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Creating an Institutional Structure for Your Climate Action Plan

Feb 6 2009
Submitted by Niles Barnes on February 6, 2009 - 3:05pm

 This is the third Guest Blog from Walter Simpson,CEM, LEED AP, retired 26-year University at Buffalo Energy Officer and Director of UB Green. Walter will be posting blogs weekly that provide guidance on preparing a comprehensive Climate Action Plan to assist signatories of the American College & University Presidents Climate Commitment. We encourage readers to post comments and questions for Walter.  Read Walter's other weekly blogshereand here. Walter Simpson
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Hello Campus Climateers! ** 

This week’s climate action plan (CAP) blog will address creating a CAP team and structure – a very important undertaking. This means identifying participants and establishing one or more committees or working groups – necessarily working with the full blessing, support, and involvement of top campus leadership.
 
Who are the people, offices, and constituencies that need a seat at the table or should be included in some way? Here is a possible list:
  • President’s Office
  • Vice presidents’ offices including chief academic and business offices, VP for student affairs, VP for research, etc.
  • Key operations offices including facilities management, purchasing, transportation, public relations, etc.
  • Energy officer or manager
  • Sustainability director and staff
  • Campus environmental/sustainability committee or task force
  • Faculty and staff senates
  • Faculty experts
  • Student government(s)
  • Student environmental clubs
  • Key community experts and representatives
While it’s a good idea to invite all interested and relevant parties to the table, they probably will not all fit around the same table! That means a committee structure with various sub-committees or working groups. Here is a possible organizational structure:
 
CAP Steering Committee – This committee leads the effort and reports to your campus president and chief academic and business officers. It is responsible for overall CAP development, coordination, analysis, goal setting, and preparation along with supervision of subcommittees. The steering committee would include your campus’ lead energy and environmental staff, representatives from your campus sustainability committee, faculty experts, key student reps, your campus facilities director, and representatives from key business and academic units on campus. 
 
The chair of the steering committee might be a prestigious faculty member (with release time) or your sustainability director. Whoever it is should be enthusiastically committed to climate neutrality, be engaging, well-liked and able to motivate others and build a team effort, and have good relations with your campus president and a direct line to him or her.
 
CAP subcommittees -- These could be broken down along these lines:  
  • Greenhouse gas inventory
  • Energy
  • Transportation
  • Solid Waster, Purchasing, and Food
  • Academic and Research
  • Communications
 
While all of the sub-committees have important assignments, the energy committee in particular has some heavy lifting to do. To accomplish its task, it might make sense for that sub-committee to create and manage individual working groups for each area  --energy conservation, on-site renewables, green power purchasing, new construction/green design, CFCs, carbon offsets, etc. The energy sub-committee may be heavily comprised of facilities staff members who are responsible for campus energy systems and have expertise in the areas of concern. 
 
As one of its first acts, the CAP Steering Committee -- with full involvement from sub-committee members – could conduct a kick-off workshop or “charrette” to review the ACUPCC charge, assign sub-committee and individual responsibilities, and conduct a SWOT analysis to identify institutional Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats that will help or hinder the CAP planning process and eventual achievement of climate neutrality. To learn more about SWOT analyses, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SWOT_analysis. 
 
It’s important that the CAP process be viewed as meaningful and effective public service and as open, collaborative, and fun Kick-off events must set the right tone.
 
Most campuses already have a proliferation of committees and meetings – so there is something to be said for economizing on the creation of new committees. Maybe existing committees can be assigned responsibility for some of the CAP tasks. 
 
Do you need a consultant? Maybe – it depends on your internal organizational capacity and expertise as well as other factors. Even if your college or university is fully capable of developing a CAP on its own, it still may make sense to hire an expert consultant to increase the likelihood of developing the best possible plan in a timely fashion. 
 
If you would like to see a list of criteria to use when hiring a CAP consultant, please drop me an e-mail.
 
‘till next week climateers!
 
Walter Simpson
Walter Simpson, CEM, LEED AP, retired 26 year University at Buffalo Energy Officer and director of UB Green, is working with AASHE and the American College & University President’s Commitment to develop a climate action plan wiki.