Second Nature Blog Newsletter

As we head into the new year, we would like to remind you of a few important activities related to your American College & University Presidents' Climate Commitment (ACUPCC) implementation:

1. The annual reporting deadline for the ACUPCC is January 15, 2015: Please check your reporting status by visiting the ACUPCC Reporting System and entering your institution's name in the field provided. If you have any reports past due (shown in red), please submit them or contact the ACUPCC Support Team to discuss how to get your institution back on track.
2. Implementation Profile Update: Please make sure that your institution's Implementation Profile is up to date. For instructions on how to update your institution's Implementation Profile, you can watch this video. The Implementation Profile is a short online form that provides us with information about your institution, including contact details for communications directed to Presidents and Implementation Liaisons. If you are not the correct point of contact, please let us know.
3. Reporting Extensions: If you are unable to meet the January 15, 2015 reporting deadline, a request for an extension may be submitted. In order to avoid a “Not in Good Standing” reporting status, signatories should apply for an extension as soon as they become aware that they will be unable make the deadline.

by Kate Gordon, Executive Director, Risky Business Project

I grew up in and around universities. As the child of a law professor, I spent time in Buffalo, NY, Madison, WI, and Palo Alto, CA, often doing my homework at the back of lecture halls and empty classrooms. Ultimately I ended up at Wesleyan for my B.A., and then at UC Berkeley for joint degrees in law and city planning, paving the way for my current work on energy and climate policy.

Even with all this exposure to academia, I only fully grasped the role that universities can play in fighting climate change a few weeks ago, when I was lucky enough to spend a day at the annual conference of the American College & University Presidents' Climate Commitment. I was there to talk about the Risky Business Project, an initiative co-chaired by former New York City mayor Mike Bloomberg, former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, and long-time investor and climate activist Tom Steyer. The project takes a classic business risk assessment approach to climate change and identifies specific risks facing each region of the U.S. in three major sectors: energy demand, coastal infrastructure, and commodity agriculture. Our research also identified significant impacts on mortality rates and labor productivity from global temperature increases.

by Karolina Kenney, Summer Intern, Second Nature

(This post is part of a series by the Second Nature team about why we do what we do.)

When it comes to the environment, my life has been made up of singular moments of clarity where I have realized where I fit in the world of sustainability. Throughout my whole life, I have run into views towards nature that have baffled me, but learning how to battle those who “don’t care” or “don’t have the time” for the environment is what has fueled my fervor for creating a stable future.

“When I grow up I want to work at Alfalfa’s. Where the cheese is dairy free. A birkenstocks, spandex, necktie, patchouli grocery store. I’ll have a job, picking through the produce – no pesticides for me! I’ll be a working modern income socially conscience Boulder hippie,” 

After being the first President to sign the ACUPCC while at College of the Atlantic, Chairing on Second Nature's Board of Directors, and serving two years as President of Second Nature, David Hales officially retires from Second Nature today. 

David has overseen many positive changes while at Second Nature and for the ACUPCC during his service. He is clearly among the most dedicated to the mission of creating a sustainable society by transforming higher education - from implementing climate leadership on his own campus to leading the national organization that supports the ACUPCC network. 

David's letter to the network is copied below.

Chevrolet recently announced it is investing in clean energy efficiency initiatives of U.S. colleges and universities through its voluntary carbon-reduction initiative. Chevrolet helped develop a new carbon credit methodology with clean energy efficiency stakeholders so that campuses can earn money for certain upgrades that reduce greenhouse gas emissions. As carbon emissions continue to contribute to the warming of the earth, such funding enables universities to reduce their impact and save money on utility bills while engaging and educating students in their efforts.

ACUPCC campuses are increasingly pursuing aggressive clean energy efficiency efforts from installing more efficient building equipment to using renewable energy to help power operations. With this initiative, Chevrolet will buy and retire carbon credits resulting from some campuses’ greenhouse gas reductions from either their Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certified buildings or other campus-wide energy-saving initiatives.

