To: The Wellesley College Community
From: President Paula A. Johnson and Debora de Hoyos ’75, Chair of the Board Trustees
Re: A Comprehensive Approach for Addressing Climate Change at Wellesley
Date: April 30, 2021
Throughout this past year, the Wellesley community has come together to address the urgent challenge of climate change. Students, faculty, staff, and the board of trustees have all been deeply engaged in these efforts, and we are grateful for the dedication, shared sense of purpose, and good faith that everyone involved has brought to this task.
Building on these interrelated efforts and actions, today the College is proud to announce a bold and holistic approach to addressing climate change that includes a comprehensive plan for Wellesley to achieve carbon neutrality by 2040; endowment action to prohibit new investment in fossil fuel funds; and adoption of a set of carbon-reducing community actions approved by students, faculty, and staff.
1. Wellesley’s plan to achieve carbon neutrality by 2040
Since 2019, the E2040 working group has been working to establish a road map to carbon neutrality by 2040. The board just approved E2040’s comprehensive plan, which will require an investment of more than $500 million, and calls for replacing high-pressure steam heating systems with low-temperature hot water systems over the next decade. The plan defers the decision regarding the means of generating hot water to 2030, allowing the College to opt for the most cost-effective alternative available at that time.
Key elements include:
- Continuing to improve energy efficiency by replacing carbon-intensive steam systems in major buildings with more energy-efficient, low-temperature hot water systems and upgrading campus-wide heating distribution systems.
- Increasing procurement of electricity from renewable sources from the current level of 20 percent to 100 percent by 2040.
- Reducing carbon emissions from “small sources,” such as campus kitchens and College-owned vehicles, and implementing measures to minimize these emissions by 2040.
- Between 2030 and 2040, implementing projects necessary to eliminate steam and decrease natural gas use from heating (geothermal wells or alternate approach).
- Purchasing carbon offsets in 2040 for residual greenhouse gases (GHG), if needed.
Elements of this plan are already underway. Completion of the energy conservation measures and upgrades to the central utility plant will allow the College to meet its 2026 GHG emissions reduction target of 37 percent by 2022.
2. Endowment action on fossil fuels
Climate change poses a serious threat to humankind, and hence to the College. The burning of fossil fuels is a primary contributor to climate change. Investments with a narrow focus on fossil fuels and lengthy investment horizons pose an undue risk to our financial returns. For that reason, the board of trustees has approved the following actions in relation to the College’s management of the Wellesley endowment:
- Investments with managers whose primary investment focus is on companies in the fossil fuels industry are prohibited.
- No new investments will be made in private equity funds that focus on fossil fuel investment.
- The College will seek to phase out existing partnership interests in private equity oil and gas funds in a manner consistent with fiduciary responsibility.
In making these changes, we want to be clear that the endowment exists to support the College. Wellesley’s commitments to excellence and access depend upon the annual contribution of endowment earnings to the operating budget, and any decision related to the endowment must reflect the critical function the endowment plays in advancing the mission and operations of the College.
Several years ago, the Investment Office identified the risk of long-term investments in fossil fuels and began to discontinue new fossil fuel fund investments. We believe the actions we are announcing today with respect to endowment investments in fossil fuels represent prudent stewardship.
3. Community actions to reduce carbon emissions and offset opportunity cost from endowment action
The board was inspired to take these endowment actions by the commitment and activism of students, faculty, and staff, along with groups like Renew Wellesley, which last March joined with several members of the faculty to request that the Subcommittee on Investment Responsibility (SIR) limit fossil fuel investments. In response, SIR recommended that the Wellesley community also commit to measures that would reduce the College’s greenhouse gas emissions, and the Investment Committee concurred.
Norma Wilentz Hess Professor of Economics Casey Rothschild and the students in his Econ/ES 199 class were the first ones to take up this challenge. They spent last fall developing a set of carbon-reducing recommendations that the student body voted on and approved as part of College Government’s annual elections in March.
Building on the work of the Econ/ES 199 students, the Sustainability Committee developed and presented a set of recommendations for faculty and staff through a series of webinars and meetings of Academic Council and Administrative Council. Faculty voted to approve these recommendations at Academic Council on April 21.
The actions approved by students, faculty, and staff fall into four categories: dining and catering, transportation and faculty travel, mini-fridges, and heating and cooling. When implemented, they could result in an annual reduction of more than 2,000 metric tons of CO2. Senior leadership and departments will work together with students and the Sustainability Committee to roll out these changes, which will begin in the next academic year.
The board believes climate change is one of the biggest challenges we face as a global society and acknowledges the remarkable work our community has done to enable the College to respond in a meaningful and comprehensive way. We want to particularly recognize the leadership and perseverance of our students throughout this process, as well as the efforts of our faculty and staff on the Sustainability Committee and E2040 working group. You have demonstrated that at its heart, Wellesley is both an institution that prepares students to take on the world’s most pressing challenges and a community of purpose and shared values whose members can work together to make change.
