Overall Rating Gold - expired
Overall Score 66.13
Liaison Brandon Trelstad
Submission Date Jan. 31, 2011
Executive Letter Download

STARS v1.0

Oregon State University
PAE-5: Climate Plan

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 2.00 / 2.00 Bo Bestvina
Sustainability Program Evaluator
Facilities
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

Does the institution have a plan to mitigate its greenhouse gas emissions that meets the criteria for this credit?:
Yes

A brief summary of the climate plan’s long-term goals:

By signing the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment (ACUPCC), OSU has committed to the long-term goal of achieving climate neutrality. The goal of OSU's Climate Plan is to achieve climate neutrality by 2025.

By 2020, OSU plans to achieve net greenhouse gas emissions at least 75 percent below 1990 levels, which would allow for 2025 goals to be practical. These long-term goals first require substantial infrastructure changes, including:
1)conservation and efficiency projects
2)site renewable energy installations
3)carbon offsets, renewable energy certificate purchases, and other off‐site measures.

The Climate plan offers a comprehensive analysis of emission reduction and mitigation strategies in each of the major emission sources (scope one). These sources include air travel, stationary sources, electricity, ground transportation, agriculture, solid waste, refrigerants, and other emissions sources not included in the ACUPCC, such as construction related emissions.

The Climate Plan also contains recommendations for revisions of future policies related to emissions in regards to lighting, building temperature set‐points, computer power management settings, transportation and other areas. The plan has a section dedicated to education and engagement. Infrastructure and operations are direct sources of emissions, but OSU recognizes the importance of educating students about climate change and sustainability.


A brief summary of the climate plan’s short-term goals:

An immediate goal of the Climate Plan is to arrest the growth of greenhouse gas emissions and begin to reduce emissions. By 2012, OSU should achieve net greenhouse gas emissions at least 10 percent below 1990 levels. This means that by 2012, OSU must not exceed an emissions rate of 99,857 t CO2e (as stated in the Climate plan and as mandated by the State of Oregon).

Specific short-term goals for emissions levels of each source include reducing emissions from agriculture to below 2,150 t CO2e by 2012.

The plan offers a financial analysis of the costs/savings aspects of efficiency/conservation projects, installation of a solar array (which could supply OSU with 20 percent of its power demand), and of renewable energy certificates.
This analysis illustrates initial investment costs (along with short-term and long-term savings), and it is evident from the analysis that incentives for energy reductions, renewables, and offsets make these measures cost effective in the short-term and long-term.


Year the climate plan was formally adopted or approved:
2,009

The website URL where information about the climate plan is available:
Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
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