UF launches first major university effort at becoming carbon neutral

April 14, 2003

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — To help alleviate its impact on global warming, the University of Florida is taking the lead among major universities nationwide by becoming the first to craft a plan for the net elimination of harmful greenhouse gas emissions.

Fueled by its effort to become a global leader in sustainability, UF President Charles Young has directed the university to develop an implementation plan for the campus to become “carbon neutral” by effectively eliminating the release of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide – the so-called greenhouse gasses – created mainly through vehicle emissions and electricity consumption.

“It’s similar to JFK (John F. Kennedy) saying we are going to go to the moon in 10 years. It’s a huge challenge, but we will do it,” said Dave Newport, executive director of the UF Sustainability Task Force. The group, which likely will suggest 2030 as the target date for completion of the massive undertaking, is developing the plan and expects to present it Young by mid-year.

The plan calls for accomplishing this goal through a variety of strategies, starting with more simple measures, such as detecting and fixing areas where energy is wasted on campus, to more complex and expensive measures, such as upgrading technology, renovating buildings and replacing inefficient equipment.

The effort will not be cheap or easy. UF is essentially a small city consisting of 2,000 acres, more than 900 buildings, and nearly 60,000 students, faculty and staff. It consumes more than 250 million kilowatt-hours of electricity every year at a cost of about $74,000 dollars a day.

“It’s going to take a million little things here and there,” Newport said. “It’s doable, it is just going to take some work.”

A moderate approach towards carbon-neutrality could cost as much as $77 million over 10 years based on today’s dollars, Newport said. However, that would result in about $80 million in energy-cost savings every 10 years for decades to come, he said. And as energy costs rise, the savings also will increase.

“It’s the right thing to do-and we’ll save millions of dollars in the process,” Newport said.

Research presented to the task force found that 80 percent of greenhouse gas releases attributed to UF come from the energy consumed to run campus buildings and power the vehicle fleet. UF has more than 2,100 vehicles and 17 million square feet of building space and other structures that consume energy.

The two main ways to become carbon-neutral, Newport said, is to reduce UF-generated emissions and then create a “sink” elsewhere to absorb the remaining carbon used. The proposal calls for a 50 percent reduction in emissions, and the remaining 50 percent to be captured in carbon sinks, such as forests, that trap carbon in plants and soils instead of it being released into the air.

Significant reductions can be achieved cost effectively through equipment upgrades, energy management and appropriate building renovation, Newport said.

Technology advances, such as automatic temperature-control and light-sensor systems for buildings, help reduce wasted energy. Because most of its buildings have lifespans of 100 years, the university is looking at retrofitting existing buildings with these advances as it becomes necessary to upgrade them.

It is impossible for UF to stop using energy and releasing carbon totally, but by creating sinks elsewhere, carbon neutrality is a realistic goal, Newport said. The university is a land-grant institution that owns property in every county in Florida, as well as land throughout the United States, that could be utilized as carbon sinks, he said.

Although the current plan for becoming carbon-neutral aims only at the UF campus, eventually the task force would like to expand the effort to off-campus student housing and the rest of the Gainesville community, Newport said.

The carbon-neutral goal is years away, but UF already has started reducing its emissions. Two of UF’s newest buildings, Rinker Hall and a planned orthopedic center, are both using tough Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, energy-efficiency standards. UF is among a handful of schools constructing LEED-standard buildings.

Officials expect to step up other efforts by mid-year by continuing to upgrade technology, such as the chiller plants around campus, creating course work focusing on renewable resources and by exploring new routes in conservation.

“We’ve got a ways to go, but it’s a step in the right direction,” Newport said.

Ohio’s Oberlin College, a private college with a student population of 2,800, also is developing a plan to become carbon neutral.

Carbon neutrality is such an important issue that soon it will be thought of as morally wrong to release carbon into the atmosphere because of its effects on the future of the world, said David Orr, an Oberlin environmental science professor who is world renowned for his leadership on climate change issues. Orr said he is happy UF is leading the effort to become carbon neutral because of the predominate role universities play in society.

“There is such a vacuum of leadership at the federal level,” Orr said. “Colleges and universities are such a big player in American society, it’s where the leadership is going to have to come from.”