Higher education has started to mobilize against climate change as colleges across the nation have published their plans to reduce carbon emissions. Cornell’s Climate Action Plan, released on Sept. 15, has been lauded on campus and off for its robustness and community outreach.

What makes Cornell’s plan special, according to Jennifer Andrews of Clean Air Cool Planet, is the process that Cornell went through to create the plan. Andrews called the outreach process “very unique and impressive” compared to those of other programs. “My impression was that it was very carefully thought out and that the process was thorough,” Andrews said.

Cornell’s Climate Action Plan uses academics, research and outreach to address green development, energy conservation, renewable energy, transportation and carbon offsets, according to the Cornell Sustainable Campus website. President David Skorton signed the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment (ACUPCC) in 2007, which was the impetus for the President’s Climate Commitment Implementation Committee to create the Climate Action Plan.

Cornell solicited feedback via SurveyMonkey from nearly a thousand members of the Ithaca and Cornell community. In addition, the University held multiple community meetings with more than 150 attendees, said Prof. Tim Fahey, natural resources, co-chair of Skorton’s Climate Commitment Implementation Committee.

“Normally, if you want to get feedback from the community, you don’t do it as actively as we did. We did it actively ... because a lot of actions needed to reduce carbon footprint involve individual behavior. And some of the things we’re going to be recommending will impinge on people’s day-to-day lifestyle,” Fahey said. “People are going to have to sacrifice and people don’t want to sacrifice, so it has to be made clear why this is necessary.” Fahey said that sacrifices would include riding the bus to Cornell instead of single-occupant vehicles.

Andrews also used Cornell’s process as an example for other post-secondary institutions that want to start the process to create their own Climate Action Plan.

“I pointed to a lot of their outreach and communications materials as examples to other universities and colleges to say, ‘here’s how you involve people and make it a collaborative process’ — to say, ‘here’s what you can do and how to get involved,’” Andrews said. “Cornell itself is a great example of [a] concentrated effort and [a] collaborative one.”

Cornell is “setting the bar” for other universities, according to Georges Dyer, senior fellow at Second Nature.

The ACUPCC has 661 signatories besides Cornell. The goal of signing the climate commitment is 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.”

Although over a hundred institutions have added their climate action plans to the ACUPCC online database, the thoroughness of Cornell’s plan seems to be unmatched by many of the other signatories.

“Cornell is in a handful of top echelon schools that have done this and done this right,” Andrews said.

Bert Bland, director of Cornell’s Environmental Compliance and Sustainability Office, reviewed some of the climate action plans online and found that Cornell’s plan superseded many others in terms of the amount and quality of the initiatives. “When I compare us to other campuses, I think we’ve done a fine job. I think our plan is one of the better and more comprehensive plans,” Bland said.

One of the central components of Cornell’s plan is the reduction of emissions on campus.

“We’re going to produce about 85 percent of the electricity demanded on campus. Instead of buying 85 percent we’ll be buying 15 percent in a more efficient manner than the generating stations and the electric grid do. We’re about doubling efficiency,” Bland said.

One of the ways in which many universities are becoming more climate-friendly is by buying carbon offsets, which offset carbon emissions through renewable energy and carbon-reducing projects.

“The energy conservation strategy really will be quite cost effective in the sense that it’s not necessarily capital intensive. It might be … reducing resources consumed in existing space,” said Lea Lupkin of the Sustainable Endowments Institute. “Smart grid technology will be a more expensive endeavor because the technology is still in development. However, it’s a very cutting edge technology to be invested in. All the other niches will actually save the University money.”

Lupkin also noted that Cornell’s transportation plan did not include a bike sharing program, like 152 out of 332 universities rated in sustainability by the SEI.

“We’ve seen a large increase in the number of bike sharing programs on campus. … Those are really popular, bike sharing and bike repair services, that’s one program that they could have to commute via an alternative method,” Lupkin said.

“They don’t talk about specific prices or anything in regards to carbon offsets,” Lupkin said. “Maybe they’re waiting to see how much they can reduce on campus before purchasing offsets.”

Lupkin also noted that “Cornell has done a good job of prioritizing actions that will have a lot of bang for the buck.”

Niles Barnes of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education also praised Cornell’s plan.

“Cornell did many things right: strong leadership and support from top campus leaders, involved diverse campus stakeholders, and made the process, analysis and creation of the plan a transparent process. The important ingredients to include … are present in Cornell’s CAP,” Barnes stated in an e-mail.

All universities signing the Climate Commitment must commit to setting both milestones and a target date to become carbon neutral. Cornell hopes to accomplish its goal of carbon neutrality by 2050.

The 2050 goal “isn’t necessarily in line with what how quickly scientists tell us we need to meet ambitious targets in order to reduce the likelihood of very problematic impact,” Andrews said. “I think 2050 goal is a placeholder goal and a way to get the process moving and hold institutions accountable. It’s commendable to the extent that it does that, [but] it’s not the most ambitious [goal] out there.”

Dyer believes that the 2050 goal will actually be achieved sooner.

“As society begins to take this issue on in a way that higher education is really leading in many ways, a lot of the climate neutrality dates will actually be achieved sooner than people think,” Dyer said.

The plan faces eclectic challenges in its early stages. “Part of our challenge now is to go out and identify the funding,” Bland said.

Across the country, “more top level administrators starting to see this really as a strategic imperative for their institutions,” Dyer said.

Andrews also thought that the general conversation about sustainability needs has minimized the importance of research.

“The role research plays has been a little bit undervalued in the conversation. There’s a real opportunity for Cornell to lead in that conversation which is certainly started but hasn’t risen to the same visible level as the operational sustainability has,” Andrews said.