Universities aren't doing enough for climate. Here's what a real sustainability plan would look like

My university just announced that it has "begun the collaborative and consultative work to create [its] first institutional Sustainability and Climate Action Plan!" (Exclamatory emphasis theirs). If all goes according to plan, in 20 years we'll have reduced our scope 1 greenhouse gas emissions by 166 kilotons. That's about 0.2 percent of our state's emissions, and 0.003 percent of the country's.

It is 2023. You probably know the stats. CO2 in our air is at 421 ppm, up 50 percent since we started treating the atmosphere like a sewer. The planet has warmed at least 1.1 °C (1.9 °F).

But do you know the trends? In the last 30 years we have emitted more CO2 into the atmosphere than in the rest of human history. In 2022 alone, CO2 emissions from burning oil and coal increased 3 percent and 2 percent, respectively, while annual government subsidies to fossil fuel corporations doubled, to $1.1 trillion. The trajectory of our greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) and their warming effects are indistinguishable from the no-policy, business-as-usual, avoid-at-all-costs, of-course-this-is-ridiculous-we-would-never worst-case scenario trends imagined for decades. The long-predicted effects of anthropogenic climate change are emerging with the dread of knowing we could have avoided them and the fear that we may fail to avoid much worse to come.

I'm sorry if this increases your climate anxiety, but this is not about serving up hope. It is about responsibility, outrage and what universities could and should be doing. 

The hard work of individuals reducing operational carbon footprints of institutions is commendable. But universities could do better in responding to students' demands for action than helping them install campus recycling and compost bins, build a community garden and lead sustainability tours. That said, I'm sure those efforts would be lauded by the companies that sold us the view that climate change is both much bigger than we are and yet also our own fault, so the best we can do is attend to our own virtue and carbon footprint. These are the companies that include Saudi Aramco, the $1.7-trillion company responsible for more than 4 percent of GHG emissions since 1965, whose greenwashing campaign includes ongoing discussions with my own department for an endowed professorship to help maintain their ability to treat the planet as if it were a business liquidating its inventory and cash out as fast as possible. 

As institutions connecting public and private interests and supposedly serving societal good through education, research and community engagement, universities have a unique obligation and pivotal role to play in addressing the grand challenge of climate change and environmental sustainability. Our ability to solve problems and educate citizens may be the best hope society has to actually change systems — including business, policy, economics, law, engineering and technology — that are keys to the collective action we need. But unfortunately, at least on its own, a campus operational sustainability plan is a kind of greenwashing distraction from the responsibility that my — and indeed most — universities have to address the existential crisis facing not only humanity but all the other life and systems with whom we share the planet.

The long-predicted effects of anthropogenic climate change are emerging with the dread of knowing we could have avoided them

A real sustainability plan would engage the gears of a university's power. We would reconfigure academic structures and strategic plans to provide our students courses, degrees and experiences to change systems and change the power structures that are destroying their future. We would pivot at least some of our energy and experience to use-inspired research and engagement to explore solutions, not just resigned adaptation and "resilience" band-aids to business-as-usual. We would build and incentivize partnerships with governments, private capital, industry and foundations who are shifting their own priorities and resources to find climate and sustainability solutions.

University leaders should be asking what deans and department heads are doing to build initiatives to address the grand challenge and promote our institutions' and students' ability to contribute. We should be putting our students front-and-center in all of this, integrating systems thinking and design approaches into what and how we teach, and providing them the skills to propagate positive change in their fields, institutions, corporations, and communities.

In my own area of geosciences, we should stop prioritizing outdated formulaic skills serving oil companies and provide students with experience needed to understand human forcing of Earth systems and creation of a sustainable and responsible resource economy involving critical element production, negative carbon emissions, and subsurface and ocean management.

In history, we should be analyzing the rhetoric and tactics of climate denialists, deflectors, and delayers.

In law, we should be building cases to define and defend communities' and individuals' common interests and litigate against private profit off destruction of the environment that sustains us.

Want more health and science stories in your inbox? Subscribe to Salon's weekly newsletter The Vulgar Scientist.

