Sustainability at Georgetown University
Sustainability at Georgetown University

Lands and Grounds

As an urban campus, Georgetown University makes efficient use of its approximately 104 acres of land. The campus is bounded by the Georgetown neighborhood to the east, the Burleith and Hillandale neighborhoods to the north, Glover-Archbold Park and the Foxhall neighborhood to the west, and Canal Road and the Potomac River on the south. The southern two-thirds of the campus contain the majority of the University’s academic, administrative, residential, and athletic facilities, and the northern third of the campus is occupied by the Georgetown University Hospital, medical school, and related facilities. The off-campus Georgetown Law School building, the privately-managed hospital, and University Athletics contract their own grounds services.

Sustainable Ground Practices

Given the campus’s small size, and the presence of nearly 5 million square feet of academic, research, residential and administrative space, there are only about seven acres of landscaped area or “turf” managed by facilities. The University takes the following measures to manage these areas sustainably:

Integrated Pest Management (IPM)

Georgetown Facilities Management Department adopted a forward-looking IPM policy in 2003, and Georgetown’s Landscape Department worked to craft the Federal guidelines for university campus IPM programs.

The IPM program seeks to establish an effective, environmentally friendly and holistic approach to pest management by incorporating preventative maintenance, custodial practices, landscaping, solid waste disposal, contracted service, and customer education. The IPM policy covers all campus grounds that are managed by University Facilities, excluding only the areas managed by the Athletics department, townhouses, and the Hospital managed by private company MedStar.

Preventive practices include:

Water Conservation in Irrigation and Landscaping

Georgetown uses a centralized irrigation monitoring system throughout the majority of landscaped areas on the Main Campus. This system uses real-time weather and climate data to ensure that water used for irrigation replaces the volume of water lost through evapotranspiration and avoids using water excessively or unnecessarily. Irrigation occurs in the morning and evening to minimize water loss through evaporation.

Native and drought-resistant plants, which require less water, are being introduced on campus in the landscaping around new buildings, including the LEED-Silver Hariri Building and the LEED-Gold Regents Hall Science Building. Under the LEED approach, native plants are given first consideration during the landscape design process, and selected when appropriate.

Other Sustainable Grounds Practices