Office of Sustainability to Publish Climate Action Plan Next Month

George Mason University’s Office of Sustainability will publish its biennial Climate Action Plan in January 2010, Sustainability Assistant Colin Bennett.

The office, which has existed since 2007, was created in response to the university's entry into the American College University Presidents Climate Commitment agreement in July of that year, which aligned the school with nearly 700 institutions of higher education pledged to “implement comprehensive plans in pursuit of climate neutrality.”

Mason’s Climate Action Plan, which outlines the university’s steps in developing zero-impact environmental practices, is updated, revised, and republished every two years.

“The Climate Action Plan will state the policies and strategies for the university in terms of sustainability,” Bennett said. “The goal is to become completely climate neutral. But with tens of thousands of students and multiple campuses, it’s going to take a while. It’s a large  task.”

The office’s official target is to achieve zero carbon output by 2050, but some within the university have said that the goal is not aggressive enough, and the office conceded that the timelines under which it and other organizations work are subject to revision.

Thus far, the university has taken some preliminary steps to reduce its environmental impact.

Many older light bulbs around campus have been switched out for Light-Emitting Diodes, saving 1 million kilowatt hours a year; the recent replacement of an inefficient boiler in Discovery Hall is expected to save 52,000 kilowatt hours, or $130,000 a year.

Something as simple and low-tech as placing insulating blankets on exposed hot-water tunnels, another technique employed by the school, will minimize the need for insulation-related repairs, and, according to the university, save Mason $53,000 a year.

A summer program entitled Student Training for Environmental Protection attracted student from universities across the country, including Mason, and urged them to “turn passion into action” through courses on group organization and legislative lobbying, among other things.

For the 2010-2011 school year, Mason has several other innovations planned, including a vegetable garden that would provide student-dining hall Southside with approximately 2,000 pounds of food.

“That’s going to be a drop in the bucket for them,” Bennett said. “It’s more about the value of the educational service.”

Mason’s Transportation Department plans to initiate a bicycle exchange, the Mason Bicycle Village, for the upcoming fall semester, providing about 50 bicycles that students could rent on a semester basis for a nominal fee that would also cover repairs. The department said it will increase the number of rentable bicycles if demand dictates.

“The biggest problem we face is changing attitudes,” said Bennett. “We have to foster a sense of collective responsibility in reducing energy consumption. We have to persuade professors to turn the lights out when they’re done class, persuade students to take shorter showers. We’re a university, so we have a fairly high degree of turnover; there are new students every year and they need to be educated about this.”