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Industry News

February 6, 2008

Yale University Implements Broad Sustainability Initiative

As part of its broad-based Sustainability Initiative, Yale University has reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 17% or 43,000 metric tons since 2005. Yale President Richard C. Levin said an additional 17% reduction would be achieved over the next several years as a number of projects, including a new cogeneration power plant on the campus of the School of Medicine, are completed. Levin said Yale expected to achieve its overall emissions reduction goal of 43% by 2020 at a cost of as little as one-half of 1% of the University's operating budget.

President Levin recently gave an address at the Climate Lecture Series at the University of Copenhagen. Entitled “Leading by Example: Creating A Sustainable Campus,” Levin talked about the role that universities can play in prompting other organizations and governments to set goals and strategies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In his talk, Levin said that universities have an important role in the effort to curtail global warming. Much of the work on climate science that has led to the detection and understanding of climate change has been done by academics who he said have been at the forefront of modeling the economic, social, and environmental impact of rising global temperatures and sea levels. Moreover, he noted that Yale employs more than 12,000 people, making the university the second-largest employer in Connecticut. There are 11,000 students on campus and with an annual budget of $2.5 billion, Levin said Yale is a large organization by any standard providing another impetus to serve as a model of responsible environmental practice.

Levin gave several examples of university initiatives including the decision by the University of Tokyo to create an entire division of sustainability which Levin called an exciting interdisciplinary approach. He also cited MIT's President, Susan Hockfield, who in her inaugural address, said that alternative energy technology would be her institution's foremost research priority.  Levin said that MIT is devoting significant resources to this vast area of research, which includes not only developing carbon-free technologies such as solar, wind, and geothermal power, but also finding more efficient ways to use carbon-based fuels through improved building materials and design, as well as improved vehicle and power plant technologies. He also noted that the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Illinois recently received a $500 million commitment to fund alternative energy research from British Petroleum – the largest corporate gift ever made in support of university-based research.  He said that Cornell University has a project using lake water for campus-wide cooling, and the University of Pennsylvania has purchased wind power to meet 30 percent of its electricity needs.

Levin said that in the last two years, Yale has retrofitted the heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems in 90 of its roughly 300 buildings and has reduced aggregate electricity consumption at the residential colleges by 10%. Yale has installed thermally efficient windows in many of its largest existing buildings, and in all of its new buildings; acquired new power plant equipment and modified some existing equipment to achieve substantial savings in fuel consumption; installed ground source heat pumps in several new and existing buildings; and used a mix of conventional and renewable fuels in its power plant and campus bus fleet. Levin said Yale is installing solar panels on a number of its buildings, both existing and new and is installing small wind turbines in the windiest sections of the campus.

Levin reported that all of Yale's new buildings, and even most of  its renovations, have achieved a Silver rating or better from the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System. The new School of Forestry and Environmental Studies is designed to be carbon-neutral and will be the second new building at Yale to gain the highest rating, LEED Platinum.

Levin said that most of the actions Yale has taken to date have brought sufficient energy savings to yield a positive economic return. However, he said that some of the investments made, and to be made, incur some net economic cost. For example, he said that internal studies suggest that there is a significant premium associated with establishing LEED Gold as a minimum standard for new construction, relative to the current standard of LEED Silver. Levin noted that currently Yale usually pays a premium when it substitutes renewable fuels for conventional fuels but that equation might change if there were a carbon tax to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In some cases, Levin said that Yale will invest to achieve carbon savings even at a modest net economic cost, in part to demonstrate the feasibility of new technologies and in part to encourage policy change that would price carbon correctly. Overall,  Levin said that Yale believes that it can reach its greenhouse gas reduction goal at a cost of less than one percent of its annual operating expenses and under its most likely scenario the net cost is anticipated to be closer to one half of one percent of our operating expenses.