?The USM committee tasked with enforcing the President’s Council on Climate Neutrality contract met for the first time last Friday, bringing the University one step closer to a greener future.
Still, Student Body President Maggie Guzman says complete carbon neutrality is a long way off. “Our date [for carbon neutrality] is probably going to be 2050,” said Guzman. ?? ?
The PCCN committee was recently granted a three month extension to develop a Climate Action Plan after failing to meet the original Sept. 15 deadline. The committee, consisting of Facilities Management Director Bob Bertram, Sustainability Coordinator Dudley Greeley, and Business professor Nancy Artz now has until Jan. 15 to submit its plan.
Also in attendance at Friday’s meeting were Guzman, and representatives from Competitive Energy Services, a Portland-based consulting service that specializes in helping businesses and universities reduce or eliminate their carbon footprints.
CES recently helped Bowdoin College to meet its PCCN goals, setting what Guzman calls a “really ambitious” date of 2020 for complete carbon neutrality. “CES will be doing a lot of the work for us,” said Guzman. A representative from CES could not be reached for comment.
Bowdoin plans on reducing it’s carbon output by 30 percent through increased energy efficiencies, and the other 70 percent by purchasing carbon offsets, a model that USM can’t replicate given it’s current and projected financial situation.
“We are in a completely different situation than Bowdoin,” said Guzman. “A university with money has the ability to be cut ting edge, but we are trying to do this realistically within serious financial constraints.”
?? ?Bertram agrees that while efforts towards a more sustainable USM are important, the financial reality of the school cannot be ignored. “There are some things we would love to do that would costs thousands, and have a substantial pay-back, but take 20 years to see a profit.”
Guzman agrees: “We have to do the short term things to get the money to do the long term things,” she said. Guzman suggested that profits from energy savings be directed into a “green savings account” to fund future projects.
While USM’s assessment of it’s carbon output – the standards against which future progress will be measured – includes carbon output from the University’s Portland-Gorham shuttle, Guzman notes that it doesn’t include the commuting of individual students to and from class, which she said makes up almost 55 percent of the school’s carbon output.
But Sustainability Coordinator Dudley Greeley feels that it’s up to the individual students to take responsibility for their carbon output.
“Students own those emissions,” said Greeley. “Unless every entering student reports on how many pounds of greenhouse gas emissions are associated with their [commuting], we can get nothing but an incredibly soft number as far as figuring out what our emissions are.”
Omitting personal commuting emissions puts USM in a tricky spot. Upping the cost of parking passes for Gorham residents would encourage students to utilize the shuttles and help to reduce the overall output, but this would require the school to provide more shuttles to meet the increased demand, which – unlike personal emissions – would count towards the school’s carbon output. “This would hurt our goal,” Guzman said.
?? ?Greeley doesn’t think that USM will be cutting down on parking passes or raising their price anytime soon. “The University made a very clear statement about that when they built the parking garage,” he said.
??? Forcing students to take the bus is a major impediment to student retention, according to Greeley, who said the system of busing is an “historical accident,” that should be “recognized as ridiculous.” He suggests a separating the functions of the two campuses, and relying on more online courses as a way of reducing student emissions.
The PCCN committee also discussed submitting a request to Provost Kate Forhan for a University-wide event aimed at educating the campus community on methods for reducing their individual carbon output.
?? ?Guzman said this event, tentatively scheduled for February, would see the campus shut down for a day so students, faculty, and staff would be free to attend a lecture by a sustainability expert.
“Carbon neutrality is really important for us to focus on, and each office and student needs to make a commitment to achieving it,” said Guzman, who hopes the event would drive USM students into action and motivate them to tackle their own carbon output.
“As a university within a progressive city, we need to serve our population – in this respect, carbon neutrality is really important for us to focus on,” she said.
es need to be made.”