Skidmore College
PA-2: Sustainability Planning

As stated in the Campus Sustainability Plan, we aim to increase course offerings that incorporate sustainability. We continue to measure and track progress toward this goal.

Skidmore plans to develop a sustainability literacy survey to assess and track community understanding of sustainability issues.

Goal: To make sustainability an essential feature of Skidmore's identity and a value that is integrated into all aspects of the College.

The College plans to administer a sustainability literacy test to track and analyze our progress toward this goal. The sustainability literacy test is forthcoming. We plan to administer the test broadly among the Skidmore and Saratoga Springs community, and we aim for a measurable increase in sustainability literacy over time. We continuously track community engagement in sustainability through campus programs, event attendance, volunteerism, and more.

As indicated in other sections of this STARS report, we also survey our campus community to measure awareness, comprehension, and involvement in specific campus sustainability initiatives. Topics include Skidmore's Zero-Sort recycling program, composting program, sustainable food literacy, bike share utilization, and more. The results of these annual surveys inform future programming efforts and are intended to improve the effectiveness of each initiative.

Skidmore's sustainability team also offers over 30 campus tours and lectures a year to students, staff, and faculty from departments across the college to educate and enage the community in the College's sustainability efforts.

Campus Sustainability Plan
Energy
1. 60% of our electricity from renewable energy by 2025.
2. 60% of our heating and cooling from renewable energy by 2025.
3. 75% reduction in scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions by 2025
4. 60% reduction in energy use for heating and cooling per student and square foot by 2025
5. Maintain electricity use per student and square foot
Food
1. 25% sustainable food in dining services by 2025
Waste
1. 60% diversion rate in in routine operations by 2025
2. 50% diversion rate for special projects by 2025
Lands and Grounds
1. Create a compreshensive lands management plan for our lands and grounds

CREATING PATHWAYS TO EXCELLENCE:
THE PLAN FOR SKIDMORE COLLEGE 2015–2025
https://www.skidmore.edu/planning/2025/StrategicPlan-CPE-15.5-final.pdf

PRIORITY INITIATIVES in support of GOAL III: Well‐being
- Develop additional institutional capacity and programming to make Skidmore a
truly creative and inclusive community, such that other schools look to Skidmore
as a model.
- Develop an institutional Diversity and Inclusion Plan to guide college wide work toward achieving inclusive excellence.
- Increase professional development opportunities for members of the College
staff.
- Increase communitywide opportunities for all members of the College
community to engage in meaningful dialogue and explore different frameworks of analysis with the goal of achieving mutual understanding.
- Continue to support the Pilot Staff Advisory Group
- Create new opportunities to foster practices that enhance the wellness and well‐being of all community members.
- Monitor and, as needed, make changes to ensure that the College benefits
package for employees makes health and wellness a more prominent objective; incorporate wellness assistance and incentives into health insurance.
- To promote strategic alignment of well‐being initiatives across College divisions, convene a group of campus leaders to form a well‐being collaborative to plan, seek funding for, and implement a comprehensive plan to promote campus wide well‐being (e.g. explore ways to increase effectiveness of the campus Smoking Policy and determine whether to make Skidmore a smoke‐free environment).
- Enhance opportunities for members of the campus community —- most especially
students but also members ofthe faculty and staff —- to pursue activities relating to physical fitness and overall health.
- Holistically address sexual and gender‐based misconduct through implementation of an inclusive public health approach that involves all campus
constituencies.
- Develop new ways to leverage the relationship between campus athletic facilities, the health of students and employees, and the success of our student–athletes who participate in intercollegiate athletics.
- Continue fundraising to implement initial stages of the Athletics Facilities Plan Boathouse for the Crew Program, and expanded locker rooms, weightlifting area, cardio‐fitness center, and tennis facility.

Recognizing environmental limits, and sharing the ethic that present actions should not "compromise the ability of future generations to meet their own needs,"* the Skidmore College community embraces both the concept and the holistic, lived practice of sustainability. We endeavor to enact environmentally responsible practices, grounded in economic and social equity, and through our actions to have a positive impact on our community and our planet.

Skidmore's primary mission is education, and the College's greatest impacts and achievements will be realized as consequences of the lives our graduates lead. As part of an ever-growing population on a finite planet, we are confronted with an increasingly urgent need to address the resulting environmental constraints and social challenges. Institutional adoption of sustainable practices, informed by an understanding of the complex, interconnected nature of living systems and their physical environment, provides the opportunity for each Skidmore community member to become educated, personally involved in addressing these challenges, and empowered with techniques and strategies that they might apply to make positive changes beyond Skidmore.

We invite Skidmore community members to engage in mindful consideration of their individual and collective ecological, economic and social impacts, to examine their values, and to collaborate in demonstrating their values and principles through action. Teaching, learning and living in accordance with the tenet of sustainability fosters broad education and civic engagement of our community members, and prepares our students to be informed, active citizens and leaders in realizing sustainable futures. The health and wellbeing of future generations is dependent upon their success.
*Brundtland Commission