Both of these targets place the university firmly on the path to minimizing the impact of its operations on the climate system. UNH should aspire to achieve “climate neutrality”––elimination of any emissions––by the end of the century.

Achieving climate neutrality is an on-going process best thought of as a continual improvement through constant emission reductions.5 The university has adopted a strategy of implementing change, either in the way campus activity is conducted or in the built environment, to achieve greenhouse gas reductions. We challenge ourselves by taking this more difficult path than the alternative of purchased credits which allow business as usual to persist.

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UNH will receive up to 85% of the energy used by the campus from the EcoLine™ project, a landfill gas-to-energy project that uses methane gas from a nearby landfill. UNH is the first campus in the country to use landfill gas as its primary fuel source. In partnership with Waste Management of New Hampshire, Inc., UNH launched EcoLine to pipe enriched and purified gas from Waste Management’s landfill in Rochester to the Durham campus. UNH will sell the renewable energy certificates (RECs) generated by using landfill gas through 2015 to help finance the overall cost of the project and to invest in additional energy efficiency projects on campus. EcoLine is projected to cut more than 36,000 t CO2e (metric tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent) annually by 2020.

The ETF (the authors of the plan) have recommended more than 25 projects – including a vehicle fleet management program and improved energy management of campus computers – for adoption by UNH. These projects would reduce an additional 7,500 t CO2e annually beyond the EcoLine reductions by 2020.

In addition, more than 15 university-wide policies – including a review of the university's telecommuting, travel, and procurement policies – have been recommended for adoption which would strengthen the projects and lead to further reductions.

Many of the projects in the CAP will be financed though the creation of an innovative energy efficiency revolving fund. This fund will be created with seed money from a ARRA (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009) grant and supplemented with funds generated though the sale of RECs from the Ecoline project through 2015 as well as future fundraising efforts. The fund will capture the cost savings of efficiency projects on campus to reinvest in future projects.

Sustainability is a core UNH identity and a motivating factor for everything we do. Over the past year a series of focused workshops and broader strategic planning sessions has brought together more than 200 faculty, staff and students to plan the next phase of sustainability and UNH strategic priorities including the development of the UNH Sustainability Academy (UNHSA). UNHSA will be unique in its conception and role within the university. Rather than proposing a new school or department with sustainability majors, UNHSA will be designed to connect more faculty, students and stakeholders with the challenges and opportunities of sustainability and, in the process, enlarge the community of inquiry engaged in collaborative innovation and creative problem solving. UNHSA will extend the innovative and collaborative approach to sustainability that has garnered UNH recognition and will increase the number and quality of students, faculty and staff who choose to come to the university to take advantage of unique opportunities to engage in integrated scholarship for sustainability. Governed by an intellectual and administrative structure that bridges all facets of the university, UNHSA will project a powerful regional identity for UNH ‐‐ rooted in a commitment to sustaining New England’s unique natural and cultural resources ‐‐ while cultivating a cosmopolitan outlook and scholarship of relevance to the nation and world.

For more information: http://www.sustainableunh.unh.edu/successes.html#curriculum

Through the work of the UNHSA, will further enhance sustainability & climate research occurring across campus in areas such as The Institute for the Study of Earth Oceans & Space, Natural Resources & Earth Systems Science Ph.D. Program, and many others.

The Energy Task Force will also be assisting in the development of research related to carbon sequestration as part of the Ecoline project and measurement of the carbon uptake on university-owned lands.

For more information: http://www.sustainableunh.unh.edu/successes.html#research

Through UNHSA, the university will continue to integrate with programs such as Carbon Solutions New England and The New Hampshire Carbon Challenge.

Additional the Energy Task Force has created a subcommittee to expand outreach related to WildCAP.

For more information: http://www.sustainableunh.unh.edu/successes.html#engagement