What is this race?
Winning the Race Together is Middlebury’s campaign for the implementation of carbon neutrality. Success in reducing carbon emissions on campus will require collaboration and energy from the administration, departments, and individuals. To coordinate these efforts three implementation teams have been created, each chaired by a member of the President’s staff.
Climate change poses a great threat to our planet. By reducing carbon dioxide emissions on campus, we will limit our own contributions to this problem, and we hope to inspire others to do the same.
What does the racecourse look like?
Middlebury’s carbon footprint in 2008 amounted to 30,000 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents. We count emissions from five sources: heating and cooling, electricity, college owned vehicles, landfill waste, and college funded travel. The addition of the biomass gasification plant reduces our footprint by 40%, bringing it down to 17,500 tonnes. Over the next seven years we will need to make great strides in further reducing CO2 emissions from all our sources.
Reducing CO2 emissions also saves money. In 2008 the College spent $8.4 million on energy resources to run the campus. While electricity and travel are small percentages of our carbon footprint, they represent a much higher percentage of the cost of our footprint. Small reductions in carbon can result in big monetary savings, freeing up money for other uses.
How do we win together?
Winning the race together requires a shift in how we use energy and resources on campus. In 2008 the MiddShift Implementation Working Group, a team of sixteen people from all major departments, developed the plan “Winning the Race Together: Achieving Carbon Neutrality by 2016”. This plan emphasizes the need for institutional commitments coupled with participation from individuals and departments.
At Middlebury we can reduce carbon emissions through conservation, efficiency, renewables, and offsets. There is no one-size-fits-all solution to climate change. We need to be creative and flexible in finding and applying solutions described in the report. We also need to look for new opportunities in order to move toward our goal.