Updates from the Sustainability Working Group

We are excited to announce that Hamilton’s Sustainability Working Group (SWG) is pushing ahead with its principal charges: to develop a Sustainability Action Plan and update our Climate Action Plan. Together, the plans will provide critical guidance for how we prepare Hamilton students to contribute to a sustainable future, both locally and globally, and for responsibly managing our College’s land and resources. The updated climate plan will lay out specific strategies for emissions reductions that will guide the College’s pathway to carbon neutrality.

Hamilton’s Sustainability Working Group, which has been hard at work crafting a revitalized sustainability strategy for the College, invites you to celebrate Earth Day by considering the positive impact the environmental movement has had on the local and global community over the last five decades. At Hamilton, prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, our student sustainability coordinators, in collaboration with the Student Assembly and several student clubs, were preparing to celebrate Earth Day’s 50th anniversary with a week-long slate of events.

Hamilton’s commitment to carbon neutrality requires a diverse and multi-pronged approach that pursues the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions on campus as well as opportunities to enhance atmospheric carbon removal. As the College Sustainability Working Group (SWG) works to advance all options, our land-management strategy in particular aims to use Hamilton’s forested lands to decrease our net greenhouse gas emissions and achieve multiple co-benefits aligned with our educational mission and our historic land stewardship legacy.