The conference unites more than 2,000 leaders spanning higher education and sustainability to focus on effective models, policies, research, collaborations and transformational actions that advance sustainability in higher education and surrounding communities.
Amir‘s presentation is titled “Not Your Grandma’s Climate Action Plan (CAP): An Interactive CAP for Storytelling and Spurring Change,” and will focus on his work with the University at Buffalo (UB) and their Integrated Collaborative Energy and Climate Action Plan (ICECAP). The ICECAP was developed to update UB’s 2009 CAP and create a tool to capture, visualize and present the story of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions on all three UB campuses.
An image from SUNY Buffalo’s ICECAP.
The project goals are to update the campus GHG baseline, making the information accessible to the campus community at large, increase data granularity and create a clear reduction pathway rooted in accountability and verification. The final tool became an online tool that users can interact with to understand where the largest sources of emission are, the impact of each reduction strategy and where the higher ROI exists for capital project investment.
Earlier this year, UB earned distinction as the No. 3 university overall in the Times Higher Education (THE) first-ever global climate action rankings. Ryan McPherson, UB’s Chief Sustainability Officer and project lead for the university’s ICECAP with Amir spoke with us about their plan and critical trends and ideas related to climate action.