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Please describe your institution's greenhouse gas mitigation strategies.
Many of the steps and initiatives required and associated with Climate Neutrality are already underway on our campus. This document is not meant to serve as the precise stepwise plan that will ultimately lead to climate neutrality. Developed by our Office of Sustainably, it serves as a guide as we continue our progress towards this monumental task. To develop the stepwise plan will require a broader and more tactical focus on the specific task of climate neutrality. As a matter of reality, climate neutrality for ASU is many years into the future, and there are many significant uncertainties that have yet to reveal themselves. As we update this document, at least every two years, it will take on a more tactical nature.
Given the aforementioned uncertainties, such as climate-oriented policies, future fuel mix, technological advances, and offset markets, ASU has adopted a Climate Neutrality target date of 2050. This date corresponds to the target date adopted in the 2009 UNC-system sustainability policy.
Our focus in this initial submission of the report is on two time periods. The next 5 years, called "The Now" and the period 2015-2025, "The Foreseeable Tomorrow". Our focus will be on Purchased Electricity and On-Campus Stationary (Steam & Hot Water) which together make up 77% or our climate footprint.
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Please describe your institution's plans to make sustainability a part of the
curriculum for all students.
As an institution of higher learning, ASU exists to educate its students, the region, and the State of North Carolina. For over 20 years, ASU has been a leader in sustainability education, offering undergraduate and masters degrees in both Sustainable Development and Appropriate Technology. More recently, we have started an Environmental Science degree program, a Sustainable MBS degree program and have founded the Research Institute of Environment, Energy, and Economics. These degree programs, and the classes within are available as minors and/or as electives as students choose.
Beyond these focused programs, sustainability has found its way into our broader curriculum. Examples of these initiatives include:
• A General Education Curriculum with Sustainability learning built in for every student.
• Green Living Residence Life Community with classroom components.
• A "Green Sections" Initiative, offering green-focused section of existing courses. (proposed)
As ASU continues to build this sustainable community in which we educate all of our students, they will also gain a sustainability education, no matter what they have arrived in Boone, NC to study. Sustainability will also extend outside of our campus walls. Our campus will communicate it sustainable features. LEED buildings will have signage highlighting green features. For those who want very specific content in a compressed time format, numerous workshops are offered on topics ranging from sustainable development to renewable energy to green entrepreneurship. Our students and faculty are encouraged to undertake service learning projects which meet the dual goals of education and community enrichment. These efforts are too numerous to mention, and occur on a local, regional, national and international level.
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Please describe your institution's plans to expand research efforts toward the
achievement of climate neutrality.
Connecting research to Climate Neutrality is an important component to the success of our effort. To aid in this, we have 14 faculty members, 2 from each of our seven colleges, appointed by their respective deans to serve on our Sustainability Council.
In 2008 we created and staffed the Research Institute for Environment, Energy, and Economics (RIEEE). This Institute is led by Dr. john Pine. Within the RIEEE are 3 academic research centers : The Energy Center, the Center for Economic Research and Policy Analysis, and the Southern Appalachian Environmental Research and Education Center.
We have plans to inventory all research activities which relate to climate neutrality and sustainability, as well as a project to make much of this research available in a searchable online format.
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Please describe your institution's plans to expand community outreach efforts toward the
achievement of climate neutrality.
As ASU continues to build this sustainable community in which we educate all of our students, they will also gain a sustainability education, no matter what they have arrived in Boone, NC to study. These sustainable practices also extend outside of our campus walls, the outreach component. Our campus communicates it sustainable nature and features. LEED buildings will have signage highlighting green features. The free community bus system which operated both Biodiesel and hybrid vehicles is available to all community members. Numerous workshops are offered annually on topics ranging from sustainable development to renewable energy to green entrepreneurship.
Our students blend into our community, and are leaders in the local sustainability movement. ASU faculty and staff serve with many local community service agencies, and are frequent speakers and successful green business persons as well. Our web site, sustain.appstate.edu, is a clearing house for green events, resources and stories from throughout our region. Our goals is not only to education the University community, but our entire community. Sustainability and Climate change issues are to vital to our world, and in the words of Dr. Jeff Boyer, who founded our Sustainable Development program over 20 years ago, “we don’t want to keep this bottled-up on campus, do we?”
To help bolster these efforts, an Outreach subcommittee is forming within our Sustainability Council that will be led by a member of our Appalachian and the Community Together (ACT) office. We are hoping that this committee can also be staffed with members from our community and our local governments as well.
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