Clark's 2017 Green House Gas Emission's Update: On the Rise
Clark University signed the American College & University Presidents’ Climate Change Commitment (ACUPCC) in 2007, one of the first to sign this landmark pledge. We published our Climate Action Plan in 2009 and pledged to net-zero emissions by 2030 — a bold and worthy goal! Since then, we have been tracking our Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GHG) and periodically investing in improvements. ASEC, for example, has a solar array that provided 60 percent of the building’s electricity demand in 2017: this is the type of improvement needed to meet the 2030 net-zero goal.
In 2017 Clark University’s total GHG were 13,599.5 metric tons of CO2e, a small increase from 2016 which was, in turn, an increase over 2015 — three consecutive years of increasing emissions. Click here for the complete GHG 2017 update and all prior years:
As of 2017, Clark has reduced total emissions by 16.8 percent over the 2005 baseline. Much of that reduction has occurred from scheduled Climate Action Plan mitigation strategies and large-scale investments implemented in 2009-2013. From 2009 until 2017, Clark has reduced total emissions 13.3 percent while our physical footprint, use of electronics, and student population has grown. To put this seemingly impressive statistic into the larger context, if we continue the same rate of emissions reduction and hold all else constant in a business-as-usual (BAU) strategy, by 2030 we will have reduced emissions by 32 percent over the baseline figure but still be less than halfway to our ACUPCC commitment and carbon neutrality goal.
To learn more about what Clark’s sustainability initiatives are, visit Sustainable Clark.
Jenny Isler, MBA
Director of Sustainability, Clark University
Elizabeth Kubacki
Graduate Assistant, Sustainable Clark; MBA/M.S. Environmental Science and Policy ’18
