Dear Tulane Community,
As we prepare to commemorate Earth Day, we want to provide an update on the university’s ongoing progress in reducing our carbon footprint and creating a more sustainable future.
As a major research university located within one of the world’s most significant ecosystems, we deeply understand the urgency and importance of taking meaningful actions to become more energy efficient and more sustainable throughout our operations. That’s why Tulane made a commitment in 2014 to reduce our overall emissions by 30% by 2025 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.
Each year, the Tulane University Office of Sustainability compiles a Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Inventory to measure the university’s annual greenhouse gas emissions and track our progress toward meeting our carbon emissions reduction goals. The 2014 Tulane Climate Action Plan aimed to reduce GHG emissions by 15% of 2007’s emissions baseline by 2020, 30% by 2025 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.
Our latest report, which is available online here, shows that 2021 GHG emissions were reduced by 16% from emission levels in 2007. This is a considerable achievement as our campus building footprint has increased by 15% since 2007, yet we have reduced GHG emissions per square foot by 27%.
Looking ahead, we have several initiatives underway to continue our progress. As we embark on an historic downtown expansion and construction on our uptown campus, we are designing, renovating and constructing our buildings to adhere to efficiency and sustainability standards that will achieve at least the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED Silver certification.
We have also begun to deploy significant energy efficiency measures throughout our campuses through the university’s partnership with Bernhard LLC. This has included swapping out more than 5,000 plumbing fixtures with water-saving features that have reduced consumption by more than 5 million gallons in the first year. We have reduced our energy consumption by 3 million kilowatt hours with more efficient lighting across our campuses. The project, which will also include deploying solar power on our uptown campus, will allow us to reach our 2025 goal of a 30% reduction in emissions.
We are also working on other efforts to help our community become more sustainable through the university’s Focus Team on Sustainability. The Tulane Office of Sustainability has launched a partnership with Glass Half Full, a Tulanian-founded venture, to expand glass recycling on campus. The project, which will open new collection hubs in student residence halls, is estimated to divert 250,000 pounds of glass annually from local landfills that will be processed by Glass Half Full into sand and gravel to support coastal restoration in Louisiana.
We hope this partnership will spur the growth of our regional recycling industry and help Glass Half Full expand its efforts to protect our coastline.
By working collectively to promote environmental sustainability, across our campuses and throughout the community, we can all do our part to create a more sustainable and greener tomorrow.
Patrick Norton
Senior Vice President & Chief Operating Officer