This past June, Chancellor Linda Bunnell at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point (UWSP) joined over 250 other college and university presidents in formally committing to sharply reduce and eventually eliminate all of their campus’ global warming emissions. The UW System campuses at Stevens Point and River Falls are the first UW System campuses to sign on to this far-reaching energy commitment.

The American College and University Presidents Climate Change Commitment was adopted June 12 at a summit of higher education leaders in Washington, D.C. Bunnell attended the summit and reaffirmed the campus’ commitment to aggressively adopt green standards for buildings, requiring “Energy Star” certification for products purchased by the campuses, offsetting emissions due to air travel, encouraging public transportation, purchasing energy from renewable energy sources, and supporting climate and sustainability shareholder proposals through their respective endowments. UWSP is already well on its way toward achieving many of these goals.

UWSP and three other UW System campuses have all been designated by Governor Doyle to go “off grid” and be completely dependent on renewable energy resources by 2012. Conservatively, converting these four campuses to renewable fuels will save 260,000 tons of coal over a decade while reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 676,000 tons.

“UWSP has a history as a leader in conservation and we share a campus-wide commitment to be part of a solution to Wisconsin’s environmental and energy issues,” said Bunnell. "Our students have led this charge for many years and our campus remains steadfast toward the goal of eliminating all campus-related global warming emissions.”

Earlier this year UWSP became the largest purchaser of renewable energy of all the UW System campuses. UWSP continues to work with Wisconsin Public Service’s NatureWise energy program to increase the campus’ overall renewable electrical energy mix to 16.4 percent of the total energy use by the campus.
 

UW-Stevens Point news release
University Relations & Communications, Stevens Point WI  54481-3897
Phone: 715-346-3046 Fax: 715-346-2042
E-mail: news@uwsp.edu  www.uwsp.edu/news