NYU expects to meet Mayor Michael Bloomberg's challenge to reduce carbon emissions by 30 percent from 2006 levels this semester, seven years ahead of schedule.
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"The mayor said that New York City was going to do it by 2030," NYU manager of sustainability initiatives Jeremy Friedman said. "He asked us to do it early by 2017, which would've been a 10-year timeline. We've done it in three years."
The implementation of the Climate Action Plan, which was released in winter 2009 and was based on sustainability actions the university had been taking since 2005, primarily drove NYU's success in drastically cutting carbon emissions.
The final piece of the puzzle will fall into place when the co-generation power plant goes online later this semester. Friedman said the plant is expected to reduce carbon emissions by 23 percent during its first full year of operation.
Along with the launch of the plant, NYU will also be ahead of schedule for the American College and University Presidents' Climate Commitment, a pledge by universities to become carbon-neutral by 2040.
Since the 2006 fiscal year, NYU has been reducing its emissions by about 7 percent per year. According to Friedman, NYU emitted roughly 171,000 metric tons of greenhouse gas in 2006, which was 0.3 percent of all of New York City's greenhouse gas emissions.
Friedman said greenhouse gas emissions have been decreasing faster than energy use because the production of energy through green methods can easily reduce emissions.
For the 2010 fiscal year, NYU's director of energy and sustainability Cecil Scheib said the university cut its energy use by roughly 5.6 percent. This figure is less than previous years because of energy use on the new floors in 726 Broadway and because of construction needs when building the co-generation power plant. Excluding these factors, NYU would have reduced its overall energy use by 12 percent in 2010.
"Working together as an organization, students, faculty, staff and administrators saved enough energy to remove more than 6,500 average New York City homes off the grid — for the whole year," Scheib said.
In order to achieve these drastic reductions in both emissions and energy use, the Climate Action Plan combined technological solutions with educational initiatives and programs to target behavioral change.
On the technological side, the university retrofitted numerous buildings to be more energy efficient. Scheib said NYU has installed 3,500 light occupancy sensors in offices and classrooms along with 3,662 smart thermostats and occupancy sensors in student residence halls. This saves NYU more than 3.6 million kilowatt-hours per year, equivalent to about 840 metric tons of carbon dioxide.
Scheib added that lighting audits in more than 30 buildings resulted in retrofitting more than 5,000 fixtures, saving about 850,000 kwh per year.
Simple fixes like shutting down unneeded lights and elevators during breaks and holidays and distributing compact fluorescent light bulbs have also played a large role in energy and greenhouse gas emissions reduction, Scheib said.
Friedman said educational programs and initiatives have also played an important role in meeting the climate action goals and will be expanded. Many educational programs such as the Sustainability Advocate Program, an initiative to train Sustainability Advocates in NYU buildings, and NYUnplugged, the annual energy-saving challenge in dorms, are growing in scope and influence.
"I'm focused, first and foremost, in working in this office on the conscious change because in a university, we really want people not to just get facts but to get an understanding," Friedman said.
Joe Beaglehole, the head of the Sustainability Advocate Program, said the program has grown from around 120 staff members to about 200 since he began working at the Sustainability Office in July.
Scheib said all the programs, changes and overall cuts in energy use and emissions have saved NYU millions of dollars each year.
"Saving energy is probably the most effective way to save the university money ... Flat out," Friedman said.
Moving forward, NYU plans to build in a sustainable manner, to continue to retrofit buildings, to expand educational programs and to look into renewable energy sources like solar and wind.
Christopher Schlottmann, a clinical assistant professor of environmental studies and the associate director of environmental studies at NYU, said he thinks the Climate Action Plan is moving NYU in the right direction, but the future will hold new challenges.
"Larger capital projects, intensive efficiency measures, energy generation and substantial behavior changes will be called for," Schlottmann said.
Friedman hopes NYU will not be a victim of its own success.
"We need the students to take the lead in saving energy because that's where the real opportunities in the next decade are going to be," he said.
In a previous version of this article, the number of staff members in the Sustainability Office was incorrectly reported as growing from 60 to 300. Currently the office employs 200 staff. WSN regrets the error.
