Air & Climate

Introduction

Global climate change is having myriad negative impacts throughout the world, including increased frequency and potency of extreme weather events, sea level rise, species extinction, water shortages, declining agricultural production, and spread of diseases. The impacts are particularly pronounced for low-income communities and countries. In addition, institutions that inventory and take steps to reduce their air pollutant emissions can positively impact the health of the campus community, as well as the health of their local communities and regions.

1187 resources

University at Buffalo: Coming together as a Campus to Achieve Climate Neutrality

  • University at Buffalo (NY)

As our campus moves closer to our 2030 climate neutrality date, we annually bring our university together to give an update on our progress. This year, UB Sustainability has collaborated ...

  • Posted April 27, 2022
  • Photographs
  • View more

Plant it Forward

  • Mohammed VI Polytechnic University

Planting Trees is one of the most effective ways to act towards climate change as it benefits our everyday lives efficiently. They filter clear air, help curb climate change, create ...

  • Posted April 25, 2022
  • Photographs
  • View more

Climate Fiction Panel: Fire & Water Anthology of Short Stories

  • University of Hawaii Community Colleges (HI)
  • AASHE (PA)

As Seas Rise, Can Literature Be Our Life Raft? Virtual Reading and Conversation -- RECORDING Moderator: Dr. Krista Hiser, Panelists: Mary Fifield, Claudia Monpere McIsac, & Kristin Thiel

With climate-triggered disasters ...

  • Posted April 18, 2022
  • Videos & Webinars
  • View more

Declaring a Climate Emergency: UBC’s Climate Emergency Task Force Process and Path to Implementation

  • University of British Columbia (BC)
  • AASHE (PA)

Join us for an interactive session to learn about the University of British Columbia’s Climate Emergency response and connect with leads of various innovative and exciting climate action projects ...

  • Posted March 24, 2022
  • Videos & Webinars
  • View more

How to make low-carbon academia fly? Reducing academic air travel beyond COVID-19

  • Norwegian University of Life Sciences

This article seeks to advance our understanding of the underlying reasons that sustain high levels of academic flying, and explores how a low carbon academia with less academic air travel ...

  • Posted March 10, 2022
  • Publications
  • View more

Why Your Institution Doesn't Know What it's Doing With Telework and What to do About It

  • George Mason University (VA)

During the first year and a half of the COVID-19 pandemic, which is still ongoing, many institutions transitioned to telework for all employees able to do so. However, as we ...

  • Posted Jan. 21, 2022
  • Conference Presentations
  • View more

Is Your Carbon Footprint BS?

  • University of Minnesota, Duluth (MN)
  • University of Minnesota System Office (MN)

Get ready for a new way to engage students in conversation about action and change-making starting with the question -- does your individual carbon footprint even matter? Dive into the debate ...

  • Posted Jan. 21, 2022
  • Conference Presentations
  • View more

From Waste to Fuel: An Interactive Introduction to Community-Based Biodiesel Production

  • John Brown University (AR)
  • Springboard Biodiesel (CA)

Making biodiesel from waste oils, locally, is a community-based act of collaboration and empowerment that has a significant positive impact on the environment and saves money on any institution's ...

  • Posted Jan. 21, 2022
  • Conference Presentations
  • View more

Solve Climate Worldwide Teach-in / 3.30.22 / Engage 1 Millon Students

  • Bard College (NY)

Time to address climate change is short. With universities returning to in-person education, as educators at this moment, we have the responsibility to engage our entire campuses in urgent discussions ...

  • Posted Jan. 21, 2022
  • Conference Presentations
  • View more

Advancing Carbon Neutrality Through Renovation and Renewal

  • Arizona State University (AZ)
  • Ayers Saint Gross (MD)

Arizona State University achieved climate neutrality for Scope 1 and 2 emissions in 2019, six years ahead of schedule, but the planet needs more. Join us to learn how ASU ...

