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UMF plans to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions over the life of this plan, achieving carbon neutrality by 2035. The plan calls for intermediary targets of reductions of about 20% by 2015 and 43% by 2025. The plan identifies five strategies to achieve carbon neutrality:
• Implement efficiency upgrades in the infrastructure and utilities systems for the campus.
• Change behaviors by educating, guiding, reminding, and by creating or enhancing programs, challenges, and certifications that provide incentives and facilitate participation.
• Modify policies in areas such as financing, construction, buildings, electrical devices, landscaping, transportation, and bottled water usage to reduce energy use and emissions.
• Expand our use of renewable energy sources: substantially increase geothermal, while exploring the use of other campus-based renewable energy systems such as solar hot water, wind, and photovoltaics. Begin purchasing renewable electricity in 2015, increasing as needed.
• Purchase offsets as a last resort to offset remaining emissions.

Several lines of evidence support the soundness of this climate action plan: pilots of behavioral initiatives have yielded significant savings; two recently constructed LEED-certified buildings exhibit dramatically lower energy demand and costs than older buildings; in the last three years, the Computer Center has reduced its energy use and greenhouse gas emissions by about 50%. As a result of these efforts, we are already seeing reductions in total energy use by the campus infrastructure. Transportation, which constitutes 41% of our emissions footprint, is the most challenging source to address, both because few alternatives exist in our rural location and because most of the emissions are not subject to college control. Until most cars are electric, using energy that can be generated renewably, transportation will continue to be a challenge.

UMF is working toward making climate neutrality and environmental sustainability linchpins of the institution’s curriculum, co-curriculum, and culture. The college supports multiple majors (environmental science, environmental policy and planning, biology, geography, geology), minors (environmental studies), and course offerings that focus on this content. In 2005, the college developed a set of goals to guide general education, with environmental sustainability as a key element. UMF addresses this goal by offering a wide range of courses and co-curricular opportunities for student engagement in content and practice relevant to environmental sustainability. As part of the Climate Action Plan, the Interdisciplinary and General Education Committee will (1) assess the extent to which UMF students are currently meeting the environmental stewardship goal and (2) explore ways to further elevate the place of sustainability in the curriculum.

A rich co-curriculum has developed at UMF around the theme of sustainability. Through the SCC and several clubs, students have abundant opportunities for learning and applying their knowledge about environmental sustainability to issues on campus and in the community. Examples include instituting campus energy challenges, running community climate change and energy forums, carrying out annual campus salvage and recycle operations that fund community organizations, and inventorying greenhouse gas emissions on campus and in the town.

One of the most exciting aspects of sustainability education efforts at UMF is the integration across traditionally separate areas: curriculum and co-curriculum, academic and administrative units, and the campus and the community. Increasingly, we’re seeing promising integrations across all of these levels. In a US Green Building Council funded project, for example, Associate Professor Grace Eason has been using our LEED-certified buildings to connect across UMF courses, the UMF co-curriculum, preK-12 teachers, their students, and the community.

UMF is a public liberal arts college focusing on undergraduate education. Accordingly, the college emphasizes research involving students, some of which bears on climate change. Below are examples:
• Associate Professor of Geology Julia Daly: Sea-level rise; changing temperature profiles in mountain ponds in Maine.
• Associate Professor of Geology Doug Reusch: The role of continent building and destruction in climate dynamics in the distant past.
• Professor of Biology Drew Barton: Changing drought regimes, fire, and the ecology of Madrean pine-oak forests on the US-Arizona borderlands.
• Associate Professor Matt McCourt: Community values associated with forest resources in western Maine.
• Associate Professor Linda Beck: Climate change and regional security in West Africa.

UMF’s vision statement affirms that “community-based opportunities for innovation, collaboration, research, and service are fundamental to the educational enterprise.” Both the curriculum and co-curriculum involve sustainability outreach initiatives. Service learning comprises an important element of many courses in the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities, which focus on sustainability or the environment.
The UMF Sustainable Campus Coalition works closely with Western Mountains Alliance to share information and host energy forums; UMF students intern with the agency, working on local foods and energy conservation. The SCC has hosted a variety of events in 2009 dedicated to educating citizens in our region and state: a talk by Bill McKibben in March; a student-run state-wide climate summit in April, attended by students from around Maine; 350 Day activities in conjunction with citizens’ groups, churches, and local agencies; and our fall Climate Change lecture series featuring internationally known speakers and UMF faculty. We will continue this educational outreach and productive connection with agencies and citizens interested in reducing emissions and energy use.
We demonstrate our commitment to serving our community with hands-on initiatives led by SCC members: weatherizing low-income homes in conjunction with a county agency; working with school-age students to launch no-idling policies; producing a greenhouse gas inventory for the town of Farmington; working with elementary students to compost food waste; researching water quality in local lakes. In addition, trained students host tours of our LEED-certified Education Center, demonstrating the features that reduce carbon emissions, such as geothermal and recycled building materials. These tours reach classroom teachers, school-age students, prospective college students, and the general public.
The Climate Action Plan will be made available online for off-campus readers, and hard copies will be placed in Mantor Library. Publicity about the completion of our plan will be given to the local media.