In English, we should be equipping students with the inspiring intelligent irreverence of Solnit, Stanley-Robinson, Oreskes and Abbey and the power to transform their anger into persuasive action.

In engineering, the opportunities to solve crucial technical problems of low and negative carbon energy, infrastructure, cleantech and the circular economy are almost limitless and well supported by venture capital and federal investment.

In space we should be designing satellites to monitor and report emissions and collect data that point toward solutions, not just fundamental observations, as valuable and disturbingly accurate as those have been for prediction.

In business we should be researching and equipping our students with knowledge of threats and opportunities of climate change in corporate behavior, financial markets, insurance and banking, in the context of the terrifyingly probability the "tragedy of the horizon" is much closer than business (as usual) realizes.

A real sustainability plan would engage the gears of a university's power.

We should be engaging with Indigenous communities to help promote sovereignty and responsible conservation of land and water, as well as general understanding of perspectives of the natural systems of which we are a part. We should be teaching students how to effect social change through rallying communities and disrupting business as usual. And we should be divesting from the fossil fuel industry that is laughing at our inability to stop their record profiteering from destruction of what remains of our common resources and environmental security.

You might say that solving climate change and environmental destruction is not the purpose of universities. After all, there certainly are other pressing grand challenges out there: poverty, health, justice, inequality. And clearly direct work on those crucial issues is a key part of the public good that universities must provide. But it is also well documented and increasingly understood that, through its exacerbating effects, anthropogenic climate change is potentially the greatest threat to those qualities of societal wellbeing. Destabilization of fisheries, agriculture, fresh water supplies and other natural systems and ecosystem services are, as we are already seeing, fast paths to conflict, mass migration of unmanageably larger numbers of desperate people, hunger, injustice and creeping eco-fascism.

There are many possible reasons why universities have been slow to respond to the climate change and environmental crisis. Stewart et al.'s (2022) treatise Re-Purposing Universities for Sustainable Human Progress is an excellent source of insight and pathway for change. As with climate change itself, responsibility for the inertia preventing us from rising to the challenge is broad. It includes leaders and faculty hewing to traditional and familiar paths of teaching and scholarship and a sense of entitlement to the sacred singular pursuit of "pure" curiosity-driven research, wherever that may lead. But the rate at which climate change and environmental destruction are pulling the rug out from under everything we rely on is too fast and the stakes are too high, for business as usual.

We are doing our students and society a tremendous disservice by greenwashing our obligations with operational sustainability plans and then sticking to the traditional academic script. Nowhere is this clearer than how climate change is affecting those least responsible for it. Recently, a First Nations Chief whose traditional territory is crossed by several fracked methane gas pipelines and was devastated by a huge mega-fire five years ago told a group of us that "universities teach students to destroy the world." If we cannot figure out how to use our expertise, skills, experience, perspective, and sense of responsibility to help lead society to a sustainable future, what good are we?

Read more

about climate and sustainability

Frequently Asked Questions

Anyone can submit a general maintenance request (e.g. light bulb out, running toilet, heating problems) using the links on the work request section of this website.

If your request is for chargeable work, it must be submitted through a registered requestor from your department. If your department does not have a representative, ask your supervisor to create a work order account by completing the Work Order Access Request Form [PDF]. Email the completed form to facilities@drexel.edu or fax to 215.895.6754.

University City Campus

If an event occurs during business hours (Monday – Friday, 8 a.m. – 5 p.m.) that requires immediate assistance, call 215.895.1700. A Facilities representative will dispatch a technician to your area.

If a maintenance emergency occurs outside of business hours, contact Drexel University Public Safety at 215.895.2222.

If there is a true emergency such as fire or explosion, call 215.895.2222 or 911.

Health Sciences Campuses

For immediate service concerns that need to be completed within 24 hours (i.e. spills, odor, overflowing trash can, bathroom attention), call the appropriate Housekeeping Building Manager for your facility, or 215.895.1700 and you will be directed to the appropriate contact.