  • Posted Jan. 21, 2022
  • Conference Presentations
  • View more

Going Big on Renewables: How to Kick-Start Renewables With Second Nature's Pro Bono Consulting

  • Davidson College (NC)
  • Georgia Institute of Technology (GA)
  • Coho Climate Advisors (MD)

Do you want to go big on renewables but you don't have the funds to get started, or need a way to get traction with internal stakeholders? In 2020 ...

  • Posted Jan. 21, 2022
  • Conference Presentations
  • View more

Designing Buildings for Future Climate Realities

  • University of California, Office of the President (CA)
  • Arup (NY)

The University of California launched the Designing Buildings for Future Climate Realities project to optimize buildings and infrastructure to the changing climate in which they will be operating. Standard industry ...

  • Posted Jan. 21, 2022
  • Conference Presentations
  • View more

Life Cycle Analysis in Greenhouse Gas Emission Reporting: Capturing the Whole Picture

  • Polytechnique Montréal (QC)

Polytechnique Montréal produced what we believe is the most comprehensive carbon footprint reporting of any higher learning institution by using a life cycle analysis (LCA) approach. Many institutions have pledged ...

  • Posted Jan. 21, 2022
  • Conference Presentations
  • View more

Establishing a Framework for a Scope 3 Emissions Inventory

  • Stanford University (CA)

For over a decade, Stanford has calculated and reported its Scope 1 and 2 direct greenhouse gas emissions and has reduced those emissions by 69% since peak levels in 2011 ...

  • Posted Jan. 21, 2022
  • Conference Presentations
  • View more

Accelerating Big Levers of Change: Heat Trading, Ground Source Heating and Cooling, and Carbon Pricing - Second Nature Solution Center

  • Carleton College (MN)
  • Stanford University (CA)
  • Brailsford & Dunlavey (DC)

We have the tools to solve climate change today. The challenge is how to deploy these solutions fast enough, at a large enough scale and in a way that promotes ...

  • Posted Jan. 21, 2022
  • Conference Presentations
  • View more

Virginia Heat Watch: A Commonwealth-Wide Collaboration for Heat Mapping

  • University of Lynchburg (VA)
  • Randolph College (VA)

Randolph College and University of Lynchburg are both signatories to the Carbon Commitment and the Resilience Commitment, and have been collaborating on community resilience efforts since 2018. We are also ...

  • Posted Jan. 21, 2022
  • Conference Presentations
  • View more

Setting a Path for Elimination of Carbon Emissions through Electrification of Natural Gas Equipment

  • Stanford University (CA)

Stanford University has reduced its carbon emissions by 69% from peak levels in 2011 and is on track to achieve 80% reduction in the next year through procurement of 100 ...

  • Posted Jan. 21, 2022
  • Conference Presentations
  • View more

Climate Communication: Practical Applications for Educators, Students, and Service Learning Programs

  • Eckerd College (FL)
  • Student Public Interest Research Group (IL)

Join Dr. Joanna Huxster, Assistant Professor in Environmental Studies at Eckerd College, and Dan Xie, Political Director for the Student Public Interest Research Groups (PIRGs) for a session on the ...

  • Posted Jan. 21, 2022
  • Conference Presentations
  • View more

Should We Be Concerned About Almost True Climate Solution Strategies and Policies?

  • University of California, Irvine (CA)

Advocates often oversimplify policy ideas or proposed climate solutions, to make them digestible by those new to an issue or proposed remedy.  However, problems develop when more understanding, evidence, and ...

  • Posted Jan. 21, 2022
  • Conference Presentations
  • View more

What Are We Even Doing Here? Empowering Students in the Face of Overlapping Crises

  • University of Oregon (OR)

Teaching and mentoring Gen-Z students can often feel full of cognitive dissonance as we talk about career possibilities or the value of upcycling a t-shirt into a tote bag even ...

  • Posted Jan. 21, 2022
  • Conference Presentations
  • View more

Renewable Energy and Carbon Offset Discussions: Peer to Peer Strategy Share

  • Chatham University (PA)
  • University at Buffalo (NY)
  • Swarthmore College (PA)
  • Center for Resource Solutions | Green-e (CA)

Renewable energy and carbon offsets are key components for decarbonization and therefore higher education institutions must develop sourcing strategies both to be good stewards to their community and planet as ...

