Matthew Biette, Director of Dining
Middlebury College

Jan 1, 2009 12:00 AM, By John Lawn

Middlebury College has had a long time interest in best practice environmental and sustainability strategies.

Upgrade central systems. “Although we don't meter kitchen facilities directly, we cogenerate steam and electricity on campus and are adding a biomass boiler that will run on willow chips. Those will be sourced from a local mill, but we will also produce some of our own. That one change will cut our campus carbon footprint by 40 percent.“

Invest carefully in renovations. “We are in the process of renovating a 1959 dining hall. Our compressors are rack-mounted so the heat goes outside … we will use our steam plant as a main energy source, but on gas fired equipment we specified energy efficient burners, orifices and other changes to make them more efficient. We eliminated almost all incandescent lighting and put in thinner fluorescent tubes, better reflector plates and carefully specified the lamp color temperatures to display food more attractively.”