For true emergencies on these campuses, use the following numbers:

Center City Campus  Bellet Building, New College Building, Franklin Building, 1435 Vine Street  Contact: Hahnemann University Hospital Security at 215.762.7111 or 911

  Stiles Alumni Hall, 219 N. Broad Street, Three Parkway Building  Contact: Drexel University Public Safety at 215.895.2222 or 911

Queen Lane CampusContact: Drexel University Public Safety at 215.895.2222 or 911

Once a work order has been submitted, it cannot be changed by the user. Should a work order need to be edited after it has been entered into the system, please email facilities@drexel.edu or call 215.895.1700 and a Facilities representative will assist you.

Successfully submitted work requests will always have a work request number attached to it. If you do not receive a request number, then the request was not received and needs to be resubmitted. After completing the work request form, make sure you hit the “SAVE” button.

If your complete email address (e.g. including @drexel.edu) is not entered with the submitted request, you will not receive an email notification.

Please note that your submission is only a request until the facilities dispatcher accepts it and generates a work order number.

No. Anything that is considered general maintenance, such as replacing light bulbs or reporting that a toilet has been clogged, will not be charged to your Fund and ORG accounts.

If you experience problems logging into WebTMA, email tmapassword@drexel.edu. Include your name, user ID and phone number.

If you discover that the Fund and ORG information you have provided is inaccurate, call a Facilities representative at 215.895.1700 to change the information.

The total charge for the work order can be reviewed on Web Finance. If details of the charges are needed, you can contact facilities@drexel.edu for charge details.

If you have any questions about a work order charge, you can call Real Estate and Facilities between the hours of 8 a.m. - 5 p.m., Monday - Friday, at 215.895.1700.

Have a registered requestor from your department log in to WebTMA and submit a work order request that states "Estimate Only." The requestor will be contacted with the estimated cost. This will be a preliminary estimate provided by the department with the all available information considered. If you want to proceed with the work, you will need to submit a new work request and required bids will be obtained for finalized costs and work will be scheduled.

Complete and submit a Work Request. You will be contacted for additional details so that an estimate and schedule can be developed and approved.

University City Campus

To reserve space on the University City Campus, please visit the Event Services website or contact Event Services at reservations@drexel.edu or 215.895.2520.

Health Sciences Campuses

To reserve and plan an event on one of the Health Sciences Campuses, please follow these step-by-step instructions to Make a Reservation.

Real Estate Services

UAB is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer committed to fostering a diverse, equitable and family-friendly environment in which all faculty and staff can excel and achieve work/life balance irrespective of race, national origin, age, genetic or family medical history, gender, faith, gender identity and expression as well as sexual orientation. UAB also encourages applications from individuals with disabilities and veterans.

