CU has a plan
One of two open forums was held at the UMC yesterday to address a developing plan for CU Boulder to attain carbon neutrality and integrate sustainability into curriculum, research and campus life.
The forums are part of a bigger plan for Chancellor Peterson’s Committee for Energy, Environment and Sustainability (CCEES) to reach carbon neutrality and be 20 percent below current carbon emission levels by 2020.
Sustainability Director Amy Harris, a senior environmental studies major, said the purpose of the forum is to make sure students are involved in the carbon neutrality plan.
“We want to make sure students are heard loud and clear since the outcome of the plan will mostly affect students,” Harris said.
CU Boulder is part of The American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment, an organization devoted to reducing carbon emissions at schools across the country. Currently, 48 states have signed the commitment, including the entire state school systems in Colorado, California and New Jersey.
Environmental Center Director Dave Newport said CU’s carbon neutrality approach is a plan to have a plan.
“We want to tell you what we’re doing to reduce carbon emissions and ask you what we should do differently,” he said. “We want your input.”
Six steps are addressed in CU’s approach to carbon neutrality:
1) A target date for carbon neutrality
2) Interim targets that will lead to carbon neutrality
3) Actions to make climate action and sustainability part of an educational experience
4) Actions to expand research and integrate the community
5) Mechanism for tracking progress
6) Certain short term ‘tangible actions’
According to Newport, CU has already completed four ‘tangible actions;’ the LEED silver policy, the energy efficiency appliance purchasing policy, public transportation encouragement and RecylceMania participation.
“We are ahead with our ‘tangible actions,'” Harris said. “In our time frame, we should have two developed and instituted into our plan within two years and we have already completed four of them.”
By dividing CCEES into smaller factions called Carbon Neutrality Working Groups (CNWG), realistic actions have been installed in the bigger plan of carbon neutrality.
Energy supply, energy and facilities conservation, behavioral conservation, transportation, materials management and policy initiatives are objectives the CNWGs will be working towards.
Newport said community involvement and increased research should be relatively achievable for the carbon neutrality plan in Boulder.
“CU Boulder gets more environmental research than any other university in the United States,” Newport said. “We are the number one campus for research, excluding oceanography, for obvious reasons.”
According to Newport, CU has been using more natural gas to heat and cool facilities because there are more facilities added to campus every year.
“More air conditioning will be used around campus as the weather warms up because there are more buildings than there used to be,” he said. “Nonetheless, a degree less is a percent less of energy.”
Freshmen Heather Henfrey, an environmental studies and pre-communication major, said she will try and keep the air conditioning as low as possible this summer.
“It’s awesome that CU is taking action to do something about global warming,” she said. “Students funds are being used in a responsible way.”
Henfrey attended the forum to show support for a friend in a CNWG and to see what sort of progress is being made with CU’s carbon neutrality plan.
Challenges in the carbon neutrality plan involve integrating budget with current and pending plans as well as reaching the Gov. Ritter’s carbon reduction goals for a longer time frame.
“If we don’t embrace carbon action, we’re going to take a hit,” Newport said. “It is CU’s mission to educate, research and provide service to real issues like climate change.”
Contact Campus Press Staff Writer Heather Koski at heather.koski@colorado.edu.
