Emory University
IN-3: Innovation 3

In December of 2011, Emory University adopted and began implementation of its official enterprise-wide Climate Action Plan (CAP). Typical of other university Climate Action Plans, it lays out a large number of recommended operational actions and goals, the responsibility of which rests heavily on the operations staff of the campus and its facilities. However, an atypical distinction in Emory’s plan is not only the hefty inclusion of academic and research involvement in greenhouse gas emissions reductions at Emory, but the specific requirement that each of Emory University’s nine academic units convene a Dean-appointed Climate Action Plan committee to draft and implement its own unit-specific CAP. This innovative approach provides each unit with the opportunity to tailor the University’s goals to its own operations and academics, highlighting the uniqueness and autonomy of each school, and the corresponding unique and autonomous methods they can utilize to reduce GHG emissions from their own operations and behaviors. This approach also allows units to protect practices that are required for the output of quality research and findings expected of them, and to make up for the GHG emissions resulting from those protected practices in other ways. Some illustrations of how the creation of individual academic unit CAPs has greatly diversified Emory’s approach to GHG emissions reduction can be seen in the way that the Candler School of Theology weaves spirituality and Creation theory into its commitments; or the way the School of Medicine acknowledges its particularly heavy after-hours facility useage; and in the way that the School of Public Health maintains its need to encourage oversees travel for research and practical experience, and aims to make up for these emissions through aggressive energy conservation measures on campus.
Emory’s academic unit CAPs were written and finalized in 2013-2014, and begin their implementation with a sense of purpose and identity that sets them apart from the Emory-wide plan, yet integrates them into the fold just the same.