April 18, 2023

Dear Students and Colleagues,

As an institution with a substantial footprint in Philadelphia, Drexel University both impacts and is impacted by climate change. The ways we heat and cool our buildings, manage our waste, commute to campus and steward our landscape contribute to this global issue. As in communities around the world, many of our students, faculty and professional staff may have already experienced serious disruption to their lives or even displacement due to climate shifts, extreme weather or wildfires. At the same time, members of the Drexel community are taking active roles in addressing climate change: through research, activism, education and training to become climate problem-solvers, and by implementing solutions to reduce climate impacts within campus operations.

Drexel University has launched a Climate Action Plan process to chart our pathway to a more sustainable and climate-conscious institution. As the Climate & Sustainability team has worked for the past three years to report on Drexel’s sustainability performance with the STARS institutional sustainability ratings system, it has become clear that an intentional and proactive approach to sustainability will be a strategic benefit.

A climate action plan is a roadmap that an institution develops to identify the strategies it must implement to achieve a specific climate-focused goal, whether that goal is carbon neutrality, climate positivity, or simply reducing the institution’s climate impacts by a measurable amount. Our goal is to create a comprehensive plan that addresses not only Drexel’s greenhouse gas emissions but also our operating practices, academic and research resources, and institutional culture and identity. We envision a plan that is both ambitious and actionable, and that can readily transition into an implementation phase.

To create an effective plan, we need participation across the Drexel community from students, faculty, professional staff and alumni who will lend their passion and expertise to the process. Opportunities to participate include joining one of the topic-area committees, attending information-sharing sessions, and responding to an upcoming series of surveys. Faculty members are invited to consider taking on components of plan development as class projects, and there are opportunities to customize work-study positions for students to support committee work with background research. We anticipate that the process will require at least 18 months to complete.

For more detailed information about the process, please visit the Climate Action Plan webpage. We will share news and announcements throughout the process through various Drexel information channels.

We hope you will join us in this important process.

Sincerely,

Climate Action Plan Co-Chair Committee:
Julie Jones, Vice President and Chief Procurement Officer
Alan Greenberger, Vice President of Real Estate and Facilities
Esta Jacob, Finance and Legal Studies ’24
Avani Kavathekar, Environmental Engineering ’25
Ali Kenner, Associate Professor, Department of Politics
Franco Montalto, Professor, Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering
Mathy Stanislaus, Vice Provost and Executive Director of the Environmental Collaboratory