Colleges & Universities Make Progress in Reducing Fossil Fuels

American universities and colleges are leading the march to a carbon neutral nation by investing in sustainable facilities practices. In 2006 a small group of colleges formed the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment and collectively pledged to become carbon neutral. Within two years this meek initiative of 12 swelled into a bustling number of 616 colleges and universities in all 50 states, committed to making their campuses carbon neutral. Gregory M. Lamb of the Christian Science Monitor reports that this number represents one-third of the total student body in the United States.

In 1965, Middlebury College in Vermont was the first institution in the United States to have an undergraduate environmental science department. The college recently opened its new biomass gasification plant which is powered by wood chips. The plant supplies heat and electricity to the campus of 2,400 students. The plant is expected to provide 12,000 tons of fuel annually that will replace about half of 2 million gallons of the school’s annual fuel consumption for heating and is expected to reduce carbon emissions by an estimated 12,500 metric tons each year.

The number of universities and colleges that are teaching what they preach is increasing steadily. Although investments in sustainable practices have higher costs, they are being viewed as endowments whose value increases with time due to their break-even points and spill over benefits.

The carbon neutral pledge formed by the American College and University Presidents' Climate Commitment have goals such as reducing the carbon emissions from their heating and cooling, ventilation, electrical, transportation, water and waste management systems. Then, buying carbon offsets for the rest of the task. This action plan vividly echoes the Carbonfund.org motto: “Reduce what you can, offset what you can’t.”