Redoubling our commitment to climate action and sustainability

Note: this post originally appeared as an email sent to the Hopkins community on October 17, 2024.

Dear Johns Hopkins Community,

Fifteen years ago, Johns Hopkins launched its first universitywide effort aimed at combating the climate crisis. Since then, we have made significant progress—from hitting our ambitious 2025 goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 51% three years early, to initiating the largest investment in solar power of any single university in the country at the time of our signing, to launching bold interdisciplinary initiatives like the Ralph S. O’Connor Sustainable Energy Institute and the Institute for Planetary Health.

This week, we officially released our new Climate Action and Sustainability Plan (CASP), animated by an ambitious new goal to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2040. It’s gratifying to see the persistence and vision of our colleagues recognized in the press locally and beyond, and I hope you will take a moment to learn more about how the CASP builds on our great foundation and charts a path for our university’s environmental action over the next decade.

Emerging from a collaborative, cross-institutional planning process that involved nearly 2,000 faculty, students, and staff, this shared vision takes a one university approach to advance healthy, just, and sustainable environments in our communities and around the world—an approach that encompasses our sustainability-focused academic research and operations, as well as community partnerships.

Together, we will marshal the breadth and depth of our strengths and talents across Johns Hopkins to realize this imperative, including through:

• Enhancing multidisciplinary climate and sustainability research and teaching across our schools, with a commitment to training the next generation of sustainability leaders and using our campuses as living laboratories
• Scaling our investments in decarbonization by electrifying our fleet and purchasing all our electricity from renewable sources by 2030
  Ensuring that our campus growth and planning reflect our commitment to the highest environmental standards and are resilient in the face of climate change
• Redoubling our commitment to community partnership and economic development and working with our partners in Baltimore to increase local procurement and reverse the impacts of environmental injustice
• Committing ourselves as prudent stewards of resources on a pathway to zero waste through responsible upstream procurement and downstream waste diversion practices

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.

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.

I am grateful to everyone who contributed their leadership, ideas, and passion to shape this ambitious set of goals. I look forward to working with each of you to realize the next chapter of Johns Hopkins’ sustainability journey as we help lead the way to a greener planet.

Sincerely,

Ron Daniels
President