Dear Colleagues,
The Sustainability Working Group is charged with updating our Climate Action Plan to accelerate carbon neutrality, strengthen sustainability education, and deepen collaboration for an equitable, just, and sustainable future. We invite you to share your ideas that will help shape our next steps together. We’re seeking input from everyone in or collaborating with the Carleton community to advance our plan. Whether you’re a student with a passion for environmental activism, a faculty member with expertise in sustainable practices, a staff member with ideas on how we can improve our operations, or an alum or partner working on sustainability or environmental justice challenges, we want to hear from you.
Specifically, we want to learn:
- Are you interested in, or already incorporating indigenous knowledge, climate change, sustainability or environmental justice into curriculum, and/or experiential opportunities? Or what support would help you enter this space or innovate?
- What strategies or models could inform how we advance sustainability education?
- How can we create sustainable and just campus operations? What sustainability initiatives can we implement to adapt to climate change, reduce our vulnerability to natural disasters, and support marginalized communities?
- What partnerships or networks might help us advance sustainability and environmental justice goals?
In addition to seeking online input, we will hold open input tabling sessions on campus. We are also conducting and planning meetings with staff involved in relevant operations as well as all faculty in an April faculty meeting and follow-up discussion session. Finally, we are interested in and developing collaborations with student organizations that address equity, energy, environment or sustainability. Please reach out if your group is interested in having one of us attend your meeting to share your work and opportunities of interest to you. We welcome opportunities to learn from you. Our plan is to gather input this spring, share draft goals and activities for open review at the beginning of fall term, and generate a complete draft for review in the middle of winter term of 2024.
Sincerely,
Sarah Fortner & Aaron Swoboda on behalf of the Sustainability Working Group