Slippery Rock University is very committed to sustainability practices and solving environmental issues within its community. The university has a set Climate Action Plan that includes many sustainability goals all working together towards the ultimate goal of carbon neutrality by the year 2037. To achieve this, your carbon footprint is equivalent to zero. The balance between the carbon that is emitted and removed by the university should be equal in order to be carbon neutral.
Some of the factors at Slippery Rock University that affect this plan are energy consumption, the amount of garbage recycled or sent to the dump, and also more obviously, greenhouse gas emissions. As part of the Climate Action Plan, there were measures put in place to reduce these factors within the campus. Due to increased energy efficiency in on campus buildings, total energy consumption has been reduced by 22% since 2005 despite the university growing. Conserving energy is one of the most effective ways to reduce a carbon footprint. The active recycling program at Slippery Rock University has reduced the amount of materials that the university sends to landfills by 25% since 2005. The university recycles nine different types of materials including paper, aluminum, glass, plastic bottles and cardboard. Additionally, filtered-water stations on campus allow students to refill reusable bottles rather than single use plastic bottles. Considering these efforts that have been made, the decrease in greenhouse gas emissions from the university is 21% since implementing these sustainability goals.
These numbers show that the efforts made by Slippery Rock University were successful in creating a more sustainable campus that is headed down the right path towards carbon neutrality. This is something that the students, staff and faculty of Slippery Rock University can take pride in knowing that the university cares about the environment and the impact that we all collectively have as a community.
See the content below to get more information.
Energy Consumption (British Thermal Unit)
Greenhouse Gas Emissions (Metric Tons Equivalent CO2 per Year) x 10
Recycling (Tons per Year) x 1,000
Paul Scanlon from the Office of Sustainability at SRU discusses the results of the campus Climate Action Plan.
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