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Carbon offsets are an important part of many Climate Action Plans. As campuses take diverse approaches to meeting climate goals, questions and tensions abound when it comes to creating a sound offsets strategy. This advisory council was convened in academic year 2023 to address these complexities. The Second Nature Offsets Advisory Council is the space for experts within higher education to coalesce around topics of carbon pricing, offset purchasing, land management and inventorying of carbon stocks, and non-additional sequestration, among other topics.
We recognize that faculty and staff often have limited capacity for this type of work, so our priority is to make meaningful strides in the evolution of offsets guidance and innovation with minimal commitment from advisory council members.The council meets once per month, and consists of a diverse range of academics from a variety of disciplines and institutions.
Join the Offsets Advisory Council View our Newly Updated Carbon Markets & Offsets Guidance
Why an Offsets Advisory Council?
Since the beginning of the climate commitments in higher education, carbon pricing and offsets have been one way in which campuses have progressed toward sustainability goals. Campuses have taken a range of approaches. These include purchasing offsets on the voluntary market, leveraging internal carbon pricing or developing offset projects from major energy emissions reductions endeavors to fund sustainability projects, inventorying carbon stocks in campus landholdings to better manage emissions or understand sequestration, and developing unique carbon offset protocols and peer-reviewed offset projects. All of these approaches come with complexity.
Meanwhile, the ecosystem of the voluntary carbon market has been rapidly evolving, and the private sector produces start-ups at lightning speed, all promising to serve offset producers and purchasers. Higher education is in a unique position to interact with this reality, in a way that challenges its major pain points while also leveraging opportunities for innovation. The commitment to education, research, and workforce development within higher education can result in tangible, usable, credible, and influential progress within the voluntary market.
Second Nature has worked with leaders within higher education on offsets resources in the past, and that work has led to sound guidance and education in this nascent space. In an effort to update and further develop that work, Second Nature hired a Carbon Offsets Fellow in November 2022 to facilitate current programming around offsets and develop an advisory council to determine real time and future needs.
Second Nature’s Offset Advisory Council objectives are to make space for Second Nature to hear feedback from campuses about their offsets experiences and processes, create interactivity between campuses around some of the tougher questions that arise within the sphere of offsets, and ultimately to coalesce the expertise and innovative leadership within higher education to shape guidance and best practices going forward.
What does it mean to be an advisory council member?
The group meets once per month to discuss topics related to offsets. These meetings are a combination of peer presentations and open discussion. Second Nature plays a facilitating and listening role, and will incorporate information shared in both presentations and discussion into future programs and resources for higher education.
The monthly meetings are drop-in, and are recorded for members who cannot attend. Second Nature maintains an email list of all council members to make space for discussions and resource sharing in between meetings.
In addition to the monthly meetings open to all, there is a core council (currently 15 people) made up of members who agree to attend all or most of the monthly meetings, and to provide additional support to Second Nature in synthesizing the council’s determinations for the development of Second Nature’s updated Guidance for Higher Education on Carbon Offsets, to be published in 2024.
Who is on the Council?
Members hail from a broad range of institutions, including public and private colleges and universities, Historically-Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs), Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs), and community colleges. Initial members were identified either because of their noted expertise in offsets or offset-related research or practice. Other initial members were identified based on their SIMAP reporting as either purchasers of carbon offsets on the voluntary market or campuses tracking non-additional sequestration from institutional landholdings. Members include academics as well as sustainability directors and staff.
What are the goals of the Advisory Council?
Broadly speaking, the Advisory Council works to achieve the following goals:
These initial goals have been developed around known opportunities within the topic of offsets in higher education. The group itself will establish its own priorities, and may determine different or additional objectives.
Joining the Advisory Council simply requires that you fill out this form. Once you have joined, you’ll be added to the list. If you have any questions, please reach out to Meredith Leigh, Second Nature’s Carbon Offsets Fellow, at [email protected].
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