Bates College
PA-2: Sustainability Planning

Curriculum
Educate a new generation of sustainability leaders by providing a
combination of deep understanding of the environmental issues facing
our time, as well as tools with which to seek solutions to our current
challenges. • Support cross-curricular opportunities to develop an understanding
of environmental issues — their complexity, interconnectedness, and
relationship to issues of equity and justice.
• Identify and develop skills that can be utilized in developing solutions to
existing sustainability issues.
• Further integrate sustainability education into the campus curriculum
by exploring the creation of college-wide, department, or program
sustainability learning objectives where appropriate.
• Identify classes which are related to sustainability, and work with faculty
to infuse climate change and Sustainable Development Goals across the
curriculum. Work to increase the number of sustainability-related courses
within appropriate disciplines.
• Support a peer-to-peer education platform. To cite an example, the
Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education
(AASHE) offers several cross-collegiate trainings on incorporating
sustainability into existing courses via a faculty-to-faculty discussion and
sharing of best practices.
• Adopt the model of “campus as a living lab” to incorporate building
design and construction, energy use, and other sustainability data into
coursework. A more transparent campus will foster increased student
engagement and ownership over the sustainability of our workplace
and home.
Research
Support sustainability research across departments. There is a critical
need for sustainability and climate-related research at this time — both in
terms of assessing the magnitude of the problem, and in finding strategic
and thoughtful ways to engage with solutions. • Develop a system for tracking and reporting sustainability data and make
this data easily accessible to the campus learning community. Data having
to do with our energy usage and carbon footprint can help to engage the
students with real-world, material data sets and help promote place-based
learning.
• Continue our work on open access of published materials and manuscripts. • In searches and hiring, seek to expand faculty research expertise connected
to climate change and sustainability
- From our most recent Sustainability Roadmap, approved by President and the Board of Trustees

4) Culture
Bates is exceptional in the degree to which it involves our students in
real, tangible, high-level sustainability projects on the campus. Students
are not relegated to feel-good activities without meaningful impact, but
rather are integrally involved in every single sustainability decision and
project on our campus. We aim to continue and expand upon this dynamic
by institutionalizing the ethos that anyone who wants to learn about
sustainability should feel completely encouraged and welcome within our
community.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Foster inclusivity and equity within sustainability programs.
• Support movement toward an informed, diverse student body that is
educated and active in advancing equity in the socio-economic space.
• Office of Equity and Inclusion: Continue to work together to inform the
sustainability movement and ensure equality of opportunity in this area.
Engagement
Increase sustainability engagement with all stakeholders, both on
and off campus.
• Empower students to be actively engaged in the sustainability of the
campus via programs like the EcoReps, Green Innovation Grants, student
clubs, green certification, committee work, first-year orientation, and
the garden.
• Expand extracurricular opportunities for students to get involved in
sustainable initiatives.
• Support student, faculty, and staff sustainability education via
peer-to-peer education

Community Partners
Work with the city of Lewiston and the state of Maine to participate in
cooperative planning around climate change and resiliency — both on
campus and in the surrounding community.
Shared Vision
Promote sustainability initiatives with other departments via alignment
with mutual goals, and increased visibility and communication.
• Alumni: support Advancement and the Center for Purposeful Work in
creating a sustainability alumni network and a system to identify alumni
that are active in the realm of sustainability.
• Prospective Students: the Sustainability Office will work with Admission and
Campus Life to highlight both our accomplishments and identify ways that
interested students can get involved.
Sustainability Narrative
The Sustainability Office will work with the Communications Office to
develop a compelling sustainability narrative to engage internal and
external stakeholders.
• Create a Sustainability/Carbon Neutrality link on our homepage.
• Produce a carbon neutrality video directed toward students.
• Increase coverage of sustainability initiatives to attract prospective students
and inform alumni.
- From our most recent Sustainability Roadmap, approved by President and the Board of Trustees

