Degrees that Matter: Climate Change and the University

  • Ann Rappaport &
  • Sarah Hammond Creighton
MIT Press: 2007. 376 pp. $24.95, £15.95 0262681668 | ISBN: 0-262-68166-8

Globally, higher education is a major service sector employing hundreds of thousands of people, educating millions of students, carrying out billions of pounds' worth of research and running huge campuses. These activities consume large amounts of fossil fuel and hence release significant amounts of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. The central observation from Degrees that Matter is that universities are in a unique position to offer leadership on climate change and carbon emissions through their educational, research and wider roles in society.

This book is a case study of the attempts made at Tufts University, Massachusetts, to reduce carbon emissions through the Tufts Climate Initiative, a 15-year programme that began in 1991. The book was written by the initiative's directors and provides an exhaustive 330-page review and report on the actions taken to reduce carbon emissions at the university. Examples of initiatives include switch-off campaigns, procuring where possible renewable energy, promoting greener forms of travel and working with students and faculty members to avoid energy waste. The good news is that the book has a wealth of ideas, recommendations and guidance.

For anyone who is responsible for energy or carbon management in a university, or is seeking to engage students and faculty in climate change, this book is compulsory reading. The chapters on personal action and climate change in the classroom are borne out of extensive experimentation and experience at Tufts and provide real stimulus for action within higher-education establishments.

The bad news is that despite the intense programme, carbon emissions at Tufts — both net and normalized — seem to have increased over time. The university as a whole has become more energy intensive, with the consequence that it will not meet its Kyoto target. This should, however, be set against other higher-education institutions, where the rate of increase over similar time periods is much greater and the reversal of trends, if at all, much slower. A large part of the increase is due to growing demands from personal equipment.

The picture may be even worse because the data do not take into account carbon emissions from staff, students and visitors commuting, or from business travel, which is widely accepted as having increased dramatically since 1990. The issue of travel is not given a great deal of attention in the book, although it is a source of considerable tension within any university seeking to both promote 'internationalization' and reduce carbon emissions.

The one main weakness of the book is that there is relatively little empirical data on emissions sources, and little evaluation of the impact that the different initiatives at Tufts have had on emissions. The authors acknowledge the problems of measuring energy use and emissions, and argue that data collection, monitoring and reporting are crucial to carbon management and reduction. This is not an issue only at Tufts but is typical of most higher-eduction institutes where, historically, environmental-performance data have not been a priority, with a consequent lack of investment in systems for measuring and recording energy consumption.

With climate change and carbon emissions high on the political and educational agenda, the book is a timely reminder to the higher-education sector that it needs to attend to its own performance and reputation in this area. The evidence from Tufts shows the difficulties of reducing carbon emissions, but the Tufts Climate Initiative does provide a very good plan of action. The book's central message is that if universities wish to demonstrate practical leadership on reducing carbon emissions, there is a need for much greater action and progress than is currently found in most higher-education institutions.