Attendees: 

Julia Haggerty, Kristin Blackler, Duke Elliott, Justin Pennel, Kevin Amende, Nicholas Fitzmaurice, Natalie Meyer, Paul Edlund, Steve Swinford, Brooke Lahneman, Paul Lachapelle, Mary Stein, Patrick Belmont, Rose Vejvoda, Kieran Wilder, Edward Hook, Mathew Madsen, Jared Leonard, Justin Pennel, Jared Leonard, Liz Weber, Logun Norris, Susan Ghallager, Jonas Shannon-Webster

Approval of previous minutes

April minutes approved.

Informational Items

Discussion of Campus Stability Plan creation.

Julia Haggerty: CSAC’s goal last year was to adopt a sustainability plan and a emissions reduction goal. This was put on hold due to covid but this proccess has been restarted with the end of the MSU legislative session. This meeting will focus on the goal of adopting a sustainability plan.

Kristen Blackler: Looking to set a carbon neutrality date within the sustainability plan. Aiming to deliver the sustainability plan for approval at the start of fall semester. Carbon neutrality is the goal, currently figuring out the speed, cost, savings, and route to achieving carbon neutrality. Creating Emissions working group (EWG) which will work on creating a path towards carbon neutrality throughout the summer and report to CSAC.

Paul Lachapelle: Is It more important to set yearly emission reduction goals then a Carbon Neutrality goal?

Kristen Blackler: The carbon neutrality goal will fold yearly emission reduction goals into it.

Patrick Belmont: It is important to set the flag of carbon neutrality, and then set yearly reduction goals. Setting a minimum reduction worked for Utah State, which choose to reduce emissions by 10% each year. If you overachieve one year it carries forward to the next year’s goal. Having open transparent discussions helps move through this proccess and create new ideas.

Duke Elliot: The semantics of the sustainability plan is less important than the outcome. The hope of the summer EWG group will be to find a path to carbon neutrality and then setting a date. Some approaches that MSU will take might be longer term then one-year changes and so setting a strict year by year reduction goal may not be practical for MSU.

Julia Haggerty: Important to have engineering involved to make sure practical goals are set.

Paul Lachapelle: Specific goals seem important to keep ourselves accountable to our goals.

Patrick Belmont: Important not to be in a waiting watching mode to see if technology will evolve. Creating change right now is important for moving towards carbon neutrality.

Natalie Meyer: Most of the low hanging fruit for sustainability has been realized at MSU, and so setting year by year goals may be harder.

Duke Elliot: Maybe we should set goals initially and then backfill the action/planning.

Mary Stein: How/is the STARS program informing or guiding the MSU climate planning proccess.

Kristen Blackler: Hoping to update the STARS program and get gold ranking this year. Low scoring areas were mainly in engagement and financing. Looking to use alternative funding methods to move us closer to carbon neutrality. Important to have a lofty goal which will help it to be incorporated into all parts of campus and stimulate the competitive spirit of those at MSU.

Paul Lachapelle: Currently focusing on the sustainability plan and later work on the climate action plan. Would it make more sense to put greenhouse emissions in the climate action plan to get the sustainability plan passed more quickly?

Julia Haggerty: Next meeting will be a deep dive into greenhouse gas emissions which might help clarify which plan the emissions goals goes into. Could make a motion for this idea in the next meeting. I think the greenhouse emissions goals fold well into the sustainability plan. So far what I understand is that a specialized group will develop information and a roadmap for sustainability goals which will be talked about in CSAC and hopefully approved in August.

Kevin Amende: I will be helping Kristin in the specialized group and looking forward to applying engineering technology to this plan.

Public comment

Adjournment