Collaborative Climate Action Plan Development: The Duke Endowment and Furman University Sponsor CAP Workshop
By Angela Halfacre, Director of Sustainability and Associate Professor of Political Science, Furman University
(For more information about the Climate Action Plan Workshop at Furman, including the agenda, Powerpoint presentations, and impressions of participants, go to http://www.furman.edu/sustain/capworkshop.htm.)
Are you feeling overwhelmed by the challenges of creating a Climate Action Plan (CAP)? Are you frustrated by the difficulties of galvanizing a campus behind the Presidents' Climate Commitment? Are you eager to learn from the efforts of others? The need to address these and other questions prompted The James B. Duke Endowment and Furman University to co-sponsor a CAP workshop in January 2009. The primary goal was to nurture collaboration, inspire creativity, and wrestle with CAP-related questions common to all campuses, and ultimately to create a CAP template for each school. Teams from four colleges that are annual beneficiaries of The Duke Endowment—Davidson College, Duke University, Furman University, and Johnson C. Smith University—converged at Furman's campus in Greenville, South Carolina. They were joined by representatives from Cornell University, Middlebury College, Pomona College, and the University of New Hampshire (UNH), along with staff members from Clean Air-Cool Planet.
As Furman president David E. Shi said in welcoming the group of faculty, staff, students, trustees, and community members, "one of the sustainability movement's greatest opportunities is to break down traditional barriers between competing institutions and forge enriching partnerships to promote energy conservation and environmental stewardship." We need to be working together, sharing ideas and plans, to simplify the process of developing CAPs and to address many lingering questions:
- How do we ensure that the plan is dynamic and will accommodate unexpected challenges, opportunities, technologies and funding opportunities?
- How do we integrate the CAP into the strategic plan, budgeting process, and fundraising campaigns?
- How do we ensure that the CAP survives changes in presidents, provosts, and trustees?
- How can a campus best and effectively collaborate with its local community?
- How do we go about establishing a target date for carbon neutrality?
- What are carbon offsets, what is the range of carbon offsets (from local to global), and why are carbon offsets so confusing?
Workshop Design
DAY ONE
Jennifer Andrews, from Clean Air-Cool Planet, presented the keynote address that stimulated a discussion of shared issues and concerns. Representatives from Cornell, Middlebury, Pomona, and UNH then shared lessons learned from their own campus experiences including an overview of a CAP model (Jack Byrne, Middlebury College); sustainability program and climate planning process (Brett Pasinella, University of New Hampshire); student involvement models (Bowen Patterson, Pomona College); and publicizing and collaboration on campus and in the broader community (Dean Koyanagi, Cornell University).
The representatives from Cornell, Middlebury, Pomona, and UNH then served as facilitators for subsequent workshop sessions, in which the faculty/staff/student teams from the four Duke Endowment institutions were joined by representatives from The Duke Endowment, Furman trustees and alumni leaders, and Greenville, SC community members. After the presentations, the approximately 65 participants in the workshop conducted a walk-around charrette exercise. Smaller groups discussed specific elements of a campus CAP: energy conservation-behavior, energy conservation-infrastructure, renewable energy options, transportation, carbon offsets and sequestration.
DAY TWO
With moderators Jack Byrne (Middlebury College) and Angela Halfacre (Furman University), the participants divided into small groups and visited different "conversation stations" set up around the conference center. They addressed the following topics: energy conservation-behavior; energy conservation-infrastructure; transportation; renewable energy; curriculum; co-curriculum; offsets and sequestration; neutrality target dates and 'burning questions'. Groups rotated through each of the topic areas and built upon the previous group's contributions, with discussions focusing on specific project ideas, time lines, information gaps, projected costs and funding/financing opportunities, potential GHG reductions, campus community behavior modification, research opportunities, positive and negative social impacts, positive and negative environmental impact, and opportunities for collaboration. In the workshop's final plenary session, participants from all eight colleges (presenters and participants) engaged in a lively dialogue about common questions, missing information, and next steps.
DAY THREE
At a post-workshop meeting, members of Furman's Sustainability Planning Council met to compile information, distill key learning points, timeline and task goals and assignments, and develop desired outcomes.
The Big Picture
None of the schools completed their CAP over the course of the two-day workshop. The primary mission of the workshop was to develop a meaty outline for each campus's CAP, and to begin grappling with possible alternatives, scenarios, and strategies for each possible approach. While complete plans were not drafted, those data and resources needed to develop a plan were defined, and probable initiatives were vetted.
Post-workshop, presenters were asked to share their thoughts about the experience at Furman. Here are examples of reactions:
What was most useful about the CAP workshop at Furman University from your perspectives an ACUPCC Implementation Liaison?
I was struck by how quickly a diverse group of people got a handle on what challenges they shared in common, and what was unique about each of their institutions. That set the stage for some deeper dialogue about how to go forward together - and what each institution might have to teach the others as they go further in their climate action planning and implementation. In a collaborative effort like this one, people usually develop some new language and some new tools for working together. That happened with the participants at this workshop and those two things alone helped assure that the momentum to collaborate will build.—Jack Byrne, Middlebury College
It was valuable to see another similar institution go through the planning process, since we've taken such a different approach. It was in a way validating to see that, despite differences in the approach and in some characteristics of the school (climate, region, utility relationships, etc.) that many of the same issues and questions are arising, and that together we can work through the hurdles.—Bowen Patterson, Pomona College
What was most innovative about the CAP workshop at Furman University from your perspective as implementation Liaisons for the PCC?
What a great concept to bring representatives from other institutions, with different approaches and a variety of backgrounds, yet all very knowledgeable about what is working, and not working, at their institutions. Hopefully the results of workshops like these will be a much quicker dissemination of ideas, and allow the host schools to advance their climate neutrality plans with greater confidence in what steps will work best for them. – Dean Koyanagi, Cornell University
It was really valuable and rejuvenating to have a variety of schools together to work on this particular school's plan. Most institutions don't get to wrangle sustainability professionals from other schools to work on their plan (yes, I'm jealous)! I think it's also fairly rare to have so much time dedicated to working on the plan. Furman accomplished more in three days than we've done in months, because the important stakeholders were gathered together to work on it.– Bowen Patterson, Pomona College