  • Posted Jan. 21, 2022
  • Conference Presentations
  • View more

Is Carbon Neutrality the Right Goal? Lessons From Leaders in the Second Nature Carbon Commitment

  • Smith College (MA)

The most important number in climate policy is zero – we need to achieve global carbon neutrality as quickly as possible to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. Nearly 800 ...

  • Posted Jan. 21, 2022
  • Conference Presentations
  • View more

Buying Carbon Dioxide Removals

  • Raritan Valley Community College (NJ)

Carbon Dioxide Removals are coming onto the market as an alternative to traditional carbon offsets. Microsoft, Stripe, and Shopify are supporting the development of CDR technologies and companies by vetting ...

  • Posted Jan. 21, 2022
  • Conference Presentations
  • View more

Preparing Our Urban Forests for Our Changing Climate

  • Urban Forest Initiative (KY)

Urban forests are vital to mitigating the negative effects of climate change to urban residents. Urban trees help reduce storm-water runoff, cool cities, filter air and water pollutants, sequester carbon ...

  • Posted Jan. 21, 2022
  • Conference Presentations
  • View more

Creating an Equity-Based Climate Action Plan Through Stakeholder Engagement

  • Portland Community College (OR)
  • GreenerU (MA)

Many college campuses are looking for paths to climate neutrality - that is - reducing and sustaining zero-emissions operations. Climate action planning is one strategy to achieve this goal. But a straight ...

  • Posted Jan. 21, 2022
  • Conference Presentations
  • View more

Grassroots to Green Energy: How Five Students Brought Five Acres of Solar to UW-Platteville.

  • University of Wisconsin-Platteville (WI)
  • McKinstry (WA)

While hundreds of United States colleges and universities have signed the Presidents' Climate Leadership Commitments, HOW to actually start and land renewable energy projects within the complex, frequently cash-strapped world ...

  • Posted Jan. 21, 2022
  • Conference Presentations
  • View more

Climate Action Simulation (With en-Roads): A Group Role-Playing Game

  • University of Massachusetts Lowell (MA)
  • University of Minnesota System Office (MN)

In a lightning fast and immersive method that the presenters have perfected in numerous online trainings, participants will learn how to facilitate a group role-playing simulation (which functions as a ...

  • Posted Jan. 21, 2022
  • Conference Presentations
  • View more

COVID, Climate Action Plans and Resiliency in Davis, California: Leveraging a Town-Gown Relationship

  • University of California, Davis (CA)
  • City of Davis (CA)

UC Davis and City of Davis sustainability staff will share how the city and campus have repeatedly leveraged our college town-gown relationship for mutual benefit and support, and helped us ...

  • Posted Jan. 21, 2022
  • Conference Presentations
  • View more

How To Decarbonize With Renewable Natural Gas

  • University of New Hampshire (NH)
  • Vanguard Renewables (MA)
  • ONE Gas (OK)

Many colleges and universities have set aggressive carbon neutrality targets and are struggling to find practical ways to meet the numbers. As colleges move toward reducing their carbon footprint by ...

  • Posted Jan. 21, 2022
  • Conference Presentations
  • View more

How Swarthmore College and Vanderbilt University are Neutralizing Their Footprint with Climate Vault

  • Swarthmore College (PA)
  • Climate Vault (IL)

This session will explore how verified carbon offsets play an important role for higher education institutions to reduce and/or neutralize their carbon footprint – and how one non-profit’s approach ...

  • Posted Jan. 21, 2022
  • Conference Presentations
  • View more

University Air Travel and GHG Mitigation: An Analysis of Higher Education Climate Policies

  • University of Tennessee at Knoxville (TN)

This presentation will detail and discuss research that examined the climate policies of 46 public doctoral institutions to understand how they address university air travel greenhouse gas mitigation. This research ...

