Princeton Sustainability Identifying Sustainability Plan

Princeton Sustainability

Identifying Sustainability Plan Effect

Princeton University's Sustainability Plan: Changing the assumptions of operations and people

Princeton University's Sustainability Plan: Changing the assumptions of operations and people

Overall business strategy: Mission and vision

Culture and values

Princeton University is one of the premier research universities in the world. Its departments of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Engineering, and Geosciences have all made a significant contribution to the current research being done at a university level to improve the quality of the world's environment. Princeton encourages interdisciplinary research on the environment through its Program in Ecosystems and Biogeochemistry. As a research university with an unparalleled focus on the education of its undergraduates (Princeton, unlike Harvard and Yale, has no schools of medicine or law) it is committed to improving the minds but also the behavior and attitudes of its young students. It is a not-for-profit institution designed to promote knowledge and the advancement of human life all over the world, as well as within its walls. The research conduced by faculty, undergraduates, and graduate students is designed to be world-changing, not merely profitable. Profits come secondary to human improvement.

On February 18, 2008 Princeton University released a long-term sustainability plan. In the plan, Princeton University states that it believes that its greatest potential contribution to the world is through what may derive from the research at its facilities: "As important as it is for Princeton to reduce its own impact on the environment, the most fundamental contribution that the University will make to the future well-being of the planet will come from the research of our faculty and students that creates a path for environmental progress and alternative energy sources." The plan notes that at the very beginning of its history, Princeton's president ordered the planting of trees as a critical component of giving back to the environment. This demonstrates that as Princeton 'takes' from the earth because of the great sprawl of its facilities and the wear and tear put upon the environment by its concentrated population, Princeton has been an environmental leader and tried to give back to the earth.

Organization: Enabling technology and processes

Organizational design

While students and professors in environmentally focused majors concentrate their research on sustainability that will affect the world, Princeton is also trying to ensure that begins to fulfill its mission to improve the planet close to home, namely on campus. Thus, it has made a commitment to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in writing through its 2008 Sustainability Plan, which sets concrete objectives for the university's current and future operations and for its student body.

First and foremost, the 2008 Plan affirms the real, demonstrable impact of global warming in the world today: "The impacts of human activities since the Industrial Revolution are disrupting our global climate, and scientists counsel us that corrective action must be taken within the decade to prevent serious consequences. Attaining a sustainable global environment requires rigorous reevaluation of our energy policies and practices, transformational leadership, creative technologies, and substantial changes in human behavior."

Sustainable improvement, rather than symbolic gestures are the focus of the Plan. In 2009, the university noted a one percent measurable decrease in greenhouse gas emissions by staff, faculty, and students. The operational means used to achieve this reduction were applying "alternative technologies and alternative fuel options to decrease emissions from the central power facility;" expanding "energy conservation through retrofits in existing buildings across campus;" designing "new construction and renovations to use 50% less energy than required by current energy code to at least a LEED Silver equivalency;" and finally including experience in leading-edge sustainable design as a criterion for the selection of architects (Sustainability Plan, 2008, Princeton University). Most radically Princeton has applied an internal voluntary so-called CO2 tax on all operations -- in other words, the cost to the environment, as well as the cost of the project will be added into the final calculation of different proposals, and the cheaper proposal will be rejected if the environmental damage is too great

People: Training and development

Rewards and recognition