Dartmouth Mobilizes Around Climate Action

The Sustainability Office is moving from the Provost's Office and is joining Campus Services! This move will help to advance Dartmouth's sustainability and climate goals and operational decarbonization. The Sustainability Director will be defining and supporting a robust sustainability action plan across physical operations, and will join the new Special Advisor to the Provost in developing the concept of "campus as a living lab" of experiential learning, teaching, and research. 

Climate action is one of President Beilock's key priorities. While Dartmouth has a long history of academic excellence in physical and environmental sciences, and has worked steadily to advance environmental initiatives and reduce our negative operational impacts, we need to do more on our campus to address climate challenges globally. 

Our efforts are organized around four areas of sustainability and climate action:

1. Campus decarbonization and sustainable operations.
2. Campus as a lab – providing research and student experiences on our campus and beyond.
3. Contributing new knowledge through our academic research and operational experience.
4. Teaching and curricular innovation.

You may have seen Provost Kotz's recent announcement of Professor Laura Ogden as the new Special Advisor to the Provost on climate and sustainability. Laura's work will be focused on research and teaching. The Sustainability Office and Director Rosi Kerr will focus on supporting the student experience, campus decarbonization, and sustainable operations. Both will mobilize the campus as a "lab" for experiential learning.

To create better alignment and amplify these efforts, the Sustainability Office will move organizationally from the Provost's division to join Campus Services.

While there is much more to come, we wanted to share these exciting changes as they happen.