2 Acknowledgements We would like to thank everyone who helped us at various stages of this project. Firstly, we would like to thank our advisors Dan Maxbaur and George Vrtis for providing us with an initial research topic and for their constant advice and support throughout our project. We would like to thank Sean Leahy for guiding us in our search for literature, Martha Larsen and Alexandra Miller for their insight about the Climate Action Plan formation process, and everyone else who provided guidance and feedback throughout this process. We would also like to thank the professors and stakeholders we interviewed for sharing their time with us, and for allowing us to share their experiences.
Finally, we would like to thank our fellow ENTS majors and the ENTS department for supporting our research throughout the COMPS process. 3 Table of Contents Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………………………2 Abstract .6 Municipal Climate Action Plans………………………………………………………….6 Sustainability in Higher Education………………………………………….7 Higher Education as A Role Model for Other Sustainability Projects.9 Climate Action Plans in Higher Education….10 Climate Action Plan Attributes…………………………………….…13 Results and Observations……………………………………………………….14 Climate Action Plan Attribute Analysis……………………….19 Climate Action Plan Creation Process……….19 Implementing Climate Actions Plans……………………………………….25 Future Climate Action Planning…………………………………………….………37 CAP Length and Length of Time to Write CAP…………….38 Plan Year…………………………………………………………………………………38 Neutrality Dates……………………………………………………………………….…39 Goal Tracking……………………………………………………………………………40 Adapting to Climate Change……………………………………….41 Regional Climate Change Impacts and Climate Change Science…………………….41 Emissions Forecast………………………………………………………………………41 Discussion Summary…………………………………………………….50 Appendix A - Listed Institutions…………………………………………………….50 Appendix B - Interview Questions………………………………………………………51 Appendix C - Full Table of Climate Action Plan Analysis………………………….…52 Appendix D - Description of Attributes in Climate Action Plan Analysis………….59 Appendix E - Interview Results Tables………………………………………….64 4 Abstract Actors around the country are taking action to mitigate and adapt to climate change. Municipalities and higher education institutions are part of this movement. Starting in the early 2000s, they began developing climate action plans (CAPs) to address climate change and its impacts, often focusing on emissions reductions in order to reach net zero carbon emissions.
While a plethora of literature exists about CAPs in municipalities, there is little research about CAPs in higher education institutions. This study provides insight into CAPs in liberal arts colleges around the United States with a comparative analysis of 30 CAPs. Specifically, we researched CAP contents and the planning processes that formed the CAPs. This study finds that CAPs vary greatly in depth, length, organization, strategies included, formation processes, and implementation progress.
Furthermore, CAP content and detail, while previously thought to be crucial to the effectiveness of a CAP, were generally not as important for creating an effectively implemented CAP as broad stakeholder involvement, administrative support, and financing strategies. Therefore, this study finds that, in general, CAPs should serve as launching points for action, goals, and support for climate action in institutions, but do not need to be strictly adhered to in order to make progress. 5 Introduction As the impacts of climate change become more evident, various actors -- including municipalities, states, and higher education institutions -- are taking action and creating climate action plans (CAPs). CAPs are part of a larger movement that is attempting to mitigate and adapt to climate change.
Climate action plans detail policies, strategies, and goals designed to reduce climate impact, often by reducing greenhouse gas emissions (Wheeler 2008). However, while an actor’s adoption of a CAP can indicate a commitment to mitigating climate change, there is no standard formula for creating and implementing a CAP. Therefore, CAP formation processes vary and result in plans that differ in length, content, and ability to be implemented, leading to different levels of success (Bassett and Shandas 2010). Additionally, municipalities and states rely on public governing bodies to help create and implement a CAP, while CAPs at higher education institutions are implemented within the institution, which could lead to differences between municipal and higher education CAPs (Abbott 2012).
Although municipal CAPs have been studied extensively, there is little research on CAPs in higher education. Higher education CAPs evolved out of municipal and state plans. In the 1990s and early 2000s municipalities in the United States started to create CAPs, but CAPs did not gain traction in higher education institutions until the mid-2000s with the creation of the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment (ACUPCC) in 2006 (Wheeler 2008; Second Nature 2019). Signatories of the ACUPCC agreed to “develop a comprehensive climate action plan'' to reduce their institutions’ greenhouse gas emissions and strive for carbon neutrality (Second Nature “Climate Leadership Statement” 2019).
Following the creation of the ACUPCC, many higher education institutions across the United States, including 82 liberal arts colleges, developed CAPs and signed on to the American College and University Presidents’ Climate or Carbon Commitments (Second Nature 2019). The lack of research on CAPs in higher education means that it is unknown how much variation there is in CAP content and creation processes. Because of this gap in the literature on CAPs, what works or does not work for higher education CAPs, or what innovative policies or processes are present in these CAPs, could easily go unnoticed by other institutions developing or updating their CAPs. This knowledge could help inform policies and processes other institutions or actors are undertaking in the broader sphere of climate change mitigation and adaptation.
Consequently, this research reveals how liberal arts colleges are forming their CAPs, and what policies and attributes they are including. Additionally, it reveals what factors are correlated with a thorough CAP design. More specifically, it highlights what aspects of plan formation processes and policy attributes are working, are not working, or are innovative for different liberal arts colleges, and what factors are important in terms of implementation progress. This research defines “innovative” as policies, goals, or processes that are being employed by one or only a handful of colleges and that could provide guidance and new ideas for other institutions developing or updating their CAPs.
