Additional Climate Actions and Plans
Research utilize an internalized cost of carbon emissions
Carbon proxy pricing - carbon emissions as decision making factor
In the spring of 2018 the Committee on Sustainability selected $70 per MTCO2e (rising over time) as the internalized cost of carbon emissions, or proxy carbon price, to help guide major capital budget management and other decision-making processes at Smith College. In 2018, President Kathleen McCartney also signed the Higher Education Carbon Pricing Endorsement Initiative to demonstrate Smith College’s support for carbon pricing.
Breanna Parker ’18 completed an honors thesis called Designing a Proxy Carbon Price Strategy for Smith College, advised by Alex Barron (ES&P), Susan Sayre (Economics) and Dano Weisbord (Executive Director of Campus Sustainability and Campus Planning). Parker found that while many businesses and governments are using carbon price strategies, only a small but growing number of academic institutions are using them. Her thesis explored how a proxy carbon price might be implemented at Smith College and included background research, stakeholder interviews and pilot projects. Parker’s thesis won a national Campus Sustainability Research Award from the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education in 2018. Parker's work also laid the foundation for a collaborative paper published in the peer reviewed journal Elementa.
Video - overview of carbon pricing toolkit
https://scholarworks.smith.edu/theses/2051/
https://scholarworks.smith.edu/theses/2149/
Broadly embed climate and sustainability into co-curricular programing
Academic themed year on climate change 19/20
The Year on Climate Change was a collegewide initiative during the 2019–20 academic year to critically examine the complex and urgent issue of climate change. As a college of and for the world, the program was an invitation to the entire Smith community, no matter background or passion, to engage in a manner that was uniquely liberal arts—through deep and authentic collaboration, critical thinking, listening and action. All students, staff, faculty and alumnae were encouraged and invited to create and attend events throughout the year.
Transportation - fleet, commuting and travel
Fleet
The college uses about 86 vehicles to perform necessary operations and support student transportation. As of 2021, four of those were hybrid or all-electric vehicles. However, faculty and student research such as Carbon Neutrality Should Not Be the End Goal: Lessons for Institutional Climate Action From U.S. Higher Education and Electrifying Landscape Management by four 2020 graduates are beginning to have more power to guide and inform our vehicle purchase and rental.
Commuting
Smith is located in a fairly rural setting. However, there are convenient and inexpensive alternative transportation options including bus, rideshare, and bikeshare programs. While the carbon emissions associated with commuting for students is almost non-existent because we are a residential college, over 90% of staff and faculty drive alone to and from work. We are evaluating our parking and alternative transport incentive programs to see how we can increase use of zero-emissions transportation.
Academic-related travel
In 2018, students Cara Dietz ‘18, Eliana Gevelber ‘18, and Gray Li ‘18, evaluated Smith’s purchasing records to estimate the carbon emissions associated with the supply chain of goods and services we purchase as a college, also known as Scope 3 emissions. Their research found that air travel by faculty, staff, and students, paid for by the college accounts for almost 20% of our Scope 3 carbon emissions. This does not account for student-funded travel associated with college. While Smith is not actively working to reduce college-funded travel, we will use the lessons learned within the pandemic about remote work and convening to encourage faculty and staff to pause and get creative before they fly.
Refrigerant replacement and reduction
Refrigerants and other small scope 1 sources make up less than 1% of Smith’s emissions profile. Emissions from refrigerant releases occur infrequently and happen during some maintenance processes and when there is equipment failure. As a practice the campus already tries to minimize these types of releases and moves to less harmful refrigerants , such as 410, when available during equipment replacements. We reclaim all refrigerants when equipment is decommissioned.
However, as we move toward a nearly all-electric campus with additional summer cooling to buildings, we may increase our use of refrigerants as we install more air-source heat pumps, also known as mini-splits.
Refrigerants are also found in mini-fridges students often purchase for their rooms. By promoting a mini-fridge rental program we can ensure students are reducing waste, using the most energy efficient equipment that also uses the least harmful refrigerant available.