The University of Miami has one of the nation’s top marine biology graduate programs and regularly produces cutting-edge research on climate change and sea-level rise. But when it comes to reducing its carbon footprint, progress can be slow going — especially for an institution with more than 240 acres and 5.7 million square feet of buildings.
In 2007, then-UM President Donna Shalala signed the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment, pledging the university to climate neutrality (meaning net zero greenhouse gas emissions) by 2060. Since then, UM has reduced its emissions by about 20% through a mix of energy efficiency and renewable energy measures, says Teddy Lhoutellier, the university’s sustainability manager.
UM’s Frost School of Music facility gets about 40% of its energy from a 75-kilowatt solar panel system mounted on top of the music building, and the Hurricane Food Court gets 10% to 15% of its energy from a 20-kilowatt rooftop solar array. Additionally, students can charge their phones using “solar charging umbrellas” — solar-powered charging stations in the form of patio umbrellas at the Coral Gables campus.
\UM now is working to join the Environmental Protection Agency’s Energy Star program, which involves connecting its buildings to an online platform that will allow it to measure and track energy and water use.
While reducing its own carbon emissions is still the goal, he says, UM also is looking at offsetting its footprint with investments in renewable energy projects elsewhere. Of the more than 450 colleges and universities that signed onto the Presidents Climate Commitment, fewer than 10 had become carbon neutral a decade later, and all of them had achieved that goal by buying carbon offsets, according to Second Nature, a Boston non-profit that tracks climate action at higher education institutions.
“You can put solar on every roof on campus, but the load is so much that you need to do something else. It’s really hard to offset all the energy we consume,” Lhoutellier says.