SJU president commits to 'climate neutral' campus

Saint John’s University President Br. Dietrich Reinhart, OSB, has joined over 300 college and university presidents in signing the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment.

The document formally commits SJU to minimize emissions and to find alternatives to those emissions which cannot be eliminated in order to achieve carbon neutrality.

Saint John’s is a Charter Signatory of the document, as is the College of Saint Benedict in St. Joseph. A total of 326 university and college presidents have signed the document as of July 18, and the ACUP, which unveiled the commitment June 12 in Washington, D.C., hopes to have 1,000 signatures by the end of 2008.

“The President’s Climate Commitment is deeply congruent with the Benedictine values of our community and enhances initiatives that we have long been undertaking at Saint John’s,” Reinhart said. “Making this formal commitment will help us prioritize our future efforts and focus our energies on effective and sustainable stewardship of our environment.”

In accordance with the commitment, Saint John’s is establishing a plan for compliance that will build on existing efforts to reduce global warming pollution, including:

• Multiple proposals have been discussed to erect two wind turbines at Saint John’s. The school is currently doing a one-year study capturing wind data from its radio tower to provide data for analysis;
• Saint John’s is investigating alternative fuel options for its power plant to reduce coal consumption, including biomass and other renewable fuels;
• Ongoing conservation efforts include retrofitting many campus lights with high efficiency bulbs, and experimenting with compact fluorescent light bulbs in some locations with hopes that it may eliminate incandescent bulbs from the remaining fixtures. Thermostats were also turned down last winter and up this summer to save on heating and cooling;
• A bus system known as “the Link” connects SJU to CSB, providing public transportation to students and staff and reducing automobile emissions. During the 2006-07 academic year, 884,364 riders were transported between the two campuses totaling 180,706 miles on Link buses.

The CSB/SJU environmental studies department is beginning a carbon audit of each campus. This summer, students and staff started collecting data for a geographical systems analysis of employee commuting patterns that will be used to estimate total carbon emissions related to automobile use as well as proposed carpool and possible shuttle routes.

The Climate Commitment is the first such effort by any major sector of society to set climate neutrality – not just a reduction – as its target. The undertaking by America’s colleges and universities is inspired by efforts like the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement, the U.S. Climate Action Partnership and other collective efforts by states and business.

The American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment is a high-visibility effort to address global warming by garnering institutional commitments to neutralize greenhouse gas emissions and to accelerate the research and educational efforts of higher education to equip society to re-stabilize the Earth’s climate. Under the guidance and direction of university presidents, the commitment is being supported and implemented by the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE), Second Nature and ecoAmerica.

You can learn more at www.presidentsclimatecommitment.org.