li.uk-active>a { color: #1e6b52 !important; border: 1px solid #e6e6e6; border-bottom: 4px solid #80bc00 !important; background-color: #e6e6e6 !important; padding: 14px !important; margin: 0 0 8px 0 !important; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 400; } /*styles the "over" state for the tabs*/ .uk-tab>li.uk-open>a, .uk-tab>li>a:focus, .uk-tab>li>a:hover { padding: 14px !important; margin: 0 0 8px 0 !important; font-size: 16px !important; font-weight: 400 !important; border-bottom: 2px solid #1e6b52; background-color: #eee !important; } /*styles the normal state of the tab*/ .uk-tab>li>a { background-color: #fff !important; padding: 14px; margin: 0 0 8px 0 !important; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 400; border: 1px solid #e6e6e6; } .uk-tab_content { position: relative; float: left; width: 80%; padding: 20px; text-align: left; } /************END TABS FOR DEPT LANDING *********/ /***BEGIN Accordion wrapper ***/ .fac-accordion-wrapper .wk-accordion-title:before { position: absolute; display: inline-flex; background-color: #80bc00; border-radius: 50%; height: 25px; justify-content: center; left: -0.5rem; top: 2px; width: 25px; line-height: 13px; align-items: center; content: "+ "; color: #fff; font-size: 30px; font-weight: 600; } .wk-scope .wk-accordion-title::before { background-position: 50% 41%; } .wk-scope .wk-accordion-title { display: block; font-size: 20px; line-height: 1.4; color: #333; overflow: hidden; padding-left: 2rem; margin-left: -2rem; } .wk-scope .wk-accordion-content>:last-child { margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0.5rem; margin-left: 0.5rem; } .fac-accordion-wrapper .wk-accordion-title.wk-active:before { content: "- "; font-size: 1.6rem; top: 3px; } .fac-accordion-wrapper .wk-accordion-content { background-color: #eee; border-top: 2px solid #80bc00; border-bottom: 2px solid #1e6b52; } .fac-accordion-wrapper h3.wk-accordion-title { font-size: 1.1rem !important; } .fac-accordion-wrapper h3.wk-accordion-title { font-size: 1.1em; margin-top: 0.3em !important; margin-bottom: 0 !important; padding-left: 1.7em !important; padding-bottom: 0.3em !important; } .fac-accordion-wrapper .wk-accordion-title { position: relative; background-color: #fff; border-bottom: 1px solid #ececec; } /***END Accordion wrapper***/ /*****Begin Grid widget *****/ .fac_grid .uk-tab>li.uk-active>a { padding: 0px 20px 0px 20px !important; border: 1px solid purple; margin: 0 auto !important; } .fac_grid .uk-tab>li.uk> { padding: 0 !important; color: purple !important; } .fac_grid .uk-tab>li { padding: 12px 20px 0px 20px !important; border: 1px solid orange; } .fac_grid .uk-tab>li>a { display: block; padding: 12px 20px 0 20px; border: 1px solid #1e6b52; border-bottom-width: 4px !important; color: #444; text-decoration: none; border-radius: 2px 2px 0 0 } .fac_grid .uk-tab { padding: 12px 20px 0px 20px !important; border: 2px solid red !important; height: 40px; margin: 20px 0 0 0; } /********end grid widget **********/ /*******************************************************************BEGIN MOBILE STYLES****************/ @media all and (max-width:700px) { body.linear.hd #tray #ribbon a.btn-navbar { margin-bottom: 7px !important; /*hamburger menu button spacing*/ background: #1e6b52; border: 1px solid #fff; /*hamburger menu button coloring - from FinancialAffairs*/ } body.linear.hd #tray #ribbon .btn-navbar span { background-color: #cdcdcd !important; /*hamburger menu button coloring - from FinancialAffairs*/ } .i-want-to { margin: 12px; } .wk-scope .wk-card-default { box-shadow: 0 5px 15px rgb(0 0 0 / 15%); /*darken drop shadow in WWD item cards*/ } .wk-scope .wk-grid-match>*>:not([class*=wk-width]) { margin-left: 12px; /*add left margin to some in WWD item cards*/ } .wk-scope *+ul { margin-bottom: 39px; /*add margin below list*/ } .wk-scope ul { line-height: 2rem; } /*add line height to list*/ .uk-tab-responsive>a:before { font-size: 22px; } .uk-panel> :not(.uk-panel-title):last-child { margin-bottom: 20px; } .uk-ol { margin-left: 11px; } .uk-panel-space { padding: 10px; } .uk-panel-box { font-size: 12px; } .uk-nav>li>a { padding: 12px 5px; font-size: 20px; } .fac-accordion-wrapper .wk-accordion-content { padding-top: 10px; } .fac-accordion-wrapper .wk-accordion-title:before { position: absolute; display: inline-flex; background-color: #80bc00; border-radius: 50%; height: 25px; justify-content: center; left: 0.05rem !important; top: 0px !important; width: 25px; align-items: center; content: "+ "; color: #fff; font-size: 1.5em; font-weight: 600; } .fac-accordion-wrapper h3.wk-accordion-title { font-size: 1.3em !important; } .focus-box--pull-right--green { float: none; } .wk-scope .wk-accordion-title { padding-left: 4rem; margin-left: 0rem; } .wk-scope .wk-accordion-content>:last-child { margin-left: 2.5rem; margin-right: 19px; } } /*************END MOBILE STYLES****************/ ]]]]> ]]>