University of Notre Dame
PAE-2: Strategic Plan

Notre Dame’s most recent comprehensive strategic plan, was presented to the Board of Trustees in May 2012. The plan includes the University's goal to intertwine the environmental and social issues related to sustainability with its mission as a Catholic University. Relevant commitments include:

- As campus evolves due to new construction, particularly to accommodate our growing research enterprise, we will follow a master planning philosophy that preserves the integrity, beauty, and heritage of our built and natural landscapes.
- Consistent with our Catholic mission, we have founded an Office of Sustainability and adopted goals to reduce our carbon footprint by 50 percent (from 2005 levels) by 2030 and to increase the University’s landfill diversion rate to 50 percent of total waste by 2016 (67 percent by 2030).

Included within the plan is the University’s goal to intertwine the environmental and social issues related to sustainability with its mission as a Catholic University. The social dimensions of sustainability are included in the following excerpts:

- Supporting meaningful professional development opportunities for Notre Dame administrators and staff is an important component of both our success as an institution and our obligation as a responsible employer.
- Just as we seek to attract outstanding students and faculty, we also want to be an employer of choice for talented professionals, an aspiration that can only be realized if our staff are of diverse backgrounds and experiences. Our efforts to hire women, individuals from underrepresented minorities, and people from other countries will therefore continue to be enhanced, and we will place renewed emphasis on internal retention and promotion.

The University’s plan also acknowledges a sense of stewardship to property, financial resources, and future generations. Relevant excerpts include:

- The University’s longstanding policies of prudent fiscal management have been instrumental in successfully weathering the last several years of financial turmoil. Achieving stellar performance in our endowment is an ongoing priority that requires investment in talent, thoughtful consideration of the national and international markets, and appropriate approaches to risk.
- Recent investments have strengthened our ability to undertake process improvement efforts—such as offering training in the analytical and methodological approaches that mirror industry best practices—and we expect these initiatives to yield further gains in efficiency.