President Faust appoints task force on Harvard greenhouse gas emissions

Harvard University President Drew Faust today (Feb. 27) announced the formation of a task force comprised of faculty, students, and administrators charged with examining Harvard’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and recommending a University-wide greenhouse gas reduction goal. The task force is expected to report its findings, which will include a strategy and timeline for achieving the reduction target, by the end of this academic year.

“As concern about sustainability and climate change grows, universities are in a unique position to respond by identifying ways in which we can mitigate the impact people have on the environment and implementing these strategies on our campuses,” Faust wrote in the charge to the task force. “Harvard has taken substantial steps toward environmental stewardship over the past decade, but, like all institutions, we have a long way to go in our efforts to create a sustainable campus, to link the research done by our faculty and students with policy and action that support sustainability, and to provide our students with a foundation from which to effect change and lead by example.”

Harvard joins its Ivy League peers in investigating ways in which it can reduce its environmental impact and in developing further its institutional priorities for sustainability. Faust plans to share the findings of the new task force at a meeting of the Ivy League presidents in June. She has asked William C. Clark, Harvey Brooks Professor of International Science Public Policy and Human Development at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, to chair the task force. Thomas Vautin, associate vice president for Facilities and Environmental Services, will serve as vice chair.

“Learning how to promote sustainable development – to foster improvements in human well-being that conserve and restore the Earth’s life support systems – is emerging as the defining challenge of our time,” said Clark. “Reducing our impacts on the world’s climate is one of the most urgent priorities. Harvard has a special opportunity and obligation to combine its unique capacity for research with an aggressive program of action to learn sustainable development by doing it. I’m grateful for this opportunity to help.”

“Through the active engagement of many of our faculty, students, and staff, Harvard has become a leader in environmental sustainability,” Vautin said. “I am honored to be asked by President Faust to work with Professor Clark and the task force on this important effort.”

Harvard has both a strong research and operational base from which to launch this new task force. Two decades ago, President Derek Bok created an arena focused on the environment for faculty collaboration across Harvard’s Schools, which evolved into what is known today as the Harvard Center for the Environment (HUCE). Since its inception, HUCE has drawn on a large community of scholars, researchers, teachers, and students from a variety of fields (including chemistry, earth and planetary sciences, engineering and applied sciences, biology, public health and medicine, government, business, economics, religion, and the law) to advance environment-related research and education at the University.

A decade ago, President Neil Rudenstine supported the establishment of the Harvard Green Campus Initiative, which now consists of 20 professionals who lead and support projects aimed at implementing environmentally friendly practices across a range of departments and disciplines. Harvard currently has the most LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design)-registered buildings of any university in the United States, purchases significant amounts of renewable energy, and continues to aggressively seek clean and renewable energy alternatives. Harvard has also implemented a strong waste management program resulting in high recycling rates across the University and an innovative transportation management program that has put in place a more efficient fleet of vehicles and has also led to a shift in the commuter profile away from car transportation to public transit.

This new task force launches Harvard’s second major iteration in its continuing efforts to make the University a responsible leader in the development and implementation of sustainable practices. In 2004, President Lawrence H. Summers established a University-wide committee to recommend a policy on sustainability that led to the adoption of a set of campus-wide sustainability principles, which included promoting sustainability through institutional practices like energy efficiency, ensuring health and productivity through “the design and maintenance of the built environment,” improving the campus ecosystem, developing analytical tools, encouraging environmental awareness, and monitoring progress on sustainability.

“It is my hope that the process of determining our emissions reduction target will help lay the groundwork for a thorough evaluation of Harvard’s strategies for building construction and renovation, water and energy conservation, waste management, transportation, and enhancements of our landscapes and ecosystems,” said Faust. “Once the work of this task force is completed, I intend to establish further mechanisms that will help us to continue to develop institutional priorities and to determine a broader long-term strategy for sustainability that capitalizes on the University’s potential as a contributor in this area and links directly to the curricula at both Harvard College and the graduate and professional Schools.”

“We are excited that President Faust has made this one of her policy priorities and look forward to working with her,” said task force member Heather Henriksen of the Harvard Kennedy School. “This task force is a great opportunity for students to work together with faculty and staff to create a meaningful greenhouse gas reduction plan that will emphasize Harvard’s leadership on this critical challenge.”

The task force will convene its first meeting in mid-March and will report back to President Faust with its recommendation by the end of May. The task force welcomes communications at ghg_taskforce@harvard.edu.

