November 15, 2021
The Yale Sustainability Plan 2025 was created in 2016 to mobilize campus-wide initiatives around sustainability. The 2021 Progress Report is now available, featuring progress on the goals across nine ambition areas. Highlights include:
- The university has achieved 22 of the original 38 goals outlined in 2016.
- It has reduced net emissions by 28% since 2015, and announced a strategy for reaching zero emissions by 2050.
- Yale continues to expand “scope 3” emissions data collection efforts to be more comprehensive and transparent. Scope 3 emissions — including employee travel and commuting — result from the activities of an organization but occur from sources not owned or controlled by the organization.
- Yale received a Gold rating through STARS, the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment and Rating System administered by the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE).
- In support of the university’s Sustainability, Health, and Well-Being goal (from the Yale Sustainability Plan 2025), a Collective Well-Being Survey was developed and launched to provide a tool for self-assessment and for measuring a group’s well-being.
- A Biodiversity Hub was created to archive information about past, present, and future campus biodiversity initiatives, including campus landscaping practices and their impacts on biodiversity.