BEND, OR -- Central Oregon Community College President Dr. Laurie Chesley recently signed a national climate pledge for higher education institutions that initiates a series of steps to strategically reduce the college’s carbon footprint. COCC is joining more than 400 other colleges and universities in trying to achieve carbon neutrality.

The first step is a greenhouse gas inventory of vehicle and building emissions at the college, according to Sustainability Coordinator Noelle Bell-Copley, “They give us a year to do it. It’s a bit of an undertaking. Since we are commuter college, I think the most interesting part to me will be figuring out how to get a good estimate of our commuting emissions. That’s people driving into classes to our 4 campuses.” The college hopes to enlist the help of OSU-Cascades for the inventory work.

The COCC Sustainability committee felt signing on to the carbon commitment climate pledge was a priority. “The level of support needed to undertake all of this was more than we had garnered before. So, to bring it to the senior leadership team, and the president’s attention was really just getting more support for this work because it really needs to be a top-down initiative rather than grassroots in order to make the most impact,” says Bell-Copley adding that the agreement aligns with existing objectives including designations as a Bee Campus USA and a Tree Campus, “This will give us more of a larger framework and more of a comprehensive plan to put all of our initiatives in. We’ve been working away at different things over the years with waste reduction efforts, and lots of initiatives, so this will give us more of a guiding full pan.”

COCC will have a series of sustainability and climate action-oriented public events throughout this year.