North Carolina State University
PAE-4: Sustainability Plan

The Vice Chancellor for Finance and Business and the Provost charged the Campus Environmental Sustainability Team (CEST) with guiding the campus sustainability program starting with creation of a Sustainability Strategic Plan (SSP). The SSP, Foundation for Advancing Sustainability: A Strategic Plan for NC State, addresses the immediate need to take action to advance sustainability, and sets a vision for growing the intellectual and scholastic scope of the university while using fewer resources. The SSP supports the University’s Strategic Planning efforts and by better utilizing resources, provides insight into how NC State can continue its missions in a budget constrained environment. The SSP calls for the creation of a new campus culture where students, faculty members, staff members, and university partners work together, forming the foundations of a new community capable of advancing sustainability. The SSP provides a comprehensive roadmap for advancing sustainability at NC State. The SSP consolidates and integrates three major planning efforts that took place during the 2009-10 and 2010-11 academic years into a single document: 1) the SSP that is a near-term (five-year) plan; 2) the Climate Action Plan that is a long-term (40-year) plan; and 3) the Strategic Energy Management Plan that immediately implements activities to use energy more efficiently. The integration of these three efforts ensures the processes are complimentary. The planning process represented a full and open process, which was open to all students and members of the faculty and staff. Thee planning process spanned more than a year to allow for the full participation needed for a broadly accepted SSP. Ensuring broad involvement in the planning process, the CEST populated eight working groups around the focus areas of academics and research, buildings, community and culture, energy and water, land use, materials and purchasing, transportation, and waste reduction and recycling. Participation in a working group was open to volunteers, and efforts to recruit working group members reflected expertise, interest, and diversity. Appendix A lists all contributors to the SSP. To gain additional input, the CEST presented the Sustainability Strategic Plan to nearly 30 campus organizations (documented in Appendix C). Throughout the campus input process, the draft SSP was available online for comment. To reach a diverse group of campus constituencies, two open town hall sessions were held in person with live streaming available; one sponsored by the CEST and Student Government and the second sponsored by the CEST, Faculty Senate, and Staff Senate. Both town halls were recorded and posted online for those unable to attend a group presentation or town hall. Additional means of encouraging input into the draft SSP included announcements in the student paper, on Facebook, Twitter, WKNC and campus LCD screens, and utilizing campus email lists. Tabling stations were set up in key campus areas such as the Brickyard and Talley Student Center during high traffic times.

The strategies/goals to advance sustainability affect all facets of university activity. The SSP documents nearly 70 strategies that cover the areas of academics and research, engaging the community, energy and water, green development, purchasing and waste reduction, and transportation. The full list of strategies can be found in Section 5 of the SSP.

The SSP identifies strategies that form a plan for advancing sustainability, based on quantitative measurements, monitoring, benchmarks, and capacity for adjusting trends in sustainability targets. The SSP has an accompanying Tactical Plan that provides information for each strategy such as responsible unit/person for implementation, major milestones , and metrics to show tactic’s process. The CEST will review strategy and tactic progress annually with formal review of both the SSP and Tactical Plan every five years. To coordinate the SSP implementation, the CEST will continue to meet on a monthly basis. The CEST working groups will continue to welcome new participants and meet as needed. The University Sustainability Office will support the CEST in monitoring and implementing these plans. The university’s Annual Sustainability Report, coordinated by the University Sustainability Office, will evolve into the NC State of Sustainability, which will be published annually and report progress on the Strategic Sustainability Plan, as well as ongoing campus projects. In addition, NC State will continue to establish and track metrics and report the university’s status nationally.