  • Posted Jan. 21, 2022
  • Conference Presentations
  • View more

COVID or Us? Interpreting GHG Emission Reductions Amid a Pandemic While Improving Energy Efficiency

  • Bemidji State University (MN)

Located in Northern Minnesota, Bemidji State University (BSU) operates within a dispersed, rural, and diverse community. With a longstanding commitment to carbon reduction, BSU has strategically partnered with the university ...

  • Posted Jan. 21, 2022
  • Conference Presentations
  • View more

Additionality: How to Ensure Your Renewable Electricity Procurement Strategy Has Real Climate Impact

  • University of Dayton (OH)

Many higher education institutions are pursuing active decarbonization programs to demonstrate climate leadership. A key element in these programs is eliminating the climate impact of an institution's electricity procurement ...

  • Posted Jan. 21, 2022
  • Conference Presentations
  • View more

Contraception and Consumption in the Age of Extinction

  • Center for Biological Diversity (AZ)

Over the past 50 years, as human populations have doubled, wildlife populations have plummeted by half. Humanity's dependence on fossil fuels and industrial agriculture, persecution of wildlife, massive habitat ...

  • Posted Jan. 21, 2022
  • Conference Presentations
  • View more

A Tale of Drivers and Drivers: Addressing Scope 3 Emissions in Our Auto-Centric Culture

  • West Chester University of Pennsylvania (PA)

Scope 3 Emissions are so challenging to reduce that many institutions of higher education put them in a separate category from their primary carbon neutrality commitment. Defined as "indirect," these ...

  • Posted Jan. 21, 2022
  • Conference Presentations
  • View more

Climate Resilience through Community Resilience: Lessons from Appalachian Kentucky

  • University of Kentucky (KY)

Flooding in Appalachian Kentucky during the spring of 2021 laid bare the now established threat of climate change to a region often left out of conversations about climate resilience. While ...

  • Posted Jan. 21, 2022
  • Conference Presentations
  • View more

From Pledge to Plan: Two Case Studies of Public University Decarbonization Plans

  • University of Massachusetts Amherst (MA)
  • University of Oregon (OR)

Join two Sustainability Directors as they tell their stories about how they led decarbonization planning efforts on their campuses. UMass Amherst and the University of Oregon are both large R1 ...

  • Posted Jan. 21, 2022
  • Conference Presentations
  • View more

Connecting Your Campus Across Intersections of Climate, Race, and Internationalization

  • The GREEN Program (PA)
  • Climate Action Network for International Educators (CANIE) (Victoria)

Environmental justice is racial justice. Sustainability necessitates addressing racism. Higher education must play its part to proactively strategize and foster interdepartmental collaboration to address environmental justice at our campus and ...

  • Posted Jan. 21, 2022
  • Conference Presentations
  • View more

U.S. & Canadian "Climate Havens" - Networking & Preparedness Around Where It Will Suck Less

  • University at Buffalo (NY)
  • University of Minnesota, Duluth (MN)
  • University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (WI)

Water is Life. The Great Lakes Region, the U.S. and Canada, are becoming known as future "Climate Havens" of this century. Cities and universities are beginning to take notice ...

  • Posted Jan. 21, 2022
  • Conference Presentations
  • View more

The Future is Being Resilient to Climate Emergencies

  • Rice University (TX)
  • Communities Responding to Extreme Weather (MA)

Resiliency to climate emergencies is necessary to respond to extreme weather events that are occurring more frequently as the climate changes. A climate emergency does not always mean there will ...

  • Posted Jan. 21, 2022
  • Conference Presentations
  • View more

The Future of Life on Earth: A Case for Academia’s Role in Advancing Conservation and Biodiversity to Address Climate and Human Health

  • Harvard University (MA)
  • Stanford University (CA)
  • University of New Hampshire (NH)
  • Lincoln Institute of Land Policy (MA)

In a January 2021 executive order addressing the climate crisis, President Joe Biden committed the U.S. to an ambitious conservation goal: to protect 30 percent of U.S. land ...

