Sustainable Operations

Building and Development

As a full-service, 24-hour operation, we have more in common with a small municipality than a single business. We have our citizenry—nearly 44,000 students and nearly 8,000 employees—as well as our own housing, businesses, transportation fleet, and police force. The campus spans 420 acres and features 112 buildings, providing centers for learning and administration; research, laboratory, and medical facilities; on-campus housing; places for dining, exercising, shopping, and socializing; sports and cultural venues; and more.

Building and Development

Emissions Inventory

The 2019 inventory was conducted using SIMAP (Sustainability Indicator Management and Analysis Platform), offered by the Sustainability Institute at the University of New Hampshire. SIMAP guides universities in estimating emissions in 3 major areas: direct campus emissions (e.g. due to stationary fuel), indirect campus emissions (due to purchased electricity), and indirect transportation emissions (due primarily to commuting).

Emissions Inventory

Sustainable Dining

According to U.S. EPA, approximately 35 million tons of food waste was generated in 2010, with 97 percent ending up in landfills or incinerators. Food waste is an emerging issue with environmental, social, and economic impacts, and UT Arlington recognizes the importance of minimizing food waste on our campus.

Sustainable Dining

Energy Conservation

Energy consumption at UT Arlington accounts for nearly 75% of the University’s total GHG emissions. This energy is intimately tied to buildings; heating, cooling, and lighting more than 7.3 million square feet of building space and powering electronic equipment, computers, and devices requires a great deal of energy. With a growing campus community and a variety of energy-intensive buildings such as laboratories, data centers, and research facilities, energy efficiency and conservation is a critical component of responsible growth and cost control.

Energy Conservation

Sustainable Landscaping

Performative theory has been applied to many facets of social theory including economic theory, sexual orientation, and regionalism in architecture. Simply stated, it is the notion that a thing becomes what it purports to be through actions and behaviors. The term is applied here to landscapes in complex cultural environments with environmental features that are used to mitigate or even to enhance the environmental footprint of the landscape.

Sustainable Landscaping

Waste Management

A large campus (420 acres) with growing population of over 60,000 students with diverse activities requires enough bins in the right places to capture as much recyclable material as possible. We maintain 22 recycling locations across the campus.

Waste Reduction

Community Garden and Composting

The University offers ways for community members to get involved on campus. The organic Community Garden at UT Arlington, built in collaboration with the City of Arlington has become a public green space for families, community members, and garden enthusiasts.

Community Garden and Composting

Water Conservation

The University’s 2007 Campus Master Plan places high value on open, natural campus spaces that celebrate regional ecology and provide outdoor walkways and gathering places for the campus community. We incorporate water-wise habitat designs for new campus development The Engineering Research Building and The Green at College Park exemplify the master plan’s objectives for natural spaces and serve as role models for future campus construction activities.

Water Conservation

Transportation

While we cannot directly control commuter choices, we do have the means to lower many barriers that prevent commuters from choosing alternative transportation. Our Campus Master Plan calls for campus transformations that improve parking and traffic challenges while “greening” the campus. As part of planning, the University conducted a transportation assessment that considered traffic circulation and access, parking, regional transportation, and pedestrian facilities.

Transportation