Literature Review To better understand liberal arts colleges’ CAPs, understanding typical attributes of successful planning, characteristics of municipal and state CAPs, characteristics of sustainability plans in higher education, and case studies of CAPs in specific higher education institutions is crucial. Investigating the existing literature in these fields provides a basis for this study. 6 Planning Literature While a plethora of literature exists about how to best create strategic, comprehensive plans (Altshuler 2007; Godschalk et al. 2010; Bryson et al.
2012), Innes (1996) addresses critiques of comprehensive planning and highlights solutions for creating well-developed plans in the article “Planning Through Consensus Building: A New View of the Comprehensive Planning Ideal.” He argues that consensus-building -- when experts and stakeholders are included in plan formation and use their personal knowledge and expertise to reach an agreement -- ensures that plans meet stakeholders’ needs while addressing complex, controversial issues, such as sustainability. Innes concludes consensus-building is imperative for creating a well-rounded plan. “Making Plans that Matter: Citizen Involvement and Government Action,” by Burby (2003) builds on Innes (1996) and past scholarship. He agrees that including stakeholders and experts in the planning process is important but argues that to motivate action and implement a plan, it is imperative to include a broad, representative spectrum of dedicated stakeholders.
Burby finds that plans are more likely to be implemented when the stakeholders involved are committed and passionate about the issue. Municipal Climate Action Plans A large body of literature exists about CAPs in municipalities (Wheeler 2008; Bassett and Shandas 2010; Tang et al. 2010; Shi and Chu 2015). Past studies include comparisons of CAPs across municipalities, investigations about plan creation processes and plan content, and discussions about what plan implementation strategies work best.
This section overviews the highlights of municipal CAP literature. The article “State and Municipal Climate Change Plans: The First Generation” by Wheeler (2008) provides one of the earliest comparative analyses of CAPs. Wheeler compared the context and complexity of state and municipal plans and conducted interviews with those involved in plan development. He identified that institutional commitment and the degree to which tasks were explicitly defined contributed to or inhibited CAP success.
However, Wheeler also stated that analyzing CAP progress is difficult because few jurisdictions have released progress reports for their CAPs. In sum, Wheeler noted that while the first generation of CAPs helped raise awareness about climate change and set goals for improvement, most of the plans’ proposed changes were inadequate and lacked the necessary “political and institutional commitment” to be put into action and reach target goals. This finding suggests more work is necessary to develop plans that actually lead to the completion of target goals. Two years later, in the article “Innovation and Climate Action Planning: Perspectives from Municipal Plans,” Bassett and Shandas (2010) conducted a similar comparative study of municipal CAPs.
Similar toWheeler (2008), they conducted interviews and did comparative analyses of CAPs, also discovering many plans that were difficult to implement. They expanded on this finding by explaining that the complexity of plans varied greatly. Some plans were brief and outlined general goals while other plans were more detailed, quantifying costs and describing specific actions to be implemented. Bassett and Shandas (2010) also found that the planning process for CAPs and the CAPs themselves varied between cities based on city size and geographic location.
Although local innovation, as in “it’s something we’ve never done before,” was occurring, it was hard to determine if policy innovation, or “notable changes adopted at a 7 wider scale, perhaps updating best practices,” was occuring. Additionally, they highlighted the importance of stakeholder and community involvement in developing implementable CAPs. Also in 2010, the study “Moving from agenda to action: evaluating local climate change action plans” by Tang et al. did a comparative analysis of CAPs, but expanded on past studies by creating a model to empirically evaluate the plans based on local awareness, analysis, and actions on climate change.
They found that state mandates, community wealth, climate risk, and emission stress variables influenced the quality of local CAPs, albeit to different degrees. The 2015 study “Explaining Progress in Climate Adaptation Planning Across 156 U. Municipalities,” by Shi and Chu expands on factors that influence CAP quality and what cities are more likely to have CAPs. They discovered that smaller cities with fewer resources had a harder time raising the money needed for planning, and cities that had local coalitions and strong leadership dedicated to planning were more successful.
Additionally, when municipalities perceived that their area could be greatly impacted by the changing climate, they were more likely to adopt a CAP. In addition to general, comparative studies of municipal CAPs, studies about the integration and success of specific aspects of CAPs have been done. Boswell et al. (2010) analyzed how greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions inventories are being factored into CAPs in their study “An Assessment of the Link Between Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventories and Climate Action Plans.” While GHG emissions inventories largely inform goals and actions in CAPs, past studies have not closely examined how these inventories are developed and affect CAP planning.
This study revealed that GHG emissions inventories are hard to estimate, and can, therefore, make it difficult for CAPs to provide actionable tasks that meet emissions reductions goals that correspond with actual emission outputs. Additionally, like Bassett and Shandas (2010), Boswell et al. (2010) advocated for broad stakeholder and planner involvement to help develop meaningful and successful CAPs. While CAPs often focus on mitigating climate change -- defined as reducing and stabilizing emitted GHGs based on GHG emissions inventories -- little attention is given to whether adaptation strategies -- defined as strategies that help society adjust to the impacts of climate change -- are included in CAPs (Koski and Siulagi, 2016).
The study “Environmental Harm or Natural Hazard? Problem Identification and Adaptation in U. Municipal Climate Action Plans,” by Koski and Siulagi (2016) addressed this issue, finding that few CAPs include climate adaptation goals in addition to mitigation goals. Koski and Siulagi argued adaptation is imperative to include in CAPs so municipalities are better equipped for the impacts of climate change.