History of Duke University's Carbon Neutrality Commitment
In 2007, Duke University committed to being carbon neutral in 2024. This commitment led to the development of Duke's first Climate Action Plan in 2009. This plan provided recommendations to reduce emissions from energy used on campus and emissions from transportation-related activities (employee commuting, air travel, and Duke-owned vehicles). It also provided recommendations on carbon offsets, which led to the creation of the Duke Carbon Offsets Initiative. Lastly, the CAP also focused on ways to improve sustainability across Duke by creating recommendations for education and campus-community outreach.
Nearly a decade since 2009, Duke University began updating its Climate Action Plan to assess progress to-date, review assumptions that may have changed and consider new strategies that could push Duke towards carbon neutrality in 2024. With a goal of full transparency, the University sought input from internal and external stakeholders through an open comment period on Duke's draft CAP Update. These comments were reviewed and responded to in the Climate Action Plan Update or the Response to Comment document. Through operational changes, energy efficiency upgrades, carbon offset retirement and more, Duke University accomplished its neutrality milestone in 2024.
To learn more about carbon neutrality, please read the Duke Today series on Duke's carbon neutrality journey and watch the quick learner video below on carbon neutrality and carbon offsets.
Duke’s New Climate Goal
Though achieving carbon neutrality in 2024 is an important milestone for the university, it is not the end point. Leading institutions have a social responsibility to set ambitious climate goals. Having met the goal it set in 2007, Duke is evaluating what modern climate goals match the ambition of its Climate Commitment. This work is being done by the Climate Commitment Advisory Council (CCAC) Operations Subcommittee, which is charged with creating recommendations that will be presented to university leadership.
Current plans for this goal include aligning emissions reductions targets with the latest climate science, which instruct organizations to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. Net-zero is defined as a reduction of actual emissions by 90% or more, with carbon removal credits used to address the remaining residual emissions. This science-based goal will allow Duke to set different targets for categories of emissions it has operational control over (scopes 1 and 2) and those that it has less control over (scope 3). It also includes setting interim reduction targets which will allow the university to check its progress on the way to its 2050 net-zero goal.
The CCAC Operations Subcommittee is composed of students, faculty, and staff who represent a wide range of Duke schools and departments and bring a variety of expertise and experiences to this process. This subcommittee and OCS staff will also be working with an emerging campus committee to evaluate if, and how, Duke maintains carbon neutrality moving forward with the use of offsets as this next generation climate plan is also developed. The Operations Subcommittee seeks to finalize its recommendations for Duke’s new climate goal by early 2025, when CCAC leadership will present the proposal to university leadership for consideration.