º¬Ð߲ݴ«Ã½

In 2011, º¬Ð߲ݴ«Ã½ published its first Sustainability and Climate Action Plan, setting a goal to be carbon neutral by 2019 and detailing prescriptive measures to help us get there. After several updates to º¬Ð߲ݴ«Ã½'s 2011 Sustainability and Climate Action Plan, º¬Ð߲ݴ«Ã½ published the 2022 Sustainability Plan to further the goal of integrating sustainability and climate action throughout our institution. º¬Ð߲ݴ«Ã½'s 2022 Sustainability Plan is one of two key sub-plans supporting º¬Ð߲ݴ«Ã½'s overarching .

The first step in taking ownership of and countering the University’s contributions to climate change is to take stock of º¬Ð߲ݴ«Ã½â€™s carbon footprint. Every year since 2009, º¬Ð߲ݴ«Ã½ has completed an inventory of greenhouse gas emissions which includes emissions from energy and power consumption, ground transportation, fertilizer application, air travel, and landfill waste, among many other components.

º¬Ð߲ݴ«Ã½'s baseline 2009 campus carbon footprint was 17,393 metric tons of CO2 equivalent (MTeCO2). Since then, º¬Ð߲ݴ«Ã½ has reduced its footprint by over 50% and has remained under 8,000 tons annually since 2020.  the inventory of its annual emissions to SIMAP (Sustainability Indicators Management & Analysis Platform) along with hundreds of other colleges and universities.

Although the University has made remarkable progress in reducing its campus carbon emissions, that number is not yet zero. The University continues its efforts to reduce its carbon footprint with strategies like reducing transportation emissions, but in the immediate term in order to achieve carbon neutrality, the University invests in carbon offsets. Carbon offsets are investments in off-campus projects that remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere or prevent emissions from happening in the first place. The carbon offset project decisions are determined by student, staff, and faculty representatives after receiving feedback from groups and individuals on campus about the most important carbon offset factors to the º¬Ð߲ݴ«Ã½ community. The committee strives to balance the values most important to the community with the quality of the projects and the overall costs of investing in such initiatives. 

The Green Revolving Loan Fund is an initiative geared toward reducing the University’s carbon footprint by funding projects at the University that reduce emissions while also providing a financial return on the initial investment. Savings from each funded project are reinvested in the fund to support its future projects.