Sustainable Duke: Sustainable Investment and Procurement

Since President Brodhead signed the American College & University President’s Climate Commitment in 2007, Duke University has committed to achieve carbon neutrality by 2024. After developing a Climate Action Plan to achieve this goal, the Campus Sustainability Committee (CSC) chose to move beyond greenhouse gas emissions and work on larger campus sustainability issues. Each year, the CSC chooses a new focus area; for fiscal year 2015, a dual focus on sustainable investment and procurement was chosen. This study focuses on current Duke practices concerning the two areas, peer university benchmarking, and the progress of the CSC subcommittees tasked to deal with these issues. Based on data collected through web-based research, interviews with staff at Duke and peer universities, and observational research at subcommittee meetings, a series of recommendations for the CSC were developed.