UI to change sustainability plan, but public not allowed in on process

In September, the Climate Strikers — whether as a crowd of five or 5,000 — shifted their focus to convincing the University of Iowa to accelerate its work to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. 

Thursday, a meeting will be held on campus to discuss the school's "sustainability" plans. But uninvited to the table are the activists calling for change.

Critics — like Climate Strikers head Massimo Biggers — decry the university's lack of transparency and willingness to engage concerned members of the public.

Who all will be at that meeting, what is on the agenda and whether issues brought up by activists will be addressed, remains unknown. The UI media relations staff refused to say who the administration invited or whether the meeting was in response to recent climate protests in and around campus.

"We have now established a kick-off meeting for our next iterations of sustainability on this campus," Rod Lehnertz, the UI's senior vice president of finance and operations, told the Daily Iowan.

Despite this agenda-setting rhetoric, Stratis Giannakouros, the director of the UI Office of Sustainability and the Environment said the meeting is ongoing, more routine than Lehnertz's use of "kick-off" implied.

"We are trying to figure out how we are going to address climate goals on campus going forward," Giannakouros said. The University 2020 goals are coming up, he said. The meeting is to discuss what those goals are moving forward. "We are always talking about how we can do better at sustainability."

The meeting comes one month after international environmental icon Greta Thunberg and the high school student-led Climate Strikers rallied with thousands on the edge of campus to demand Iowa accelerate its efforts to reduce the school's overall carbon footprint.

The Strikers, the 100 Grannies, State Sen. Joe Bolkcom, D-Iowa City, and others signed on to an open letter to UI President Bruce Harreld in September calling for the university to use only renewable energy by 2030 and put an end to the use of coal at its power plant immediately.

The University of Iowa has reduced carbon dioxide emissions at the plant. Between 2005 and 2015, emissions decreased by nearly 50,000 emitted tonnes of carbon dioxide, according to a report on the 2015 emissions study. The University's 2020 vision —set in 2008 — included the goal of achieving 40% renewable energy consumption on campus by 2020. Over the years, the university has displaced much of its coal with biomass fuel sources in its solid fuel boilers at the main power plant. Building off this success, in February 2017, the university committed to completely eliminating coal from the energy portfolio by 2025.

However, the UI Power Plant accounted for 19% of community-wide emissions, according to the 2015 emissions count.

In August, Iowa City declared a climate crisis, resolving to reduce carbon emissions by 45% from 2010 levels by 2030 and achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, as advised by the 2018 IPCC report. This change resulted from a long campaign by the Climate Strikers to get Iowa City Council to amend reduction goals the Strikers called "irrelevant" in light of the IPCC report.

Since Thunberg's visit, the Climate Strikers' weekly protest has moved to focus on the UI power plant. Biggers, the high school freshman who started the student climate group, views Thursday's scheduled meeting as a victory in the effort to get the university to act. 

"We call BS on the University of Iowa," Biggers said in a statement. "A month ago, they told us they didn't need to update their old sustainability goals. Now, they have admitted they need to update their 2008 goals — in effect, UI has conceded to our first demand." 

The Press-Citizen reached out to the University of Iowa's Office of Strategic Communication for information on the process the university will undertake to change the campus sustainability plan. However, Anne Bassett, media relations director for the UI Office of Strategic Communication, refused to offer information on the process or communicate what would be on Thursday's meeting agenda. She instead sent a statement:

"University administrators and Shared Governance leaders will meet this week to continue engaging on issues involving sustainability on campus," Bassett wrote in an email.

Biggers took umbrage with the use of the phrase "shared governance," saying that not one of the Climate Strikers "including UI students, staff, alumni and city officials" were invited to Thursday's sustainability meeting. 

The Press-Citizen reached out to the Iowa Board of Regents — the governor-appointed panel charged with overseeing the state's public universities — asking whether UI officials refusing to answer questions amounted to a lack of transparency. There was no response by press time from Board President Michael Richards or Patty Cownie, the chair of the Governance and Evaluation Committee. Josh Lehman, the senior communications director for the board said he would reach out to UI officials, adding that the ball was in their court:

"I would suggest contacting the University of Iowa directly if you want clarification on their responses," Lehman wrote in an email.

Noel Mills, the student body president of the UI Student Government, advised patience.

"We don't know quite what this will look like until our meeting, but I am optimistic based on previous demonstrations of commitment to shared governance."

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Zachary Oren Smith is working for transparency in how the University pursues a more sustainable future. If you have any insight on this on-going story, reach him at zsmith@press-citizen.com or 319 -339-7354. You can follow him on Twitter via @zacharyos.