Five years into its climate action plan, Lafayette College is just one decade away from its 2035 carbon neutrality goal. How much progress has been made and how close is the college to achieving the planned goals?
“Many of the goals we had identified in our 2019 Climate Action Plan have been implemented,” said Delicia Nahman, the director of the Office of Sustainability. “Some of them have not been fully implemented.”
There are three main goals of the climate action plan: increase energy efficiency and conservation, utilize regenerative ecosystems and biodiversity and have zero waste and circular economics, according to the college’s sustainability website.
Nahman noted several key successes such as a reduction in carbon emissions due to LaFarm, the new composting systems around campus and a partnership with other colleges to partake in a renewable energy power purchase agreement.
Josh Parr, the manager of food and farm, said that LaFarm is positively impacting the college’s reduction in emissions.
“We have very low emissions because we do a lot of work by hand,” Parr said. “We’re not using fossil fuels for machinery. A lot of stuff on the farm is solar powered.”
He explained that providing vegetables to the dining halls lowers the emissions from transportation. The utilization of occultation — when a large tarp is laced over a field to remove weeds instead of using herbicides — also lowers emissions, according to Parr.
Conner Elliot-Knaggs, the climate action and circularity manager and manager of the composting program, highlighted that the composting program has diverted over 5,000 pounds of waste this semester.
Elliot-Knaggs wrote in an email that the composting program is working with Lafayette Dining to “create murals that might be more eye-catching and therefore more impactful in influencing how students dispose of food waste in the dining halls.”
Samantha Comas, the sustainability outreach and engagement manager, wrote in an email that students should take advantage of the campus thrift store, sign up for the reusable clamshell program or get free food from Leopard Leftovers to contribute to the plan.
“Even just when you have a banana peel or a plastic bottle, getting it in the right bin and decreasing contamination in the recycling and compost streams is vital to our progress toward waste diversion,” she wrote.
Nahman affirmed that Lafayette committed to carbon neutrality in 2008, calling it an “ambitious commitment.” The college publishes an updated sustainability report annually.
The first version of the climate action plan dates back to 2008 while the second was published in 2019. A third version of the plan will be completed in 2026.
“I think climate leadership is being open and honest and transparent about the emissions with the important work that we are doing,” Nahman said.
“The solutions won’t become solutions overnight,” she continued. “It’s about continued effort and collective effort.”