3) Operations
Fully integrate sustainability practices into college operations.
The decisions we make running our daily operations determine how large (or
small) our environmental impact is. From the food we eat, to the water we
use, to our landscaping choices, to our recycling and waste management, the
operations of our campus offer some of the biggest opportunities for cost
savings and sustainability gains.
Dining and Campus Events
Decrease the environmental impact of our dining service and campus events.
Over the last decade, Dining, Conferences and Campus Events has made
enormous gains in terms of sustainability — diverting more than 80 percent
of their waste stream away from the landfill via composting and food wastereduction measures. They have also increased their percentage of local and
organic food, and drastically reduced their number of takeout containers.
Over the next decade, the goals are:
• 30 percent reduction in packaging with a focus on plastics.
• 25 percent reduction in energy consumption through the purchase of more
energy efficient equipment.
• 25 percent reduction in food waste through education.
• To increase percentage of local and organic food where possible.
Recycling/Waste
Through a variety of education and policy initiatives, we hope to send
less material to the landfill over the coming decade.
Currently, Bates recycles roughly 30 percent of its campus waste, diverting it
from the landfill or incinerator. This is done through our single-stream recycling
program, our campus composting initiative, and our movement away from
single-use items. • Increase recycling rates 20 percent by 2030, via sorting education,
standardized bins and signage, and a targeted phase out of single-use items.
Expand campus composting program by 2030 by 25 percent. • Education: engage first year programs, and promote a green certification
course campus-wide.
• Zero Waste Events: sponsor at least one zero waste event per year.
Water • Reduce water use on campus by 20 percent from 2001 baseline. • Target a high percentage of recaptured water use from the Central Steam
Plant. To not do so represents both a loss of treated city water and valuable
heat energy from our boilers.
Land Use • Move toward regenerative landscaping practices. • Adopt Integrated Pest Management practices on campus. • Move further toward incorporating spaces that attract native pollinators.
Procurement • Develop guidelines for campus-wide sustainable procurement policies by
2025. Focus on optimizing health, utilizing resources efficiently, reduction
of waste, and minimizing costs.
• Continue to use green products where possible and minimize single-use
items where alternatives exist.
- From our most recent Sustainability Roadmap, approved by President and the Board of Trustees

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Foster inclusivity and equity within sustainability programs.
• Support movement toward an informed, diverse student body that is
educated and active in advancing equity in the socio-economic space.
• Office of Equity and Inclusion: Continue to work together to inform the
sustainability movement and ensure equality of opportunity in this area.

5) Governance and Tracking Progress
Create robust governance structures that ensure integration of
sustainability practices across campus.
• Capture and regularly report all material data for sustainability metrics
— using key performance indicators (KPIs) such as building Energy Use
Intensity (EUI), carbon reporting, sustainability literacy assessment, and
percentage of sustainability-related classes.
• Continue/increase the Committee on Environmental Responsibility’s (CER)
role in shaping and developing sustainability programs.
• Provide routine sustainability presentations to the Leadership team and
the Board of Trustees with an opportunity for their input and oversight on
sustainability goals and progress.
• Include sustainability considerations and life cycle analysis in all high-level
strategic planning and budgeting processes.
Investment
Bates believes that incorporating the long-term risks of climate change into
the fundamental work of managing the endowment leads to stronger and
more durable investment results. Consistent with the college’s principled
and pragmatic approach to sustainability efforts on campus, Bates has
similarly considered environmental principles when investing the college’s
endowment.
Since 2015, the college has halved its investment in traditional fossil
fuel-based energy companies from more than six percent to three percent
of the endowment, following a steady plan to reduce exposure over time.
We have achieved this through a number of actions, including liquidating
our public energy-focused funds, allowing our private energy partnerships
to wind down, electing to transition alternative investments into a
fossil-fuel-free share class, and screening our bond portfolio to eliminate
oil, gas and coal holdings.


Going forward, Bates has formalized efforts aimed to further reduce
endowment holdings in fossil fuel related companies. Specifically, Bates will:
• Instruct managers of separately managed equity accounts to sell all stocks
of fossil fuel companies, such as oil, gas, and coal, and to refrain from
purchasing these types of securities in the future.
• Elect “fossil fuel-free” share classes of alternative investments whenever
available.
• No longer commit to new investments in private fossil fuel extraction,
exploration, and production funds. The college’s last commitment in this
area was made in early 2017, and the college’s involvement with these
investments will end as they wind down.
• Actively seek to add renewable resource-focused investments (wind, solar,
and other green-specific investments) to the endowment.
We believe these actions are consistent with the college’s efforts to
incorporate environmental implications into our behaviors and activities on
campus. Furthermore, we believe these actions reflect our commitment to
act globally and responsibly to combat the climate crisis.
Performance and Metrics
To keep the Leadership team and the Bates community apprised of our
progress in the above areas, certain key performance indicators will be
regularly reported to Leadership:
• Greenhouse Gas Emissions — Scopes I, II, and III.
• New building and major renovations — projected Energy Use Intensity
(EUI) and heating system selection.
• New solar capacity additions as appropriate.
• Percentage of electric vehicles in our fleet.
• Number of EV charging stations on campus.
• Percentage of sustainability-related classes offered.
• Percentage of campus waste diversion.
• Percentage of the student body reached by sustainability programs.

Our mission is to
prepare our students to be the leaders
of the next generation, bringing the
best learning to bear on the most
important challenges facing our planet
and worlds we share.
- Clayton Spencer, President

Bates College was an early signatory of the American College & University President's Climate Commitment, in which we committed to a carbon neutrality goal of 2020.