New Greenhouse Gas Reduction Strategy

In a recent letter to the University, President Levin announced a new campus-wide Greenhouse Gas Reduction and Renewable Energy strategy to address widespread concern about what Yale is doing in response to the continual rise of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Effective immediately, the Officers have adopted the key recommendation of the Yale Energy Task Force, a university-wide committee of staff, faculty and students convened in 2004 to respond to the high levels of energy production, consumption and related carbon emissions:

Yale is committed to a level of investment in energy conservation and alternate energy sources that will lead, based on current projections, to a reduction in its greenhouse gas emissions by 10% below our 1990 levels by the year 2020. This is consistent with a similar commitment by the Connecticut State Legislature and the New England Governors and Eastern Canadian Premiers Climate Action Plan.  By adopting this goal, Yale is one of the first universities in the country to commit to a fifteen-year strategic energy plan.

President Levin noted that everyone on campus has a role to play in helping achieve the following conservation targets over a three-year period:

• 15% reduction at residential colleges
• 10% reduction at all other facilities

Two student groups, New Haven Action and the Student Task Force for Environmental Partnership, have taken the lead in engaging and educating students on how to participate in advancing our goals for energy conservation. For every 5% of reduction at residential colleges the University will allocate renewable energy certificates to offset 1/3rd of the electrical energy used by residential colleges.

To learn more about Yale’s fifteen-year Greenhouse Gas Reduction and Renewable Energy strategic plan, visit http://www.yale.edu/sustainability.