Sustainable Columbia Presents at NYSERDA’s Clean Green Campuses Workshop
Assistant Vice President of the Office of Sustainability Jessica Prata and Senior Energy Engineer Adam Courtney presented at NYSERDA’s Clean Green Campuses Annual Workshop this month.
This free event for New York State higher education institutions and stakeholders acted as an opportunity to learn more about NYSERDA resources, offer feedback directly to NYSERDA program staff, and learn from higher education peers about clean energy efforts and strategies.
Columbia’s segment of the event was called “Plan 2030: Carving an Electrification Pathway to Achieve Net Zero by 2050 or Sooner.” Participants learned from Prata and Courtney about Columbia’s strategic sustainability planning process that engaged faculty, students, and administrators from across its four campuses to create Plan 2030. The plan – now in its third year – set bold science-based targets and contains goals within six impactful operational areas, paving a pathway to net zero.
Workshop attendees also got a behind-the-scenes look at Columbia’s process of studying ways to electrify its central energy plant, an effort that will transform the campus and significantly reduce the University’s Scope 1 emissions.
Jessica Prata oversees the strategic direction, governance, reporting and compliance for Columbia University’s sustainability commitments. She has led the development of Columbia’s first two sustainability plans in the school’s history, the last of which commits the University to achieve net zero emissions by 2050 or sooner, grounded in climate science and in alignment with both local and state laws as well as the Paris Agreement.
Adam Courtney leads Columbia’s energy management and decarbonization team. The team is responsible for developing and overseeing the execution of strategies that deliver on Columbia’s climate commitments.