WeSustainability

Wesleyan's first-ever "Green Report"--a "Review of Environmental Sustainability at Wesleyan"--is now available on the sustainability site. In all, it's 30 pages long and summarizes the environmental initiatives underway in various areas, including energy, water, transportation, facilities, and procurement.

Notably, one of the "ultimate goals" is to make Wes carbon-neutral by 2030. (For the sake of comparison, Middlebury has pledged to become carbon-neutral by 2016; none of the other six NESCAC schools that have signed the President's Climate Commitment seem to have a target date yet.) Some other notable points:

• By the middle of this summer--i.e., any day--the university will have completed an inventory of all campus greenhouse gas emissions.
• By November, the university will have completed a rough draft of its plan to become carbon-neutral. The full plan will be complete by November 2009--notably, the target date for breaking ground on the new science building. Talk about timing.

There's a lot of interesting information in the report (at least, I thought so), and if nothing else, it could be a good temporary cure for the midsummer doldrums.

In a related note, Amherst and Williams (and Tufts, which no one cares about anyway) are the only NESCAC schools that have not signed the Commitment. It's nice to know we can achieve Little Three supremacy in something.

Link: Wesleyan Green Report