Climate Control

Read the Map

At the end of the semester, instead of a paper, Simon asked the students to produce a story map: a way to present all of their data in text as maps and multimedia content. “A few students turned in their work and said, ‘We don’t want this to die,’” explains Simon. “‘We don’t want to just get a grade and have this work go live on a hard drive somewhere.’” Simon didn’t either.

Simon quickly organized a conference with the assistance of Gregg Crane, professor of English language and literature who was, at the time, the director of Program in the Environment; Chris Poulsen, professor of earth and environmental sciences and current associate dean for the natural sciences in LSA; the Office of the President; and the Office of the Provost.

In the last days of the fall 2015 semester, the students presented ways the university could become carbon neutral, what it would cost, and its social license considerations.

“I had eight students get all dressed up and present their findings to an audience that included LSA’s associate deans and the president’s counsel, and I was amazed,” Simon recalls. “I was truly amazed at how they took ownership of their research.”

Research is at the heart of what higher education can bring to the problem of climate change, says Associate Dean for the Natural Sciences Chris Poulsen. “We need to educate students so they can make informed decisions,” Poulsen says. “We also need to be an engine of research and innovation, to serve as role models and laboratories for the rest of society, and to play an important role in community engagement around climate change.”

The students’ findings drew praise for their detail and rigor, and some skepticism about whether the solutions they presented could actually work. “Until that point, everyone had been throwing around hypothetical back-of-the-envelope calculations,” Simon explains. “But these students had actually made the calculations, and used them to create a blueprint. They could tell you there are three farms within five miles of campus that have solar potential, and that if U-M bought them and put this many kilowatts of solar there and there, the installations could generate all the electricity the university needs. The students had come up with recipes, and we could tweak them.”

After the conference, Simon met Susan Fancy, program manager for technology and commercialization at the College of Engineering, who was then working at U-M’s Energy Institute. She suggested that a similar student project could help the city of Ann Arbor reach its sustainability goals. In the summer of 2017, the students investigated the solar and battery potential of more than 200 city-owned properties, such as city hall, fire stations, parking structures, and the landfill, and presented their findings to the city that fall.

In December 2017, the students’ work became part of the foundation on which Ann Arbor based its commitment to making its municipal operations carbon neutral by 2035 — a goal the city revised in November 2019 by committing to make the whole community carbon neutral by 2030. The students’ work was part of a $1-billion bond for improving facilities for the Ann Arbor Public Schools that passed last year. Big things were underway regionally, and Simon’s students were ready to bring them to U-M, too.

Clean Wolverines

The group of students who had worked on the Ann Arbor summer project grew into the Clean Wolverines, students from across campus working to reduce U-M’s carbon footprint. Lydia Whitbeck (B.S. ’19) was one of its earliest members and is now a project coordinator on the Presidential Commission on Carbon Neutrality (PCCN). “Initially we focused on projects to reduce carbon emissions, but we eventually grew to develop different pathways toward carbon neutrality,” she says. “There also was a lot of focus on making sure that our work was co-produced, meaning that we engaged with key stakeholders throughout our analysis process to ensure that key people in the university were involved with our work.”

“There were students from many different majors working on a diverse set of projects centered on reducing U-M’s emissions,” says Grant Faber (Ross ‘19), a graduate student in U-M’s School for Environment and Sustainability and one of the first Clean Wolverines. “I started a team of students in 2017 to investigate power purchase agreements (PPAs) as a way to reduce the carbon intensity of U-M’s energy use. PPAs have been used to reduce emissions at other universities, often in a financially viable way. There didn’t seem to be any reason U-M couldn’t do it as well.”

The Clean Wolverines worked to reach carbon neutrality at U-M from multiple fronts: from economics to landscape architecture to behavioral psychology. And as the group’s members continued to work on the problem, they continued to find more solutions. They spoke at monthly Board of Regents meetings, presented to external advisory boards, and talked to faculty, staff, and alumni. After many more months, Simon says, “We had a crazy idea. Why don’t we have another conference that shines the spotlight on Michigan?”

In April 2018, “Toward Carbon Neutrality at the University of Michigan, 2025 and Beyond” drew sustainability leaders from Big Ten universities, regional utility companies, municipal governments, and international businesses. Simon and the Clean Wolverines didn’t shy away from laying bare the facts, even if it meant having some tough conversations. Graph after graph measured all kinds of sustainability indicators at Big Ten universities and peer institutions. “We ranked last compared to every peer,” Simon says. “We knew that if we didn’t start to do something, we were going to get left behind.”

Then in October 2018, at his annual Leadership Breakfast, President Mark Schlissel committed to putting U-M on a path toward carbon neutrality. “I was ecstatic. I was over the moon,” Simon says. “It was a huge announcement, and I was thrilled that many of the students we’d worked with realized they had a part in that.

“The effort at U-M was made with a lot of student sweat equity, and it was never just about protests and telling people that they are bad,” Simon says. “It was, ‘Hey, we’ve come up with a range of scenarios. We’ve got scenario A and scenario B.’ That’s what we’re teaching — that there is not just one answer. There are a multitude of ways to get to carbon neutrality, so now let’s sit down together and work through them.”