Our Efforts to Address Climate Change

April 7, 2022

Members of the Rutgers Community,

The climate crisis is a defining global challenge of our time, one that the world must come together to address. I’m writing today to share efforts that Rutgers is making to do our part—and to invite you to a conference to learn about what comes next.

Last fall, I announced the university’s Climate Action Plan, including our commitment to achieve carbon neutrality by 2040. The Climate Action Plan calls upon Rutgers to mobilize our academic, operational, and economic capacities to advance just, equitable climate solutions and help the nation eliminate its greenhouse gas emissions. Its ambitious vision touches every aspect of university operations: from what we buy to what we build to how we work, study, and use energy.

To coordinate this complex undertaking, I created the Office of Climate Action, which will steward our plan for climate action, create systems for accountability on our progress, and guide community engagement with sustainability efforts.

We have a great deal to do as we set to work on achieving carbon neutrality and tackling our Climate Action Plan’s call to advance decarbonization and climate adaptation in partnership with communities across the state. By the end of this decade, our plan calls for the university to reduce direct fossil fuel emission by 20 percent, transition to clean electricity, and significantly reduce carbon emissions related to procurement. In total, these steps should reduce our emissions about 45 percent by 2030 and place us on track for net-zero emissions by 2040.

While some of this progress will be accomplished through capital planning, our plan also calls upon us to integrate decarbonization, climate adaptation, and sustainability into research, teaching, outreach, engagement, campus life, and university policy across Rutgers. Achieving this ambitious goal depends upon the involvement of each us as individuals.

With this in mind, I invite you to join me on Wednesday, May 4, for a conference on Mobilizing the University for Climate Transformation. This event, one of a series of Excellence Events marking my inauguration as university president, will bring together faculty, staff, and students from across Rutgers to learn about climate action and associated scholarship taking place, and to identify new opportunities for collaboration among Rutgers community members.

Even as we recognize the daunting task that lies ahead, I hope you will be inspired, as I am, by the work Rutgers is already doing to advance climate action.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Holloway
President and University Professor