Report Outlines the Best Strategies for Meeting the Climate Commitment

Denver — It’s fair to say that a lot of people were exhausted by the end of the annual meeting of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education, which concluded here Tuesday. But for a number of attendees whose colleges have signed the American College & University Presidents’ Climate Commitment, work was not yet over.

Presidents, senior administrators, faculty members, and even students from those colleges convened last night and today at the 2010 Climate Leadership Summit to network, strategize, and learn. Last night, the crowd was treated to a talk by James Woolsey, the former head of the CIA, who said that from environmental, national-security, and social-stability perspectives, renewable energy sources are vital to the future of America.

David Shi, president emeritus of Furman University, addressed the group today to talk about a new report on best practices for complying with the climate commitment. The report, which was supported by the Environmental Protection Agency, examined what has worked well and what hasn’t at 50 signatory colleges of different sizes and types.

Mr. Shi’s presentation hit some of the main points raised in the study:

After a college signs, it should engage the campus community early on and have an effective communications strategy in place. “You need to be shameless about talking about the progress,” Mr. Shi said. “A single story on the campus intranet is not going to do it.” Leadership and support at the highest levels is key to success in formulating a climate-action plan and following through on it. Job descriptions on campus should include responsibilities for working on the commitment.

When writing the plan, colleges might be tempted to brag up strengths at the expense of discussing limitations and stark challenges, but that is counterproductive. Although establishing a target date for climate neutrality is required as part of the planning process, many colleges had not established interim goals in their plans — which he said was a mistake. The plans should also identify where money for implementation is coming from. (Mr. Shi noted that Furman had gained up to $15-million in new sources of revenue after it adopted sustainability as a core strategy.)

Finally, keep in mind that any climate action plan is a dynamic, living document — a college may have to revise it as situations change, and administrators shouldn’t be apologetic about that. “It is more art than science,” Mr. Shi said.