The members of the task force are:

William C. Clark, chair, Harvey Brooks Professor of International Science Public Policy and Human Development, Harvard Kennedy School of Government

Thomas Vautin, vice chair, associate vice president for Facilities and Environmental Services, Central Administration

Craig Altemose, student, Harvard Law School and Harvard Kennedy School of Government

Daniel Goodenough, Takeda Professor of Cell Biology, Harvard Medical School

James Gray, associate vice president of Harvard Real Estate Services, Central Administration

Heather Henriksen, student, Harvard Kennedy School of Government

John Holdren, Teresa and John Heinz Professor of Environmental Policy, Harvard Kennedy School of Government

Mitchell Hunter, student at Harvard College

Wendy Jacobs, clinical director and lecturer on law, Harvard Law School

Regan Johnson, student at Harvard Medical School

Jerold Kayden, Frank Backus Williams Professor of Urban Planning and Design at the Graduate School of Design

James McCarthy, professor of biological oceanography, Alexander Agassiz Professor of Biological Oceanography in the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Faculty of Arts and Sciences

Richard Mills, dean for Operations & Business Affairs, Harvard Medical School

Anne Pringle, assistant professor of organismic and evolutionary biology, Faculty of Arts and Sciences

Forest Reinhardt, John D. Black Professor at the Harvard Business School

Leith Sharp, director, Harvard Green Campus Initiative

Dan Shore, director, Budgets and Financial Planning, Central Administration

John Spengler, the Akira Yamaguchi Professor of Environmental Health and Human Habitation, Harvard School of Public Health

Linda Snyder, associate executive dean for physical resources and planning, Faculty of Arts and Sciences

Kathy Spiegelman, director of the Allston Initiative; chief University planner; Allston Development Group

Steven Wofsy, the Abbott Lawrence Rotch Professor of Atmospheric and Environmental Science, associate of the Harvard Forest, Faculty of Arts and Sciences and School of Engineering and Applied Sciences

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Charge to the Task Force on Greenhouse Gas Emissions February, 2008

As concern about sustainability and climate change grows, universities are in a unique position to respond by identifying ways in which we can mitigate the impact people have on the environment and implementing these strategies on our campuses. Harvard has taken substantial steps toward environmental stewardship over the last decade, but, like all institutions, we have a long way to go in our efforts to create a sustainable campus, to link the research done by our faculty and students with policy and action that support sustainability, and to provide our students with a foundation from which to effect change and lead by example.

In that spirit, we have recently made a commitment – together with other Ivy League institutions – to develop further our institutional priorities for lessening our environmental impact and to report back to the group in June about the progress we have made. This commitment also calls on Harvard to contribute to a collaborative process aimed at increasing awareness of sustainability and developing and encouraging the adoption of best practices for environmental friendliness. Harvard has a strong research and operational base from which to launch this endeavor. Two decades ago, President Derek Bok launched the process of encouraging university wide collaboration among Harvard faculty that evolved into today’s vibrant Harvard Center for the Environment. With more than 100 faculty affiliates from across the University, HUCE now fosters research and educational initiatives on issues range from energy and climate change to biodiversity and sustainable development. A decade ago, President Neil Rudenstine supported the establishment of the Harvard Green Campus Initiative, which has grown to a central unit consisting of 20 professionals who work to educate the community about environmentally friendly practices and to support projects aimed at implementing those practices across the university.

In 2004, President Lawrence Summers established a University-wide committee to recommend a policy on sustainability which led to the adoption of a set of campus-wide sustainability principles. These six principles included promoting sustainability through institutional practices like energy efficiency, ensuring health and productivity through “the design and maintenance of the built environment,” improving the campus ecosystem, developing analytical tools, encouraging environmental awareness and monitoring progress on sustainability, and have since transformed the way we think about physical planning and the development of our campus.

Reducing our greenhouse gas emissions is an important next step in our effort to create a sustainable campus. Building upon the foundation laid by the committee in 2004, I would like this task force to look specifically at Harvard’s greenhouse gas emissions and to recommend:

• An appropriate University-wide greenhouse gas emissions reduction goal, and
• A strategy and timeline to achieve that goal.

In determining this goal, I hope that the working group will consider the following questions:

• What is a sensible framework for our reduction target? Should we set annual reduction targets? Should we adopt a longer-term reduction target based upon 1990 levels (the baseline used in the Kyoto Protocol)?
• What is a realistic goal given Harvard’s aspirations for growth, especially in Allston?
• What are the consequences of setting a university-wide reduction target?
  • What major infrastructure changes, if any, will be required?
  • What behavioral changes are needed to help meet our goal?
  • What is the cost impact?
• How will setting a reduction target change the way we make future academic and physical plans?

I hope that this task force will be able to complete its work over the next few months and report back to me by the end of May. It is also my hope that the process of determining our emissions reduction target will help lay the groundwork for a thorough evaluation of Harvard’s strategies for building construction and renovation, water and energy conservation, waste management, transportation, and enhancements of our landscapes and ecosystems. Once the work of this task force is completed, I intend to establish further mechanisms that will help us to continue to develop institutional priorities and to determine a broader long-term strategy for sustainability that capitalizes on the University’s potential as a contributor in this area and links directly to the curricula at both Harvard College and the graduate and professional schools.

Human activity has been shown to have such a pervasive influence on our planet’s ecological framework that it is now impossible to think of people separately from the natural world. Universities, with their vast resources for research and training, have a special opportunity and obligation to alter this influence and mitigate the detrimental impact people have on the environment. There is much work to be done on this important effort, and I am grateful to all of you who are willing to answer this urgent and necessary call to action.