US Universities Aim for Carbon Neutral Campuses

As college students return to school, they will be discovering subtle changes designed to reduce their climate footprints, from new low-energy lighting and renewable power sources to the removal of cafeteria trays to cut back on wash time.

In recent years, universities across the United States have taken it upon themselves to reduce their environmental impact. Their students, fully aware that climate change will be one of the greatest challenges of their generation, and outside sources such as the College Sustainability Report Card and Princeton Review are carefully scrutinizing and encouraging their efforts.

So far, 650 schools – home to about a third of all college students nationwide – have signed the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment to become carbon neutral and produce zero net emissions, coming close to creating the nation's "first sector-wide commitment to climate neutrality,” says Toni Nelson, program director for ACUPCC. And many prominent schools that have not signed, including most of the Ivy League and Stanford University, already have strong sustainability programs in place.

“One of the driving forces behind the commitment is that if you can graduate climate-literate graduates in every area – people who are going to become leaders in business, government, non-profit organizations and legal systems, etc. – if you can get a shift happening in their education and climate-literacy, then you shift the whole culture around climate,” Nelson said.

Last week, administrators met at the ACUPCC’s annual Climate Leadership Summit, where former President Bill Clinton was the keynote speaker. The university leaders have pledged to make an inventory of their emissions, draft a plan for becoming carbon neutral, begin reducing greenhouse gas emissions even before finalizing their climate plan, make information on the plan and its progress available to the public, and integrate sustainability into the curriculum. It's an important contribution: 1 to 3 percent of U.S. emissions come from colleges and universities.

Evidence of the improvements can be found in the three-year-old College Sustainability Report Card, which grades the 300 schools with the largest endowments in the United States and Canada on several areas. The universities are judged on the administration’s policies, emissions, dining policies, green building practices, student involvement, transportation, shareholder engagement, and investment transparency and priorities. While only six schools received an A-, the top grade, last year, 15 schools earned it this year.

The sustainability practices of schools range from innovative projects in alternative energy to mundane practices like removing trays from cafeterias to save tens of thousands of gallons of water and the energy that would normally go into washing them.

For instance, Ball State University in Indiana has broken ground on a geothermal heating and cooling system that will eventually allow the university to shut down its coal plant. The University of Minnesota Morris aims to achieve energy self-sufficiency by 2010 with wind and biomass power. And the University of New Hampshire is receiving up to 85% of its energy from the methane emitted by a nearby landfill.