The Campus Environmental Advisory Committee (CEAC) spent the 2017-2018 and 2018-2019 academic years discussing and debating the approach that the college should take to carbon offsets.
At the end of the school year, CEAC generated a report that recommended principles for carbon offset purchases for 2020 and in the near future and also urged the College to reduce its dependency on offsets.
“Offsets are a short-term solution to our carbon pollution problem. The only question is how short-term. As it develops its offsets portfolio, we urge the College to explicitly factor offsets into its long-term strategic planning, and to maintain an ongoing public dialogue about the time horizon of its offset investments. In the meantime, we should be on guard for any signs of moral licensing, especially when it comes to decisions with long-term implications for campus energy use.”
– Campus Environmental Advisory Committee (CEAC) report
Our recommendation: The college’s stated commitment requires the purchase of carbon offsets, at least in the short term, to meet our goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2020. Carbon offsets have the potential to generate meaningful reductions in the college’s carbon footprint without compromising its commitment to directly reducing emissions. The following recommendations are specific ways to ensure that the college’s purchase of carbon offsets yields real emissions reductions and supports the college’s broader goals. These recommendations also reflect discussions of the Campus Environmental Advisory Committee (CEAC).
- Mission-linked offsets We are hopeful that our choice to buy offsets can be used not just to balance our carbon budget, but also to encourage the kind of critical, self-reflective inquiry that is at the heart of our educational mission. To that end, we urge the College to prioritize offsets that satisfy two criteria: visibility and depth. Visibility: For offsets to be educationally valuable, they must be visible. For offsets to be truly visible to the College community, they should be open to in-depth analysis, and that analysis should be actively promoted as a meaningful learning opportunity. Depth: For offsets to support the College’s educational mission, they should enable critical environmental thinking.
- Local Offsets We believe that Williams should pursue opportunities to work on projects to reduce and sequester GHG emissions in the local community, but only if they meet the most rigorous standards of additionality, reasonably cost-effective carbon emissions reduction, and our standard of educational depth. In practice, this makes local offsetting very difficult, which is why we urge the College to also think about ways to support local mitigation efforts in different ways.
- Forest Management & Conservation While lands that will remain forested regardless do not contribute additionality, lands that have been harvested for timber historically might well be considered to be legitimate candidates to qualify for carbon-sequestration offset production. However, they should be managed in a fashion that guarantees the annual carbon removal of wood from the site is less than the annual addition of carbon to the standing woody biomass and the annual addition of carbon to the soil is more than the annual respiratory loss of soil organic matter through decomposition.
- Educational Frameworks We encourage the College to prioritize projects that (a) rely on science and technology that students can be reasonably expected to understand; (b) have proven, transparent track records; and (c) clearly illustrate the interconnectedness of economic, social, political, and natural systems.
- Co-Benefits We encourage the College to prioritize the co-benefits of social engagement, equity, environmental health and conservation—all of which respond to what has clearly become the preeminent concern of our faculty and students, climate justice.
- Climate Justice Williams has a responsibility to educate its students about the environmental justice implications of carbon offsets and a duty to avoid any offsetting schemes that might have any negative social consequences. We believe that Williams should approach all offsets in the Global South with caution, recognizing that even the most apparently benign schemes involve asymmetrical power relations.
- Oversight To minimize risk, the College should invest in a portfolio of offsetting projects that meets all of the criteria described above and affords students and faculty multiple opportunities for multi-disciplinary inquiry. We recommend the establishment of an offsets task force that meets at least twice per semester, consisting of the director of the Zilkha Center, the chair of Environmental Studies, one student, and two additional faculty members. Because the learning curve is steep, members of this group should serve multi-year terms.
- Offset vendors and institutional partnerships We encourage the College to consider working with an organization that specializes in providing additional layers of scrutiny to verified projects, especially with respect to the extremely important question of additionality.
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