone up every single year for the last five years, maybe even more. And so there's just going to be more and more people housing is incrementally building on campus housing, which in theory prevents commuting. However, it's still a really big campus with a lot of urban sprawl going on. And so you can even live almost on campus, and you're gonna have to drive to class. And with increasing numbers, we're getting more and more enrollment, and it's beating, how much housing is available. So you gotta believe that most of these new freshmen coming on campus are not living on campus. They're commuting like you and I do. And in that case, is there a viable option for them to take the train if they live anywhere on the east side? Probably not. If they live in most places on the west side, for sure not. And so it's always going to be something that we need to figure out and while I don't hold them to the expectation that they're just going to fix on campus commuting, I think just like they're doing with water, I think you just kind of got to try new solutions, give them a shot. If they don't work, then you move on to the next one. And you take all the media heat that we're gonna give them, but you move on and you keep progressing.

Emma Ratkovic: Yeah, I totally agree. So you note that the U has reported that they have invested $284,000 in sustainability costs, which environmental initiatives are included in this cost?

Emma Ratkovic: So what steps has the you taken to reduce outdoor water use?

MJ Jewkes: So mostly, it's been these new technology and sprinkling systems called Smart Water Systems just essentially limits the waste that goes into water usage, which, if you live in, or have ever lived in a suburban neighborhood, in the United States, you'll notice that sometimes it's raining outside and your neighbors are sprinkling there, they're watering their lawn during the rain, these things are, they're very wasteful. And we don't take into account how wasteful they are until we take them away. And we realize that we can get by if we're just not worried about looking like we live in England, and we have all this luscious grass and soil. You know, we live in the desert, let's not hide that, you know, this is let's be a little more self aware. And so they've implemented that. And they've implemented what they call low water landscaping, which is fun. And it's essentially a lot more rocks and mulch and desert plants and succulents and stuff like that it's requiring a lot less watering. So these new smart systems aren't only saving on the places where we do have grass, and we kind of need grass because we're not going to tear up the football field or we're not going to tear up everything cause it be insanely expensive. And it's good to have green spaces, in places that we're we're making a lot more low waste areas, which is, which is good, and it's done a long way. Like I said, it's being beat the goal by a longshot, which I will say I think HB 121 goal for water reduction of 5% is kind of on the other end of the spectrum of President Randall's goal setting strategy, I think it was pretty easy to make, you know, I think 5% can probably realistically be decreased without removing any of your grass, I think we could all lower our water usage by 5% by just not sprinkling when it's raining, and maybe not doing it when it just gets evaporated immediately. So they did a great job went above and beyond. And I'm glad they did because if the U's not gonna do it, what state government buildings are gonna are gonna lead the charge of lowering water usage?

Emma Ratkovic: So how do departments at the U plan to implement sustainability into their curriculum?

MJ Jewkes: Oh, this is a tough one, you know, how? How do you implement sustainability into a pre-calc class? You know, or even. Yeah, it's, it's a tough one. And the Sustainability Office is well aware of it. However, general education requirements require us to learn a lot of stuff that are irrelevant to our de grees, quote unquote, you know, irrelevant. And so I think a lot of it comes down to bolstering requirements within Gen Ed, as well as strengthening requirements for sustainability minded curriculums, within relevant majors as well. Because when you bolster that, I think it kind of has a bit of a ripple effect, when we're even seeing that in more social humanities minded majors, where environmental justice is becoming a big part of that. So you've got ethnic studies classes, where they're, you know, they're diving into issues like Cancer Alley, and how environmental issues really are at the end of the day. They're also human issues, and they impact marginalized communities and they impact social movements and social problems just as much as physical material issues. And so I think it's just recognizing how deeply interwoven environmental issues are into the way that we exist in who we are and how society is you know, like, even if you look at the Salt Lake Valley, the west side of the valley where I'm from, a lot more people of color, a lot more people on lower on the socio economic ladder, way more marginalized groups and yet the west side of the valley is the side with the water treatment plants.That's that smell really bad. We're the ones with the Bingham Copper Mine and other mines, were the ones who are going to feel the brunt of the arsenic in the air from the Great Salt Lake drying up, the Jordan River is extremely polluted. And less parks. But you go on the east side of the valley where there's a little bit more money, it's a lot whiter over there, you're not going to find a recycling plant, you're not going to find factories, but you're going to find pollutants on the west side of the valley. And so these issues, different majors that people have, especially in the humanities, but elsewhere, also, they're sort of put under a microscope when you look at them through environmental issues, as well. So I think by just recognizing how nothing is aloof from the environment.

Emma Ratkovic: In your perspective, as well as Case's, how can faculty and staff at the U practice more sustainable living?

MJ Jewkes: If at all possible, avoid driving, you know, walk as much as you can, I would even say, walking is even better than riding on public transportation. So transportation is a big one that we don't think of, because it's such a necessity for everything we do. But limiting the amount of time that you're driving and Idling your car. I think educating yourself is a big one, because most of the issues that we can that I can sit here and tell you to do to improve sustainability efforts on campus, they have caveats where it's not completely there, for example, if you look at EV's, in theory, it's great because it's limiting gas and oil extraction. And that's all well and good in theory. But when you ditch that, and you buy an EV first of all, those batteries have to be massive. And so they have to use these interesting metals that also require extraction, like they're extracting a ton of cobalt out of the Congo, which is super bad for their environment. And for their air quality. It also has a negative effect, not to mention, you're still selling that car to somebody else who's going to be driving it a lot. And so you're just consuming which consumption is another thing that I'll add to my list is, you know, sometimes we buy things, I'm guilty, of this everybody I think is of buying things we don't need. And so limiting our consumption, and being a lot more minimalistic, I think is a big way to, to help sustainability. But like I said, all of these things, there's always a, that's great, but it's also doing this bad, you know, and so I can sit here and tell you to do that. But it's it's nowhere near the results of simply educating ourselves because then we know exactly what the more we know about what affects the environment negatively, the more we can sort of look at what we do, what's the most damaging thing we do. And so educating, just learning it, understanding the issues, and then that'll just you'll be able to know govern yourself and know how to do it. Thank you for for your time for having me.

Emma Ratkovic: Yeah. Well, thank you so much for joining me on this episode of Uncovered MJ. And I'm your host, Emma Ratkovic. And thank you for tuning in to this episode of Uncovered. Make sure to stay tuned for future episodes.