Squeaky Wheel

Please let us know what you think MIT should do to improve our Energy Footprint

Overall

• For a great example of a successful intervention to get people to use revolving doors, go to the Coop in Kendall. They went beyond giving information/environmental cues to putting a firm sign and a physical barrier between the user and the doors, effectively forcing users to use the revolving doors!
• Revolving doors (esp. on east campus) are often locked. A signage strategy that targets janitorial staff would avoid sending mixed signals. Otherwise, a "please use revolving door" sign next to a locked door is likely to discourage users, and lead some to begin ignoring the signs habitually.
• One that seems obvious to me is to broaden the range of acceptable temperatures in MIT buildings. If we let the temperature at MIT building rise to, say, 78 in the summer instead of keeping it at 72, we would presumably save a lot of energy on cooling.
• Double pane windows!
• Chemical Fume hoods in undergraduate laboratories could be turned down or off when classes are not in session.
• Automated light switches across campus -- so the lights are off at night and when no-one is in the room
• Design revolving doors to be the easiest and most direct of the available entrances
• Monitors in Athena clusters could be off when the computer is not in use -- the next user can simply turn the monitor on and begin.
• In several buildings the stairwells are tucked away, and they lead to strange side exits. Although the exits to the street say they are alarmed from 6pm to 7am or something like that, I've set off several of them during business hours. Talk about a deterrent to using the stairs!
• There are broken and stuck open fume hoods all over campus. Some money in renovations would save money, energy, and probably health and safety too.

Building Specific

• There is a window stuck open in Bdg 7, fourth floor, near the elevator.
• Build a foyer around the building 7 automatic doors so that the lobby doesn't loose so much heat in the winter
• The revolving doors in building 25 are too hard to open
• The Mass. Ave entrance to building 1 is difficult to open so most people push the automatic opening button designed for handicap people. There should be a quick and easy to open door.
• A lot of people don't know where the stairs are to the 4th and 5th floors of the student center, so they always use the elevators. Could we put up signs by the elevators?
• I work in Bldg 13 and both the entrance and the floor I work on (4th) are too aggressively cooled in the summer (some people in my office have to put on sweaters in Aug to be comfortable inside).