Ad Hoc Committee on the OSU Carbon Commitment

Voting members present: Tess Collins, Ed Dever, Jon Dorbolo, Jillian Gregg, Keith Jayawickrama, Jacob Putney, Shelly Signs, Brandon Trelstad, Beth Filar Williams
Voting members absent: Marlys Amundson, Lindsay Andrews, Amy Bourne, Lety Cavazos, Michael Freitag, Jeff Gautschi, Chris Kulah, Leela Magdaleno, Qinglai Meng, Gary Miller,  Marianne Vydra
Guests present: Maddie Moyano

Membership

• College of Science still has no representation in C3. Shelly can support finding a person in College of Science.
• Jon to check if other units such as CGE, ASOSU, need representation in C3.
• ASOSU has a rep, Coral Avery, who couldn’t make it today.
• CGE – John Stepanek might have a contact or give a recommendation for who could sit in the committee. We contact organizations/units instead of using direct appointments.
• How about Cascades campus?

Review and confirmation of 2019 annual report

• Tuesday the report/presentation was reviewed by Faculty Senate Executive Committee and it was approved, with some changes, for presenting to Faculty Senate on February 13^th
• Faculty Senate meetings can be viewed online and are open to the public. It might be helpful to have one person per workgroup.
• Brandon will take the lead on answering questions and direct people to attend a forum that will be put together by C3.
• C3 should not commit to a series of events since it creates a lot of work for the Sustainability Office. However, one forum could be useful.
• 2019 C3 Report was crafted by Communications and Reporting workgroup. It is located on the box folder online.
• Objections approving the report: no objections. Report was approved as is with no further edits.
• Jon will present the report on February 13^th in Faculty Senate. Brandon is glad to take on questions and not over commit, but others can participate. Goal is to not spend more time in any single question, and direct them to the forum, qualtrics communication survey, and sustainability email.
• Meeting runs from 3-5, presentation time will be approximately 4:00-4:30
• Organization/Objective of the C3: bottom up effort to organize individuals and promote carbon-reducing practices. Committee is not to create policies but to support efforts already in place. It is an advisory committee, promoting what individuals are already doing. Example: campaign to turn off the lights; another example is travel options. The food drive is a model C3 could follow: a known, self-organized tradition/campaign.
• Another objective of the C3 is to provide a framework for OSU community to participate in carbon-reducing practices.

Draft of guidelines document for workgroups and full committee

• Current draft of guidelines is not yet operational and need to outline expectations for the workgroups.
• Current document designates a lead/coordinator for each workgroup.
• Workgroups are not independent agents, they should bring back to the C3 the ideas/projects that they develop.
• The types of projects that could be brought up to the C3 include projects that inform, advise, make recommendations, and act on current policies/efforts.
• None of our projects are mandatory or made into rules. We are not to create and enforce policy, we do not have the power to put things into law. Example: enforcement of “all lights out” would be impossible. Unenforceable policies will not become rules. Policy makers will not advance policies that cannot be enforced

Possible combo of Transportation and Conservation and Efficiency workgroups

• Transportation workgroup has only 1 member, and the Sustainability Office has been doing the work regarding travel offsets.
• In terms of content context, it might make sense to merge, otherwise there will be no person with knowledge on context.
• Besides carbon offsets, is there any other work that the Transportation workgroup is doing? Can we ask Transportation services is there is anything else we can support?
• What was the rationale for creating the 4 workgroups? When committee was created, these specific workgroups were driven by what people wanted to work on. Also, workgroups provide a way for people to support the work without having to join the C3.
• Brandon to send an email to the entire C3 asking if someone wants to take lead on the Transportation workgroup, if no one responds, then both groups (Conservation & Efficiency, and Transportation) will join.

Workgroup updates

• Conservation and Efficiency 
  • Green Labs Certification launch 
    • Piloted in fall through an undergrad student thesis
    • Still needs a landing page, Sust Office will have that done within 2 weeks.
    • Blurb for OSU Today is ready, will be sent when landing page is done.
    • Green Greek Certification is also underway
    • Brandon to send blurb to C3 once announcement out in OSU Today
  • Multiple units have taken the survey for Green Office Certification, at least 3 in the works
• Education and Curriculum 
  • Jonathan Nash (CEOAS) brainstorming group – goal is to create a climate solutions option where students get together in teams of 4-5, and work on a project.
    • Student-run sustainability summit September 20-21, 2020. If this is happening, Jonathan Nash needs to consult with students soon.
    • In order to get this off the ground, applying for Innovation & Technology funding.
    • Students would get credit hours for their projects.
    • Where does the sustainability double degree fit into this? Is this a double effort with other programs/units? Is this an option for experiential learning requirements for existing classes? No, it would be something new.
    • Jonathan Nash should get in contact with OPAL and others that do quarter-long projects or longer.
  • Nothing else to do with Bacc Core for now
  • Focus for rest of the academic year is to work on the repository for climate change course materials with the hope of having something for fall
• Reporting and Communication
  • Is a climate summit or forum possible as part of Beyond Earth Day?
  • One of the projects to work on this year is a proposal to launch a cluster of meetings for OSU community to talk about sustainability topics. Mix of presenters and conversations. Workgroup has an outline in terms of framework, timelines, spaces for such forums.
  • Desired outcomes for the forums? Increase engagement, answer questions, inform people, have people be heard. Outcomes need to be actionable, and it needs to be focused on campus projects/programs/operations/engagements. We need to think systematically, and it needs to be scalable. One risk of creating forums is that they can generate a lot of ideas that might not be feasible.
  • Donations, we can ask for financial support from Alumni and others though OSU Foundation.
  • C3 can work on fundraising and engage with bigger projects.
  • We already have 2 calls to action, Green Office Certification, and Travel Offsets. We already have programs to work on, let’s work on that before we create new programs or campaigns.
  • Brandon to send ideas that have been discussed but are not feasible. Could be brought up in forums.
  • Instead, Green Office Certification also serves as a list of actions that have proven to work for OSU. Offices can retake Green Office Certification every 1-3 years, qualtrics keeps all the data so offices do not have to retake it.
• Transportation  
  • Voluntary travel carbon offset program intake form and process have been established
    • It might be useful collect phone numbers for follow-up in intake form.
    • Add budget authority for intake form
    • Sustainability Office will calculate and process their fee
    • This is a voluntary program
    • It might be useful to add max dollar amount units can/are willing to pay
    • Would users want different offset products? Participants might not understand the options but it is also an opportunity to educate. We can always start simple and add it later. Maybe add a link.
    • It might be useful to add info on estimates. Sort of a grid with primary US cities
    • Let’s not put decision making on participants for types of offsets to purchase. C3 and Sustainability Office can make an informed decision on what option is best.
    • Add a comments section

2020 C3 Objectives

• Combine efforts to promote Green Office Certification and Travel Offsets through all workgroups. Make both the big push for 2020
• Communications and Reporting will focus on this and create a framework to bring it to next meeting

Webpage review: https://fa.oregonstate.edu/sustainability/faculty-senate-ad-hoc-committee-carbon-commitment 

Washington Oregon Higher Education Sustainability Conference (WOHESC). Please consider attending!  Transportation will be provided by Sustainability Office 

• Brandon to send out info today, and link to student qualtrics form

(if time allows) Possible engagement with Board of Trustees (was not covered)

Items for next meeting 

• Workgroups to convene to develop framework to promote GOC and travel offsets.
• Possible engagement with Board of Trustees