Areas of Focus
Energy Usage
Queens is making energy systems upgrades across 25 campus buildings, including LED lighting, new chillers, water-efficiency measures, and an updated Building Automation System to better control energy consumption.
Dining / Food
Excess food is donated to “Food Connection Charlotte” that distributes food to different organizations throughout
Charlotte.
Queens collects food waste and food by-products and utilizes a service to convert the waste into compost offsite.
Where possible, biodegradable paper and corn-starch cups are used instead of plastic.
Used cooking oil is stored and hauled away to be converted to bio-diesel.
Paper Use & Recycling
38 collection boxes across campus enable our faculty/staff to recycle paper.
Queens uses a 34 cubic yard recycling dumpster for collecting cardboard. It is filled monthly and as a result approximately 24 tons of cardboard are recycled per year.
Rainwater Harvesting
Queens underground cisterns collect up to 2 million gallons of rainwater which is used for irrigation.
Managing our Waste
Queens endeavors to reduce waste going to the landfill where ever possible.
Encourage less single use plastics and to recycle (upcycle/downcycle) or donate furniture and fixtures.
When renovating buildings we work with contractors to divert demolition materials to reprocessing or recycling centers as much as possible.
Solar Panels
200 photovoltaic solar panels provide about 20% of the Rogers Hall power consumption.
Transportation
Changing deliveries of office supplies from a daily schedule to 2 times a week to reduce emissions impact.
Building Materials
Queens uses non-VOC (Volatile Organic Compounds) paint across campus.
As older carpets wear out, we are replacing them with recyclable content carpet.
Queens replaced old, poor fitting doors on our oldest buildings with new energy efficient doors that seal properly to help maintain the building’s controlled temperatures.