Guides & Methods

While many initial feedback opportunities for the Climate Action Plan drafting process were able to occur in-person, the bulk of the actual drafting of the final plan had to occur virtually. At a high level, the following steps were used to complete the drafting process, in constant partnership and communication with the Climate Action & Sustainability Committee (CASC).

Gathering Feedback

• In-person forums were hosted to brainstorm ideas with students, faculty, staff, and administrators.

• A survey was sent out to the entire campus population to gather additional thoughts.

• This data was analyzed for keyword frequency, general themes, and specific ideas for implementation.

Drafting Goals

• Four topical Climate Action Teams were formed to refine specific goals and actions in the categories of Energy & Stationary Emissions; Food, Procurement, & Waste; Land & Sequestration; and Travel, Fleet, & Commuting.

• These teams were provided with full feedback from the forums and surveys by topic area prior to Winter Break, along with current data on Vassar's sustainability progress.

• The Climate Action Teams met in-person at the start of the Spring Semester to discuss specific themes and ideas for actions

• A draft set of high-level goals were established by looking at current consumption data and setting incremental, aggressive, and achievable targets with a goal of carbon neutrality by 2030.

• The Office of Sustainability reviewed these goals with the departments and individuals directly impacted by the new targets to ensure there was buy-in from the beginning of the process.

• These goals were reviewed by the Climate Action & Sustainability Committee and codified

Drafting Action Steps

• The Climate Action Teams had to begin to meet remotely to finalize the Action Steps used to reach these goals, using a template developed by the Office of Sustainability.

• Specific actions proposed during the feedback-gathering process were evaluated for their possible contribution to reaching these goals. Many were directly integrated into the Climate Action Plan proposal.

• These Action Steps, again, were shared with impacted departments and stakeholders, then referred to the Climate Action & Sustainability Committee for final acceptance.

• The skeleton of the Climate Action Plan, encompassing all the specific actions and goals but without implementation details, was approved by CASC at the last meeting of the spring semester, again virtually.

Finalizing the CAP

• Over the Summer, the Office of Sustainability worked with a Fellow from the Environmental Defense Fund and an intern funded by NYSERDA to evaluate and prioritize the components of the Climate Action Plan

• The Office of Sustainability further refined cost estimates for each item and developed a funding model to address all items included

• The final CAP was reviewed with executive leadership in September 2020, then shared with the Climate Action & Sustainability Committee for final consideration in October.

• The CAP was officially launched in early November of 2020.

Over Summer 2020, a sustainability intern funded through NYSERDA offered in-depth assistance in creating a standardized protocol for greenhouse gas reporting moving forward. This work provides the foundation for all reporting that Vassar will be completing annually as a new signatory of the Second Nature Climate Leadership Commitment.

Reporting Process

• Acquisition of all data will begin in August at the conclusion of the closeout of accounting for the prior fiscal year.

• Vassar will use the UNH SIMAP platform for calculation of all annual emissions.

• This inventory will be made available on the Climate Action Plan dashboard when completed.

• This inventory will also be submitted to Second Nature as part of the annual reporting process beginning in 2021.

Scope 1 & 2 Emissions

• The Office of Sustainability will reach out to Facilities Operations for a roll-up report including total expenditures and consumption for all stationary fuel sources and purchased electricity.

• The Office of Sustainability will reach out to Administration and Finance to request a report of total expenditures assigned to the account code for liquid fuels used by vehicles and grounds equipment for each month. These expenses will be divided by the average cost per gallon for each month as reported by the Energy Information Administration to identify total gallons consumed. To account for possible misclassification of expenses, 10% will be added to the total consumption to reduce risk of underreporting consumption.

Scope 3 Emissions

• A recent mode-share survey of Vassar staff, faculty, and administrators with a > 50% response rate determined the average daily commute distance and method. The mode share split and distance traveled for each category is input into SIMAP, using their default emissions factors for calculation. This survey will be updated every three years to coincide with new STARS reporting.

• The Office of Sustainability will request a list of all study abroad destinations by # of participants from the Office of International Programs. Approximate flight distance traveled will be calculated using an online tool such as Flight Time Calculator.

• The Office of Sustainability, as part of its Climate Action Plan, is conducting a comprehensive air travel audit in the Spring 2021 semester since no recent baseline data exists due to a migration of accounting systems in 2018. Currently, the data is estimated by taking total travel spending across all categories, estimating the ratio of air travel expenses relative to other categories, and estimating the approximate cost per mile for air travel based on regional trends. To account for the low certainty of data, 20% was added to total consumption in the most recent report.

GRITS Goals provides a robust platform to track longer-term sustainability goals alongside energy-saving projects and other utility data. GRITS offers a comprehensive guide to the functionality of the platform (available here), and the following provides just a bit more information about how Vassar specifically is using the platform.

Many of the goals of our Climate Action Plan have very specific metrics associated with them (e.g. our commitment to decombustion or reducing our air travel emissions). By setting these as goals through GRITS, we are able to develop alternative scenarios that take our existing consumption data and show how projects we consider can help us reach that goal. The below image shows one possible scenario to reaching our decombustion goal, through a combination of our existing near-term decarbonization project as well as additional work slated for the next five years.

The AASHE STARS reporting process requires much of the same information as needed for our carbon reporting processes as seen above, along with additional information about operational, academic, and administrative efforts. Details on our data collection process for each credit category is available below.

In Development