Dear Emerson College community,
As you may know, Emerson joined the Presidents’ Climate Commitment in 2007, thereby setting a goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2030. In 2016, we added climate resilience to our list of commitments.
How are we going to achieve this lofty goal by 2030? That’s up to all of us to decide!
Over the next year, the Emerson community will work together to create a detailed roadmap to get us to our 2030 goals. This Sustainability Action Plan will cover everything from our emissions to our curriculum to how we address climate justice.
We need your help! There are many ways to make your voice heard in this important planning process. You don’t need to have any experience with sustainability to get involved.
Apply to join a Sustainability Action Plan working group.
Each working group covers one of the following categories and will define 2030 subgoals and strategies to achieve them for the College.
Emissions and offsets: Chart a path to the 2030 carbon neutrality goal via Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions reductions.
Resilience: Assess the College’s risks from current and future climate impacts, and how these risks could affect future assets and operations. Identify risk mitigation strategies to implement.
Equity and justice: Understand how our current operations and current and future climate change impacts the local community. Define a plan to ensure equity and justice.
Waste: Assess current waste volume and diversion rates. Define strategies to decrease total waste volume and increase waste diversion rate.
Curriculum and research: Understand how the current curriculum already incorporates sustainability and set goals for increasing exposure to sustainability topics across the academic experience.
Finance: Assess how the College’s investments and purchases affect our sustainability performance. Set goals to align our financial practices with our values.
To get involved, fill out this application form and the sustainability office will be in touch. You can also find more information about the time commitment and the process here.
Other ways to get involved
- Attend a working group session as a guest. Please reach out to sustainability@emerson.edu to do so.
- Join a listening session during the fall semester. We will host two of these sessions on Zoom for the Emerson community.
- Submit a suggestion or question through the open suggestion box. If you are comfortable including your contact information, we might follow up to continue the conversation.
- Attend a presentation of the draft plan in the spring and submit comments on the proposal. Details on these presentations will be provided early in the spring semester.
- Follow this blog for regular updates on the process!