Penn to announce new sustainability plan

Penn will announce a plan this week to increase the University’s sustainability efforts in several areas, including academics, waste minimization and transportation.

Penn President Amy Gutmann plans to announce Penn’s Climate Action Plan 2.0 on Tuesday, which will build on the progress Penn has made after its first Climate Action Plan was announced in 2009.

In 2007, Gutmann became the first Ivy League president to sign the American College and University President’s Climate Commitment, which committed Penn to both develop plans for significant reductions of greenhouse gasses and promote general sustainability on campus. As a part of this pledge, Penn created the Environmental Sustainability Advisory Committee, which drafted the first Climate Action Plan, a comprehensive list of the strategies the University would undertake to accomplish its sustainability and emission goals.

As of 2011, when Penn released a progress report on the first Climate Action Plan, the University had increased academic awareness of greenhouse gasses through 160 classes related to environmental sustainability. The campus recycling rate had also increased from 21 percent in 2008 to 31 percent in 2011. However, the report indicated that Penn had not reached its goal of reducing carbon emissions: In the 2011 fiscal year, which lasted from July 1, 2010 to June 30, 2011, Penn’s carbon emissions were 1.4 percent higher than in FY 2007, a fact the report attributed to recent building additions.

As of early October 2014, 11 buildings or areas at Penn — the most recent of which are Krishna P. Singh Center for Nanotechnology and the Wharton School’s Steinberg-Dietrich Hall West Tower Entrance addition — have received LEED Certification for emphasizing sustainability.

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