The DU Center for Sustainability will revise the university’s sustainability plan this year, a first in what will become a practice implemented every three years.
According to Sustainability Coordinator Chad King, the plan was developed nearly five years ago with carbon footprint reduction as a main driving force in response to Chancellor Robert Coombe’s report to the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment (ACUPCC).
According to its website, the ACUPCC works for climate neutrality and sustainability through institutions of higher education.
King says that although the original sustainability plan was meant to provide direction, it quickly became outdated due to successful initiatives around campus, including the popularity of car share and bike share programs and the successful implementation of energy-saving initiatives. In order to prevent future plans from becoming outdated, King says the Center for Sustainability will now revisit and revise the plan every three years.
“The landscape changes pretty rapidly in some of these areas, so by looking at it every three years, it’ll give us a chance to keep up,” said King.
According to King, the revisions will focus on creating achievable goals for the campus community and then keeping the community up to date on steps taken to achieve those goals. He says the goals will be wide-ranging and may include topics such as waste divergence, energy savings and miles traveled by members of the university community.
“We really want to come up with very specific, targeted goals in a variety of areas that we can provide feedback to the campus community on how we’re doing as a community on those goals,” he said.
“[Reviewing the plan every three years] makes everything a little bit more in the present than these longer term goals that are hard to keep people motivated about.”
Part of the revision process will also be to have members of the DU community weigh in on sustainability through discussions. King hopes this will increase interest and involvement in sustainability initiatives.
“We’re trying to get everybody’s input … capture every constituent group on campus,” he said. “By using the listening sessions, we really hope to gather a lot of participation and get the dreams and goals of people here on campus and allow it to be a much bigger process than a handful of people writing a plan that not many people are involved in.”
King further says he hopes that incorporating the community will help motivate support for the Center for Sustainability’s efforts.
“Since this is a progression of steps, to be able to show that we’re taking steps to meet goals, shows that we are moving down that long journey toward sustainability,” he said.
Anyone interested in participating in a sustainability listening session can sign up online through the Center for Sustainability’s website.
