Attendees: 

Julia Haggerty, Kristin Blackler, Jessica Thompson, Cy Halvorson, Dominic Corradino, Duke
Elliott, Hailey Sinoff, Jessica Thompson, Jacob Northcutt, Jessica Thompson, Justin Pennel,
Kevin Amende, Nicholas Fitzmaurice, Natalie Meyer, Paul Edlund, Savanna Washburn, Steve
Swinford, Brooke Lahneman, Paul Edlund, Daniel Short

Call to Order and Approval of Previous Minutes

  • March minutes approved.

Informational Items

  1. Sustainability Office STARS update
  2. Climate Pursuit Group update
  3. CSAC member news and announcements
    Discussion of Climate Pursuit Project Update:
    Smart Building Initiative and BOR policy are in the maintenance fund, functions as a quasirevolving loan fund ~200-250K per year. Smart Building Initiative helps to implement variety of
    EE and conservation projects campus-wide; access to funding is a difficult. Money is included in
    the facilities budget and allocated each year, however, how these investments pay back into the
    system has yet to be tracked. Projects funded from this program includes water conservation to
    EE. Some going to wellness centers PV system. This has helped to prove the technology through
    showing the savings/effectiveness. More funding is needed so that we can do more projects.
    There is no lack of will or ideas in facilities or in the department.

Paul Edlund: how do you incorporate climate justice? Any good examples from peer
institutions?

USU had a recognition that low-income communities/people of color experience greater climate
injustices; we should provide support for BIPOC students through multicultural student.
Services. Many underserved people exist, and we need to address them in climate action plans.

Raye: We are in a great position to explain why we are writing a new climate action plan.
Explain what it means to current and future generations – remembering the values we are
instilling in students and university community.

Natalie: How can we get this project report around campus?
Look to bring plan to the planning council as they are responsible for putting for the
budget/climate plan. The project can help to contribute to this planning process.

Julia: How can we move this forward in terms of finance? Let’s look to get someone from the
business school in climate financing involved in the project.

Steve Swinford: include the land grant mission in the strategic climate plan. Figure out how to
weave in ideas about equity and vulnerable populations.

Brooke: key takeaways, what seemed to be the most important thing to take action on first.

Jessica Thompson: Leadership via president and upper management will drive change via
funding and direction. Working in land grant mission language to climate plan may help get
leadership more involved.

Paul Edlund and Kristin Blacker: Working on updating the STARS report (Sustainability,
Tracking, Assessment and Rating System). Need to measure what’s happening on campus before
improvements can be made, the stars report aims to measure sustainability at MSU. Currently
MSU is at the silver rating and is aiming for a gold rating in the coming years. Will approach
members on the CSAC council to collect information for the STARS report. Looking to obtain
STARS credits for sustainability literacy, employee educators’ program and student educators’
program. Trying to have data fully collected by late November early December. Much of campus
has sustainability practices in place but have yet to put in place formal polices causing MSU to
lose points in some STARS assessments. For example, MSU sources food from many local
suppliers but because they haven’t gone through the certification process MSU lost points. Most
interesting parts of the research for the STARS program was seeing that 80% of departments
teach a sustainability course and over 60% of research is related to sustainability. Areas where
MSU is scoring poorly: Investment & Finance, doesn’t have an investment plan.

Public comment

Adjournment