Reduce, Reuse, Research?

In July 2008, University President Drew G. Faust declared her intention to bring Harvard to the forefront of a global sustainability push.

Her commitment was twofold—reduce Harvard’s own greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent from 2006 baseline levels within the next decade and peg sustainability as a research and teaching priority.

But two years later, the once-heralded banners emblazoned with “Green is the New Crimson” now go unnoticed in Harvard Yard, and faculty and students worry that Harvard’s efforts thus far will only have a limited impact in leading the fight against climate change.

As of this April, Harvard had reduced its emissions to 7 percent below 2006 levels, well on its way to the 30 percent goal.

But due to varying starting points and resource constraints, Harvard has seen uneven progress across its schools, with Harvard Business School boasting a 27 percent reduction and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences reporting a 1 percent growth in emissions.

At the same time, environmental leaders on campus have expressed concerns that the University has not reached its potential as a top research institution in encouraging sustainability around the world, given that Harvard’s efforts can serve as a symbolic call to action.

“We’ve taken some steps within our physical infrastructure to lead by example,” says Craig S. Altemose, a member of the Greenhouse Gas Task Force that drafted Harvard’s sustainability goals. “But in terms of really teaching our students what is at stake with climate and giving them the tools they need to survive in that world, we’re not doing enough.”

A LIMITED PLAN

Beyond Harvard’s efforts to green its own campus, several faculty members and students argue that the University’s role in fostering a life-long commitment to sustainability among Harvard students will have a more far-reaching impact than reducing greenhouse gas emissions in labs and offices.

“We can make greater contributions to dealing with these problems by education rather than worrying about our own emissions,” says Harvard School of Public Health professor James K. Hammitt ’78. “We have all these students coming through, if they learn certain habits that could have a pretty big effect through their lifetime, they could make an influence throughout their lives.”

Given Harvard’s position as a leading academic institution with a global reach, Altemose adds that Harvard should focus on its larger sustainability research and policy initiatives.

“I don’t think anyone thinks of Harvard as a place with buildings and facilities,” says Altemose, who is a joint student at Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Law School. “They think of it as a place for learning and ideas.”

Already, Harvard has seen the growth of several programs designed to encourage sustainability research.

“We educate individuals for environmental leadership at every level and have faculty involved in a wide range of related research in schools across the university,” Faust says.

For example, faculty and students at the Harvard Graduate School of Design have experimented with methods of green roof retrofitting on their own building, Gund Hall. The Law School and Kennedy School each boast green academic programs, such as an environmental law clinic and a sustainability science program.

And several Harvard professors—such as Kennedy School professor John P. Holdren, now President Barack Obama’s science advisor—have already been recruited to shape American energy policy.

“What we actually do on our campus has just a small impact,” says environmental science and engineering professor Daniel P. Schrag, who is also the director of the Harvard University Center for the Environment. “The real impact we have is our impact on our students, who go on to become leaders in businesses and government.”

DIFFERENT PRISMS

Ultimately, Harvard’s campus sustainability efforts will serve more as a symbolic declaration of the University’s commitment than as a practical contribution in addressing climate change, Schrag says.

But he adds that critics of Harvard’s sustainability efforts acknowledge that Harvard must back up its dedication to environmental research and policy with action on campus.

“It’s exactly what Harvard should do because we should be leading people through practice,” Schrag says.

Harvard’s central Office for Sustainability—created in 2008 to coordinate campus sustainability efforts—has been tasked with helping each school meet Faust’s 30 percent goal, but the schools’ individual needs and resources limitations have resulted in varying degrees of progress.

“The Business School would just have to change a setting on a pump to make it more efficient,” Law School’s facilities management director John Arciprete says regarding the difficulties of greening the 1950s-era Law School buildings. “We would have to buy a whole new pump.”

For FAS, the addition of five new buildings since 2006, which included energy-intensive lab space, account for half its utilities costs and increased its greenhouse gas emissions by one percent, according to FAS Director of Operations Jay M. Phillips.

And diverging financial constraints at each school limit green renovation or costly sustainability efforts.

For example, the Graduate School of Design, which receives 41 percent of its revenue from endowment income, has had to dramatically cut back on planned renovations—such as replacing the large windows in the studio area of Gund Hall—after this year’s endowment payout declined by 8 percent from the previous year, according to W. Kevin Cahill, the school’s facilities manager.

“We’re realizing you don’t try to squeeze everybody through the same prism,” says Harvard Business School Professor Robert Steven Kaplan, who chairs the Office for Sustainability’s executive committee. “Everybody had to get sensitized to what can and can’t get done.”

Despite the challenges some of the schools currently face, OFS Director Heather A. Henriksen says she remains confident that the University will reach its 30 percent reduction goal by 2016.

But the larger question is not whether the University will meet its 2016 target levels of greenhouse gas emissions, but whether Harvard will be able to continue to push sustainability as a global priority and lead by example.

OFS’ own approach to targeting a 30 percent reduction in emission levels can serve as a model for other schools and businesses, Kaplan says.

“It’s an aggressive goal that we may not meet, but it’s wonderful to try,” Schrag says.

—Staff writer Stephanie B. Garlock can be reached at sgarlock@college.harvard.edu.