Presidents' Statement

Addressing the impact of climate change is one of the greatest challenges facing the global community. While individual commitment to modifying the human impact on the environment is needed, this response must be led by governments, industry and academia.

The International Alliance of Research Universities (IARU), comprising 10 of the world's leading Universities, has committed to providing leadership that will influence their respective regional communities and encourage engagement by others at an international level. The members began collaborating on issues of sustainability in 2006 with the establishment of sustainability principles. This collaboration has lead to the development of cross cultural exchanges to promote best practice in campus sustainability. Projects have begun to emerge on measuring and addressing the environmental impact of the campus activities that the members' institutions have in common, such as accommodation services, commuter transport, air travel, renovation, new construction, campus and grounds maintenance.

As the next stage in this process, members have established programs to assess and reduce the overall environmental impact of University activities. The targets listed in the table below are based on detailed institutional reviews of operations. As a consequence they reflect institutional differences, such as the maturity of the respective University campus sustainability programs, as well as regional issues, such as climate conditions, energy sources and projected growth.

These initial targets primarily focus on reducing the carbon impact of energy use. However, over time, the IARU is committed to expanding its programs to reduce the impact in other areas of operation and as a result of travel.

The availability of historical data on energy use varies from University to University. Hence, each member has established a base year for measurement that provides the most accurate information about campus energy consumption. The main focus of the various strategies will be the outcome: the reduction of the campus carbon footprint.

February 2009