Smith College Goes All In on Sustainability

The Study Group on Climate Change at Smith College, the highly rated liberal arts college for women in Northampton, Massachusetts, has released a report with recommendations on how to embed sustainable development into all aspects of campus life.

Among the recommendations in the report are:

• Create new academic offerings and further infuse climate change and sustainable development concepts across the curriculum, while enhancing experiential learning opportunities for students.
• Expand opportunities for students to participate in climate-action initiatives outside of the classroom and to live more sustainably on campus.
• Aggressively pursue the college’s commitment to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.
• Address climate change in the context of Smith’s endowment investments.
• Develop sustainability and climate-change initiatives that model ideal institutional behavior.

The board of trustees accepted the report and issued a statement that read: “Climate change is an urgent, complex problem. Human activities are pushing the climate beyond the range of conditions experienced over the last few million years and toward abrupt, unpredictable, highly damaging and potentially irreversible impacts. Effective responses will require ambitious, multifaceted plans of action.”

The full 39-page report, Report of the Smith College Study Group on Climate Change: Toward a Sustainable Future, may be downloaded by clicking here.