Johns Hopkins celebrates unveiling of new Climate Action and Sustainability Plan

Environmental advocates from across Johns Hopkins University gathered together on Friday, Oct. 11, in the Glass Pavilion to unveil the university's new Climate Action and Sustainability Plan. The plan, which outlines institutional goals to mitigate the university's environmental impact and enhance education and research related to fighting climate change, comes after two years of discussion, evaluation, and community input.

"This plan is very much about our fundamental identity as a university," said Director of Sustainability Julian Goresko, who spoke at the event. "It's really foregrounded in a commitment to integrating our role as stewards of a vast infrastructure [with our role] as scholars and educators. ... The integration of that crossover framework is something that makes this plan unique and is something that I think each and every one of us should be extremely proud of."

Added Executive Vice Provost Lainie Rutkow: "As researchers and scholars at America's first research university, we have to contribute to the development of impactful solutions to mitigate harms and improve the health and well-being of this planet. In developing the framework that would eventually become our Climate Action and Sustainability Plan, it became clear early on that in addition to focusing on campus operations, our identity as an academic and research institution had to be front and center."

During the event, the Office of Climate and Sustainability also announced the recipients of this year's Campus as a Living Lab grants. The 2024 awardees, which include researchers, course instructors, and students, will each receive up to $50,000 in funding for sustainability research and teaching projects that use JHU's campuses to test scalable innovations.

Although the Climate Action and Sustainability Plan marks a tangible step toward a greener JHU, Goresko made sure to emphasize that the university's work in this area is just beginning.

"A lot of the hard work lies ahead," he said. "We are absolutely at an inflection point as a university. ... It's important to stop and to celebrate. Today is about acknowledging all the people that have given their time, energy, and intellect to this process, but it is also absolutely a recognition of all the things left to come."

JHU President Ron Daniels echoed those sentiments in a message to the university community.

"With these commitments, we seek to deliver on our stated aim in our Ten for One strategic vision to make Johns Hopkins a leading source of solutions for the planet's transition to a low-carbon, healthy, and resilient future," he wrote. "But achieving this bold aim will depend on all of us coming together to model what a great university can bring to bear in the face of this crisis—as a responsible citizen here in this city and the communities we serve in the United States and around the world."