Responsibility Blog

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Guest post from Adam Markham President of Clean Air-Cool Planet which works collaboratively with campuses, communities and corporations to pioneer and scale-up innovative solutions aimed at reducing carbon emissions and preparing for climate change. CA-CP also works to build support for environmentally effective and economically efficient national climate policies.

College campuses are ideal proving grounds for finding solutions to America’s energy and climate change problems. They are leading the way in achieving emissions reductions from their operations and supply chains, and they are driving the technical innovation needed for the shift to a low-carbon economy and are training America’s future leaders.

The maxim “you can’t manage what you don’t measure” has become commonplace in the world of sustainability, but for Clean Air-Cool Planet (CA-CP), these are words to live by. In more than a decade of helping institutions and communities push the boundaries of climate action and leadership, our experience shows that good carbon management comes from good baselines.

There are more than 4,000 colleges and universities in the United States with at least 15 million students at any one time.  More than 90% of colleges and universities that currently measure and publicly report their campus greenhouse gas emissions do so using our Campus Carbon Calculator.  A large and growing number also use the Calculator’s “Solutions Module” to analyze the life-cycle costs, cash flows, and impacts of projects aimed at reducing their institutional carbon footprints.

We’re excited that soon our Campus Carbon Calculator will be available as an online tool.  Verizon’s support of Clean Air-Cool Planet’s program to help thousands of college campuses across the country streamline and improve their carbon measurement and management comes at an important time.   More than 2,000 colleges track their emissions using our calculator; according to the Green Report Card published by the Sustainable Endowments Institute, the number of campuses reporting their greenhouse gas emissions has grown from 12-79% in recent years.

CA-CP’s calculator is the recommended benchmarking tool for the 677 signatories to the American College and University President’s Climate Commitment, and thousands of students have been engaged in sustainability and carbon management initiatives through “learning-by-doing” with the calculator as part of class projects and Master’s theses.

Many students are seeking opportunities in the sustainability arena to exercise their talents and increase their real-world experience.   A month from now Clean Air-Cool Planet will usher in a new class of Summer Climate Fellows – rising seniors, freshly minted graduates, and Master’s candidates.  Four Fellowships are dedicated to our campus sustainability program and to advancing the tools we provide to leading institutions.  I look forward to reporting in the fall on the work and impacts of these emerging leaders!