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The fourth iteration of Penn’s climate action plan outlines new carbon reduction strategies, expanded emissions targets, and interdisciplinary collaboration to achieve campus-wide carbon neutrality through 2029.
The seven initiatives included in the Climate and Sustainability Action Plan 4.0 were developed with input from faculty, students, and staff representatives. CSAP 4.0, the latest iteration of a plan originally launched in 2009, introduces a dedicated carbon reduction strategy for the University of Pennsylvania Health System and new sustainability goals focused on civic engagement. The plan will be in effect from 2025 to 2029.
“CSAP 4.0 builds on the strong foundation laid by previous plans to expand our boundaries, scope, and abilities to achieve new levels of transformation,” Penn Sustainability Director Nina Morris wrote in a statement to The Daily Pennsylvanian.
A major aim outlined in the latest plan is to achieve campus-wide carbon neutrality by 2042 — a target that was expanded to include emissions from the Morris Arboretum, New Bolton Center, Pennovation Works, and other University-owned properties.
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In a statement to the DP, Earth and Environmental Sciences professor Michael Mann wrote that he hopes to work across the University’s schools, institutes, and centers to “advance Penn’s mission” in climate and sustainability. Mann was appointed vice provost for climate science, policy, and action in November 2024, a position which he said requires “a collaborative spirit and a broad vision of what it means to advance the agenda of climate at Penn.”
He also serves as the director of the Penn Center for Science, Sustainability, and the Media, an interdisciplinary initiative that “seeks to bridge science, policy, and communication.”
Mann emphasized the importance of progress in the academic sector in the face of “great challenge[s]” to federal climate policy.
“We have all of the pieces necessary to lead on this issue here at Penn,” Mann wrote. “The challenge — and it’s a welcome one — is for us to bring it all together and make the whole greater than the sum of its parts.”
In a written statement to the DP, Penn Environmental Innovations Initiative Director Katherine Unger Baillie described how several of the EII’s initiatives — including multidisciplinary research communities, Action CAFEs, and a new Academics subcommittee for the Environmental Sustainability Advisory Committee — will support the approach outlined in CSAP 4.0.
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“Penn is already a great place for working across these disciplinary silos,” Baillie wrote. “But we aim to do even more to get folks from different schools talking to one another and innovating with one another.”
EII will also collaborate with Penn Sustainability to connect students with research and experiential learning opportunities related to climate and sustainability, according to Baillie, preparing them “to be climate leaders” in the community.
“As I see it, our mission at Penn on climate and sustainability is four-fold: education, research, outreach, and stewardship,” Mann wrote. “If we are to speak with authority on climate — to our students, to our community, and to the world at large — we must have our own institutional house in order.”
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