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The Student Association released its sustainability report on Dec. 15 after working throughout the fall 2022 semester.

The sustainability report outlines an update to Syracuse University’s 2009 Climate Action Plan and proposes recommendations and updates to encourage the school to make a commitment to sustainability. The 2009 plan explains SU’s efforts to completely eliminate its net emissions of greenhouse gas by December 31, 2040. Now, SA wants to move that date up by a decade.

The 2022 report consists of six different sections on recommendations to make the campus more sustainable, with the greatest emphasis being on the proposal for SU to adjust its goal to reach carbon-neutrality from 2040 to 2030.

“A sincere hope is that this work, and hopefully the commitment that Syracuse University makes from it, will trigger other universities to do a more similar thing and move on a more ambitious path to addressing sustainability,” Bruen said.

In a survey SA conducted for the report, 54.1% of respondents voted to recommend moving the net-zero emissions pledge timeline up a decade from the goal of 2030 t0 2040, the report reads, and agreed that the move was something that could have a “significant impact” on SU’s sustainability.

SA’s Director of Sustainability Harrison Vogt, alongside his committee of around ten members and volunteers, worked to consult on the various sustainability-related topics in order to create the policies and recommendations detailed in the report.

“One of the things that became a good decent chunk of the report was the infrastructure side of it, and where we can get more energy efficient infrastructure. So we ended up looking at examples around Onondaga County,” Vogt said.

The committee toured the Whitlock building in downtown Syracuse, which uses an electric heat pump instead of natural gas to heat their building. The report recommended that the university implement geothermal heat pumps.

In addition to helping form policies and recommendations for SU, Vogt is working with SU Sustainability Coordinator Melissa Cadwell on a peer-to-peer education program outlined in the report. Vogt said the program is set to be developed this semester.

The program, which would encourage students to teach one another about sustainable practices, would involve resident advisors because they have the ability to reach all the students at once during their required monthly floor meetings.

Ben Cavarra, SA’s Vice President of Community & Government Affairs, worked alongside SA student advocate Olivia Curreri on the technical side of the report by making sure the policies and recommendations listed in the sustainability report were financially feasible for the university.

Cavarra said that each person involved on SA’s team in putting the report together fulfilled a certain role. Curreri, a policy studies major, said she used her knowledge on the Inflation Reduction Act passed by the Biden Administration to translate its objectives towards achieving a more sustainable SU.

Bruen said SA is looking to get feedback from SU students and faculty, adding that SA feels its report is a “really solid vision.” Bruen sent an email to students earlier this week with a link for a petition to sign in support of the recommendations listed in the report.

“We would like to have more student engagement and feedback because this is supposed to be a report written from the perspective of the students,” Cavarra said.

Although Syverud expressed gratitude for SA’s work in creating the sustainability report and its final product, SA’s goal is to put pressure on the university’s board of directors to make the recommendations listed into permanent SU policies.

“We have had some feedback from the administrators and faculty but most of it was pre-release,” Cavarra said. “Ultimately, we’re really just trying to put the pressure on the board of directors to emphasize sustainability.”

Published on January 19, 2023 at 12:38 am