Tufts University
PRE-2: Points of Distinction

In 2021, the third iteration of the Tufts Sustainability Council was formed with the goal of drafting an updated vision for Tufts sustainability efforts over the next several years. The council, which is made up of students, staff, and faculty with experience and expertise in climate change and sustainability, met monthly to draft a vision, key principles, and high-level goals for sustainability at Tufts. These goals foster interdisciplinary solutions to address the climate crisis and social inequities within three focus areas: Governance, Academics & Scholarship, and Operations. The Tufts Office of Sustainability is gathering community feedback in the summer of 2022 that will be integrated into the final university-wide sustainability goals. More information can be found at: go.tufts.edu/sustcouncil

A sustainable society is one in which all members feel safe, included, have a say in decisions that impact them, and in which prosperity is shared between the current and future generations. An unjust society is not a sustainable society. Tufts is committed to sustainability in all its forms and we strive to consider all aspects of sustainability in our decision making, including not only the environment, but society and the economy as well. Specifically, the university has pursued the UN Sustainable Development Goal to reduce inequality. In 2020, Tufts University announced a new strategic initiative to make Tufts university an Anti-Racist Institution by finding and eradicating structural racism within the institution and taking steps to become an anti-racist institution. This initiative included five workstreams focused on different aspects of our academic and administrative enterprise: Campus Safety and Policing, Compositional Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, Institutional Audit and Targeted Actions, Public Art. Each workstream collaborated with stakeholders across the university to create representative working groups of community members, which then made over 180 recommendations to the president at the end of 2020.

Additionally, in 2021, Tufts announced the formation of another working group to more closely examine the issue of arming Tufts’ police officers. To improve well-being and safety for people of color on and around campus, university leaders are working on implementing recommendations that include increasing the use of non-sworn personnel and mental health professionals for situations that do not require armed police officers to respond. These actions are taken with the intention of creating a community where all members feel safe and included in decision-making.

At Tufts we focus on sustainability in broader terms than just the environment, and that includes assisting the regions in which our campuses are physically located in their efforts to sustain a healthy, vibrant communities. Facing region-wide stressors such as climate change or pandemics together allows both the university and its surrounding communities to better cope with these and other crises.

For example, with the onset of COVID-19, Tufts University provided housing for local healthcare workers to reduce exposure to their families, piloted testing programs that allowed public schools in the area to return safely to in-person learning, and provided funding to research the spread of the pandemic, among other initiatives. Tufts held a community-focused approach to fighting the pandemic that helped the cities reduce inequalities in testing and care in their communities.