Today, the Third U.S. National Climate Assessment (NCA) report was released in Washington DC and will be followed by a White House event this afternoon.

The report has been in production for several years and represents the most comprehensive and rigorous assessment ever produced of climate science, impacts (now and in the future), and options for the U.S.  This remarkable effort is the work of 60 members of a Federal Advisory Committee, 240 authors, and hundreds of reviewers – all representing expertise from government, academia, NGOs, and business. The report covers 8 regions of the U.S. as well as sectors such as transportation, energy, water, and many more critical areas of the U.S. economy.  

The full report as well as highlights documents can be found at http://nca2014.globalchange.gov

The report illustrates that climate impacts are being felt across all areas of the U.S. and are increasingly evident in the present. Impacts are expected to increase in the future. Many Americans are already experiencing the effects of climate change, and are considering how to respond. While some progress is being made with respect to reducing the causes of change (mitigation) as well as reducing the vulnerability of society to impacts (adaptation), the NCA indicates that there is much more work to be done - progress so far has been largely incremental. In addition to capturing the potential severity of climate impacts, the report highlights both the need and the opportunity of addressing climate change.

By Anne Waple, Second Nature

A new documentary series on the human impacts of climate change combines the appeal of a big Hollywood movie production, with real human stories, grounded science, and experienced reporting.

Celebrities from Matt Damon to Don Cheadle to Harrison Ford work with veteran Emmy Award-winning reporters such as Lesley Stahl to show the human face of climate change impacts from across the globe. 

The series ranges across the globe covering the impacts of drought in Texas and the Middle East, to major storms on the U.S. East Coast, to deforestation in Indonesia and a new breed of wildfire in California. Through the eyes of non climate-expert celebrities, we get a view of climate impacts that reflects their own journey of understanding. While they interview and rely on climate scientists to provide the scientific foundation behind the stories, the series focuses on real impacts for real people trying to figure out ways to cope. The series is being billed as 'ground-breaking', and from what we have seen so far, the combination of its production value, scientific insight, and human focus may well prove to be just that. The series comes at a time to reinforce recent reports from the scientific community that highlight the robust state of climate science knowledge as well as the seriousness of impacts.

By Anne Waple, Second Nature

IPCC reports progress on responding to climate change, but much more action needed to reduce risk

This week, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released the second in a three-part global climate assessment. The report, Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability, was written by 309 Coordinating Lead Authors from 70 countries, an additional 436 contributing authors, and was reviewed by over 1700 experts. The report looks at the nature of changing climate risk and the opportunities to increase resilience in a changing climate.

The report is certainly the most comprehensive global report of its kind and represents the current state of consensus understanding on impacts and responses related to climate change. This report also sets the stage for the release of the Third U.S. National Climate Assessment, due to hit the streets in late April/early May. That assessment will take a closer look at climate changes, impacts, and responses at the scale of the U.S. (watch this space for more on that soon as well as an overview of several recent and upcoming reports and how to use them!).

By Mark Orlowski, Founder & Executive Director, Sustainable Endowments Institute

In April, a new tool will be launched to help colleges achieve their ACUPCC goals through streamlined tracking and calculation of project-level energy, financial and carbon data.  GRITS 1.0 (Green Revolving Investment Tracking System) is a breakthrough web platform that provides real, accessible, shareable data to unite management of both financial and environmental project performance.

Developed by the Sustainable Endowments Institute, an ACUPCC and Second Nature partner, GRITS offers a necessary bridge between managing and reporting, creating the space for schools to track, analyze and share information on specific projects or groups of projects--well beyond the capabilities of spreadsheets.

NEW ACCESS + WEBINAR

The GRITS 1.0 tool is the culmination of more than two years of internal development and guidance from colleges and universities across North America.  These schools benefited from using GRITS beta to manage their green revolving funds (GRFs)--an innovative financing mechanism to recapture cost savings from energy and resource efficiency projects.  More information on green revolving funds is available on The Billion Dollar Green Challenge website.