Duke student climate leaders expressed pride and excitement in the wake of the University’s Oct. 16 carbon neutrality announcement and are now looking to how the University can improve and expand its climate work.
Duke set an ambitious goal in 2007 to achieve carbon neutrality by 2024. The University was able to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 31% in the past 17 years to meet the deadline, becoming one of only 14 U.S. colleges and universities with the distinction.
As administrators look to establish new climate objectives for 2050 during the 2024-25 academic year, students reflected on current campus successes in the climate space as well as areas for improvement.
Excitement around the announcement
Student leaders were excited to see the progress demonstrated by Duke’s net-zero achievement. Sophomore Fisher Mallon, co-president of Duke Climate Coalition, expressed appreciation for the amount of work required to achieve the benchmark, especially considering how novel it was for its time.
“I think that one of the biggest strengths and things I admire about Duke's carbon neutrality commitment was that they were making a very bold and ambitious commitment in 2007,” he said. “At the time that they were making it, all of the pathways and tools that they would need to use to attain that goal were not yet available or known.”
Mallon discussed how successful Duke has been in reducing campus energy use by installing LED lights in buildings and implementing more efficient heating and cooling systems. The University has also found success in the transportation sector, switching many of the C1 buses to hybrid or fully electric models.
“I think Duke's really done well in trying to integrate climate across all University spaces and making sure we're committed to sustainability,” said senior Kendra Rentz, executive producer of Operation Climate, a podcast about environmental issues produced by Duke students.
Carbon offsets
An integral part of Duke’s path to carbon neutrality was the purchase of $4 million worth of “high-quality” carbon offsets to account for prior greenhouse gas emissions.
Rentz interned for the carbon offsets department during her first year at Duke and saw the University’s commitment to ensuring the quality of offsets firsthand.
“They're firmly committed to making sure they're ethical and permanent offsets,” Rentz said. “I have a lot of confidence in the Duke team.”
However, the viability of carbon offsets has been debated in the media. Senior Felicia Wang, a member of the Duke Climate Coalition executive board, expressed her skepticism on the topic in general, seeing offsets as one of the biggest limitations of Duke’s carbon neutrality.
Mallon agreed, stating that “it's an imperfect solution because it relies on a lot of carbon offsets.”
Sophomore Catherine Papa, DCC co-president, emphasized the importance of the University being transparent about its offset projects, asserting that “they’ve been doing a good job” so far.
Expanding goals
Beyond reducing its carbon footprint, students are hoping the University’s next phase of climate goals will include more collaboration with the Durham community.
“We should always strive to do better, making sure that our climate commitments are also benefiting the local community,” Rentz said.
Wang mentioned the Duke Respect Durham campaign, which is calling on the University to make payments to the city in lieu of property taxes, as a possible avenue for Duke to improve its relations with the surrounding community and support local climate initiatives. Papa added that while carbon neutrality is an impressive achievement, the University has “lacked on working with the Durham community.”
According to Mallon, one of the biggest areas for expansion falls within Scope 3 emissions, which account for all emissions up the University’s value chain. These can include emissions from the University endowment’s investments, though this figure is not currently included in Duke's tracking. Scope 3 emissions represented the largest share of Duke’s emissions in 2024 and were mainly offset by redeeming carbon credits.
Education is another key point of expansion for Duke’s climate goals. Wang emphasized the importance of “stronger climate education, especially for [first-years] during orientation and before orientation.”
Improving “climate fluency” has been one of the primary goals of the Duke Climate Commitment since it was first announced in 2022, and administrators have launched a series of programs recently in the hopes of furthering that mission.
“Moving forward, I really hope that students become more climate literate,” Rentz said.
No matter how the next phase of Duke’s climate work takes shape, student leaders are eager to be included in the process.
“I think that the best way to involve students right now seems to be involving them in the conversation about what's next,” Mallon said.
Editor's note: A previous version of this article said that Scope 3 emissions include emissions from the University endowment's investments. The article has since been edited to clarify that Duke does not currently include those metrics in its tracking.
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Ava Littman is a Trinity sophomore and an associate news editor for the news department.