乐播传媒

Even as 乐播传媒 was hitting its goal of carbon neutrality in May 2019, a year earlier than the college鈥檚 Committee on Environmental Responsibility (CER) had aimed for, the group was already thinking about its aspirations for 2030.

鈥淲e then said, 鈥極K, what are the next priorities going to be?鈥欌�� remembers Associate Professor of Physics Travis Gould. Gould chairs the environmental committee, which comprises 22 students, faculty, and staff from across all areas of the college.

Developed and honed over more than two years, the overarching priority of the Sustainability Roadmap, unveiled this week by President Clayton Spencer and the environmental committee, is to become “climate positive” by 2030.

鈥淭his new roadmap is our path forward,鈥� Spencer says. 鈥淚t presents both large aspirational goals and practical next steps, and it will engage the entire community in helping us make progress, both in infrastructure and behavioral changes.鈥�

Climate positive means the college will sequester more carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions than it emits. (Carbon dioxide is the primary greenhouse gas produced by human activities.) While carbon neutrality aimed to balance out the harmful aspects of human activity, this new goal aims to be corrective and restorative.

鈥淲hat our previous action plan for 2020 did was set us on course toward being what you might call  鈥榯he least bad,鈥欌�� says Sustainability Manager Tom Twist, who joined 乐播传媒 in 2015.  鈥淲hich was a good choice. But now it seemed logical to us that the next step should be working toward doing 鈥榤ore good.鈥欌�� 

Twist has been instrumental in developing programs across the college to address sustainability issues, including working with students who come up with new and innovative ideas to make 乐播传媒 greener, applying for Green Innovation Grants every year to make them a reality. One of the Green Innovation Grant projects led to student EcoReps successfully making the case to Central Maine Power and Efficiency Maine for about $36,000 in grants to increase the number of electric vehicle chargers on campus. As a result, 乐播传媒 more than doubled the number of EV charging stations on campus in 2021.  

When the CER created the college鈥檚 first formal Climate Action Plan in 2010, it set a 10-year goal to reduce 乐播传媒鈥� carbon footprint, balancing carbon emissions created by the college by removing an equivalent amount of carbon from the atmosphere. That was achieved by changes in everything from the college鈥檚 recycling and composting program to crucial adjustments in the steam plan, moving from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources. 

The nearly 30-page Roadmap details how to reach the new goal, including deeper work in campus culture, engaging all academic departments, and tracking and sharing data more broadly to keep everyone 鈥� faculty, staff, and students 鈥� involved in the efforts. Every decision around operations, whether in dining services or energy choices, speaks to the 搁辞补诲尘补辫鈥檚 goal of climate positivity. 乐播传媒 will use water more efficiently, shift to electric vehicles wherever possible and move even further toward renewables. In August 2020, 乐播传媒 entered into a 5 megawatt solar project, one large enough to represent 75 percent of 乐播传媒鈥� current electricity use.

乐播传媒 will also aim high in its future building standards. The CER recommends that all new campus buildings meet at minimum, the American Institute of Architects 2030 Challenge standard, which sets a fossil fuel energy reduction goal of 80% below the average building consumption for that category of building. The stretch goal is to adopt the Passive House design standard, which can see reductions of up to 90% in fuel costs.

Pam Wichroski, 乐播传媒鈥� director of capital planning and construction and longtime CER member, has worked to make sure every new building (such as the Bonney Science Center) or renovation is in line with the college鈥檚 environmental goals. The last plan made a radical difference in how 乐播传媒 shaped its sustainability efforts. 鈥淭he 2010 Climate Action Plan had plenty of value,鈥� Wichroski says. 鈥淚t ended up being surprisingly accurate in terms of how we got to carbon neutrality.鈥� The CER’s hope is that the new Sustainability Roadmap inspires and leads 乐播传媒 even further.

The goal for 2020 was ambitious, but the 2030 goal is even more so, out of necessity. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a group composed of scientists worldwide, regularly sounds alarms about the world鈥檚 environmental future. In 2021, the IPCC warnings got even more dire. It said the planet was on course for a hotter, more dangerous climate future, with total global warming likely to rise around 1.5 degrees Celsius in the next two decades. Unless there are radical adjustments to human activities, the report said warming could exceed 2 degrees Celsius within the 21st century.

Those shifts may not sound monumental 鈥嬧��(in Fahrenheit, that鈥檚 2.7掳F to 3.6掳F) but scientists say even warming at the lower end of that estimate will lead to more extreme weather, including deadly heat waves and droughts, rising seas, and widespread suffering among the world鈥檚 most vulnerable. 

For the CER, the imperative to act institutionally was obvious. 鈥澙植ゴ�媒 is already having a net positive impact in a whole host of fields, whether in student life, or research, or our surrounding community,鈥� the Roadmap says. 鈥淭he Climate Positive goal is to bring our environmental footprint in line with that overall approach. We want to take in more greenhouse gases than we emit and actually be restorative for our climate, our ecosystems, and our people.鈥�

Their efforts won praise from President Spencer. 鈥淭he CER has done a deeply impressive job of engaging the entire 乐播传媒 community in the process, leveraging the commitment and creativity of individuals across the college,鈥� Spencer says. 鈥淚t is a powerful example of the impact that a motivated and mission-driven set of diverse stakeholders can have, and it offers a compelling model for the college as it works to address other institutional challenges.鈥