  • Posted Jan. 21, 2022
  • Conference Presentations
  • View more

Applied Organizational Sustainability: An Interdisciplinary STEM-Based Sustainability Course

  • Murray State University (KY)

In order to meet future workforce needs, STEM and sustainability should be integrated throughout university curriculum, including in business disciplines. However, STEM remains underrepresented in business education, including business conceptions ...

  • Posted Jan. 21, 2022
  • Conference Presentations
  • View more

Student Involvement in Supporting the Carbon Commitment at UNC Asheville

  • University of North Carolina, Asheville (NC)

This session will explain steps to take toward climate action on a university campus. In a UNC Asheville course entitled "Communicating Climate Change," a group of students led an initiative ...

  • Posted Jan. 21, 2022
  • Conference Presentations
  • View more

The Carbon and Nitrogen Footprint of Food

  • Stanford University (CA)
  • University of New Hampshire (NH)

Food purchasing can be a significant component of campus carbon and nitrogen footprints. SIMAP (unhsimap.org) is a web-based campus footprint tool that calculates the carbon and nitrogen emissions from ...

  • Posted Jan. 21, 2022
  • Conference Presentations
  • View more

A Campus Framework for Justice, Equity, Diversity, & Inclusion-Centered Climate Resilience Planning

  • University of California, Office of the President (CA)
  • University of California, Los Angeles (CA)
  • University of California, Santa Cruz (CA)
  • Integral Group (CA)

"Climate resilience planning" has been a growing buzz phrase across the country for years. Although many municipalities are beginning to incorporate current and future climate realities into their planning efforts ...

  • Posted Jan. 21, 2022
  • Conference Presentations
  • View more

Climate Solutions 101: Curricula That Inform Conversations & Inspire Action on Climate Solutions

  • Villanova University (PA)
  • AASHE (PA)
  • Project Drawdown (CA)
  • Solutions Journalism Network (NY)

Project Drawdown and the Solutions Journalism Network are partnering to offer a webinar for AASHE educators and staff who want to shift the conversation about climate change away from gloom ...

  • Posted Jan. 13, 2022
  • Videos & Webinars
  • View more

Launching the Emerging Environmental Leaders (EELs) Program in Minnesota

  • University of Minnesota, Morris (MN)
  • University of Minnesota, Twin Cities (MN)

University of Minnesota campuses (Twin Cities and Morris) collaborated with the State of Minnesota to launch the Emerging Environmental Leaders (EELs) program in the spring of 2021. The program brought ...


Introducing a Climate Anxiety Toolkit and Generating Insights from a Co-Evaluation Process

  • AASHE (PA)
  • University of Technology Sydney

In this webinar, the presenters will introduce a recently developed climate toolkit as well as conduct a co-evaluation process of the resource with participants. The webinar will draw on insights ...

  • Posted Nov. 18, 2021
  • Videos & Webinars
  • View more

University of Michigan Carbon Neutral Power and Heat Infrastructure Study: Summary Report

  • University of Michigan (MI)

This report was compiled during the academic year of 2019-2020 for the University of Michigan (U-M) President's Commission on Carbon Neutrality by the Integral Group, an external firm selected ...

  • Posted Nov. 17, 2021
  • Publications
  • View more

The University of Michigan Building Efficiency Studies

  • University of Michigan (MI)

This report was compiled during the academic year of 2019-2020 and 2020 - 2021 for the University of Michigan (U-M) President's Commission on Carbon Neutrality by SmithGroup Inc., an external ...

  • Posted Nov. 17, 2021
  • Publications
  • View more

This tab provides access to data collected through AASHE’s Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System™ (STARS). STARS is a transparent, self-reporting framework for colleges and universities to measure their sustainability performance. STARS enables meaningful comparisons over time and across institutions using a common set of measurements developed with broad participation from the campus sustainability community.

All responses reference content from reports under the latest version of STARS, version 2.2. AASHE membership and log-in is required.

OP 1: Emissions Inventory & Disclosure

OP 2: Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Additional analysis on scores and quantitative fields can be conducted using the STARS Benchmarking Tool.

Air & Climate Partners