Clark U

Clark University is the latest to join the ranks of fifteen leading Northeast higher education institutions formally partnered with Clean Air-Cool Planet.

In joining CA-CP’s Campuses for Climate Action program, an institution acknowledges the gravity of the climate change issue and the leadership opportunity and influence of higher education institutions in addressing it, and commits to assessing and reducing its own greenhouse gas emissions while educating the members of its campus community about the importance and means of doing so in their own lives. The five-step process involves:

1. Completing an inventory of campus emissions using CA-CP’s Campus Carbon Calculator^®;
2. Adopting an emissions reduction target;
3. Developing and publicize a strategic plan (Campus Climate Action Plan) to meet that target;
4. Implementing the plan;
5. Monitoring and tracking progress over time, and incorporating the climate action plan into other university-wide planning, monitoring, and reporting systems.

CA-CP’s partners have undertaken—both within and beyond the context of their CA-CP partnerships—a broad range of climate and environmental leadership efforts, ranging from energy efficiency or recycling programs to renewable energy purchases to solar or wind installations to student/faculty education initiatives. These types of initiatives are seen as opportunities to incorporate experiential learning and cultivate leadership qualities and a spirit of innovation among their students and campus communities.

“The partnership with Clark is the latest opportunity to recognize and encourage just this type of leadership,” says Ned Raynolds, CA-CP’s Campus and Municipal Programs Director. Clark was a pioneer in on-campus co-generation systems, a very energy-efficient way for large institutions to generate their own electricity as they meet their heating and cooling needs. Two major new buildings on the campus, a Biological Sciences building and the Clark University Field House, are currently being designed to achieve LEED® (green building) certification.

Clark University is an urban “teaching and research institution” of 2700 undergraduate and graduate students. Established in 1887, Clark boasts the U.S.’s oldest graduate school; today, it prides itself on continued prominence in the fields of psychology, geography, and the broad realm of human-environment interaction and global environmental change. The University is located in Worcester, Massachusetts, a city that recently joined the Cities for Climate Protection campaign – largely as a result of the advocacy of a Clark student! CA-CP looks forward to working with Clark University as they take continued steps to be a leader in doing what their website motto suggests: “Challenging Convention, Changing Our World.”

For more information about CA-CP’s campus partnerships or the GHG Emissions Inventory Toolkit, go to http://www.cleanair-coolplanet.org/for_campuses.php or contact Ned Raynolds [nraynolds@cleanair-coolplanet.org].

To learn more about Clark University, check out their website at http://www.clarku.edu/.

—Ned Raynolds