The President’s Commission on Carbon Neutrality, charged with recommending strategies for U-M to achieve net-zero emissions, expects to release a draft of its recommendations for public comment Dec. 17.
The draft report will include a set of scalable and transferable strategies that outline a potential path for U-M to reach carbon neutrality.
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From the draft’s release through Jan. 22, 2021, the commission is inviting the U-M community to review proposed recommendation, and submit feedback and ideas through a public comment portal.
After reviewing all comments, the commission plans to submit a final set of recommendations to President Mark Schlissel in February 2021.
The commission’s draft recommendations address greenhouse gas emissions from the Flint, Dearborn and Ann Arbor campuses, as well as those from Michigan Medicine.
The analysis accounts for:
- Scope 1 emissions, resulting from on-campus sources like the power plant.
- Scope 2 emissions, resulting from purchased power.
- Scope 3 emissions, resulting from indirect sources like commuting and university-sponsored travel.
An array of completed analyses are informing the commission’s deliberations, including reports from external consultants and internal analysis teams and subgroups.
Those teams are examining biosequestration, campus building heating and cooling, campus culture and communication, carbon accounting, commuting, energy consumption policies, external collaboration, food systems, mobility electrification, new building standards, and university-sponsored travel.
Teams included student and faculty experts from across the university, and each team dedicated sections of their final reports to environmental justice considerations.
The collective teams’ research and analyses will be reflected extensively in the draft report.
