To: The Wellesley Community
From: President Paula A. Johnson
Re: Sustainability at Wellesley
Date: April 24, 2018

With Earth Day just two days ago and a major campus event featuring former Vice President Al Gore taking place tomorrow, I want to take this moment to reflect on our deep commitment to promoting sustainability on campus. We absolutely have more work ahead of us, but I am proud of all we have accomplished so far during Wellesley’s Sustainability Year as well as the teamwork and leadership so many students, faculty, and staff have demonstrated.

The College has adopted a Sustainability Plan, which sets ambitious targets for both reducing our carbon footprint by 2036 and achieving carbon neutrality in the future. We have launched an energy planning process to lead us toward these targets, which includes planning an efficient heating and boiler plant to reduce energy consumption. We are also developing energy conservation measures for the College’s buildings.

Everywhere on campus we see progress. Our new Science Center will be Gold LEED-certified, we have improved the College’s recycling and composting rates, and sustainability has been more fully integrated into the curriculum. We have also strengthened the Office of Sustainability and its range of internships and programs—for example, we have launched a partnership with Food for Free, an organization that rescues and repackages edible food not used by Dining Services and passes it on to people in need. And we take great pride in the innovative Paulson Ecology of Place Initiative as well as the College’s habitat restoration projects.

Our comprehensive and forward-looking Sustainability Plan continues to be our guide, anchored by the hard work of our Advisory Committee on Environmental Sustainability. I am pleased to add that later this week, the committee will be sharing a set of guiding principles based on the results of the community survey on sustainability conducted last fall. Once finalized, these principles will provide a framework to ensure our efforts continue in the years following Sustainability Year.

Today, I have the privilege of making an exciting announcement. Following productive talks with EnAct (Environmental Action at Wellesley College), the College is committing $300,000 per year for 10 years toward sustainability initiatives on campus. We are dedicated to creating a more sustainable campus, and this is another significant step in pursuit of that goal.

We all share a responsibility to work for positive change and to safeguard our natural world. I look forward to continuing our work together in service to a more fully sustainable future.