The Office of Campus Sustainability has established reporting guidelines to track the University’s progress toward its sustainability goals related to operations.
The creation of the guidelines supports the campus wide sustainability initiative known as Planet Blue.
“Providing a clear approach to how we track, measure and report our data is a critical step in documenting our progress toward the goals,” said Terry Alexander, executive director of the Office of Campus Sustainability. “These guidelines provide campus with a consistent methodology for measuring our progress year to year.”
Focused in the areas of Climate Action, Waste Prevention and Healthy Environments, the guidelines support the following five operational goals:
• Reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent.
• Decrease carbon intensity of U-M transportation by 30 percent.
• Reduce waste sent to disposal facilities by 40 percent.
• Purchase 20 percent of U-M food in accordance with Sustainable Food Purchasing Guidelines.
• Reduce surface runoff and the volume of land-management chemicals used on campus by 40 percent.
Each set of guidelines includes an overview of the current processes in place, and defines terminology and data collection methodology specific to each area.
Using data collected in 2006 as a benchmark, targets for each goal have been identified to be reached by 2025. For example, achieving the goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions would result in avoidance of 170,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions, equivalent to removing 32,000 vehicles from the road. The goals will be re-evaluated in 2016 to determine any necessary modifications to targets outcomes.
More information
Download guidelines for:
• Reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
• Decreasing carbon intensity of U-M transportation.
• Reduce waste to disposal facilities.
• Reduce surface runoff and land-management chemicals.