Being part of an ethical institution that does its part to fight climate change feels great — there’s comfort and empowerment in knowing that the investment in your education also improves the future of your planet.
It’s a pity, then, that I feel so terrible right now.
Most Williams students think our college is doing a decent job with things like sustainability. Heck, we have compostable plastic cups! But digging deeper reveals a much more complicated story.
In fiscal year 2019, Williams College’s campus activities emitted 23,561 metric tons of carbon dioxide, or about 11.2 metric tons per student. That number is nearly double that of UMass Amherst, which calculated its own 2019 emissions at 146,427 metric tons of carbon dioxide, or about 6 metric tons per undergraduate student. This is the carbon cost of our education—and it’s totally unnecessary.
And yet, Williams claims to be carbon neutral. It can do this because the term carbon neutral doesn’t mean what most people think it means: A carbon-neutral institution can emit as many greenhouse gasses (GHGs) as it wants, as long as it pays a small price to offset its emissions. The effectiveness of carbon offsets is debated, and I’d argue that the College is using them irresponsibly.
Carbon offsets work by outsourcing sustainability projects instead of reducing the fossil fuel consumption of an institution itself. If the College gave a company money to upgrade the company’s heating system, the resultant reduction of greenhouse gasses could be subtracted from the College’s carbon footprint as well as that of the company. This allows two different institutions to take credit for the same emissions reduction, in addition to the impact of a carbon-offset investment often being overestimated.
While carbon offsets can be an effective way of reducing overall harm to the environment, they are not enough to solve the crisis we face. Per the Paris Agreement, affluent countries and institutions need to eliminate their GHG emissions in the next decade — not just outsource them. The faster this happens, the smaller the magnitude of the destruction caused. An institution’s dependence on cheap carbon offsets is predicated on a situation in which carbon offsets are cheap, and therefore lots of easily-eliminated GHGs are being emitted. A future where the College can continue its practice of buying cheap offsets is a future where climate goals are not met and disaster grows out of control.
But let’s talk about an even greater source of emissions than those produced on-campus: the endowment. Williams, despite having committed to phasing out investments in fossil fuels, still has significant holdings in fossil fuels. And furthermore, like carbon neutrality, divestment is a tricky term. To many, it means that an institution has little to no money invested in fossil fuels, but this says nothing of carbon-intensive sectors like aviation. Even if the College divested from fossil fuels, carbon emissions associated with the endowment would likely still be many times higher than campus operations.
What is the path forward from here? The obvious first step is to build renewable energy infrastructure. A 2009 study by an intern at the Zilkha Center found that building three windmills on College-owned property on the Taconic Crest would “meet the College’s entire electricity draw from the electrical grid.” Geothermal wells could potentially provide heat during the winter to replace the College-operated fossil gas combustion plant. Cleaning up the endowment is just as easy. A simple resolution from the Board of Trustees could require the Investment Office to quickly transition to a net-zero portfolio: Instead of making whichever unethical and environmentally destructive investments rake in high returns, College investors would consider the carbon emissions of their investments and offset money held in dirty industries with investments in renewable energy.
Of course, someone is going to point out that these measures cost money. They might say, “Williams’s endowment has shrunk over the past two years! Maybe we should listen to the experts; they’re setting reasonable goals that don’t bankrupt us!” This person, however, ignores the fact that the endowment is still enormous — much larger than it was a few years ago because of a 49.9-percent return in 2021, rising from $2.8 billion to $4.2 billion. We cannot put a pressing issue like mitigating the climate crisis on hold because of one bad financial year. If decarbonization efforts cause the College’s endowment to shrink a little, our education won’t be greatly impacted, and we won’t be complicit in a global disaster. Investments in fossil fuels played a role in the growth of the College’s gargantuan endowment. Now the time has come to pay up.
Furthermore, since the source of the College’s wealth is linked to colonialism and fossil fuel extraction, it’s only fair that Williams comply with an equitable interpretation of the Paris Agreement: Locales that have been hurt by the forces of colonialism and extraction will not be able to reduce their emissions as fast as wealthier locales, who are therefore responsible for decarbonizing much faster, by 2030 instead of 2050.
But Williams can do better than that. It seems reasonable to ask Williams to offset its historical emissions (considering it has knowingly contributed to a global disaster since at least the 1970s) by pitching in a small part of its wealth to decarbonization efforts.
The College is far from doing its fair share to combat the climate crisis, but it can get on the right track:
The endowment office needs to quantify and clean up its operations so that it reaches net zero by 2025.
By 2030, the College should have zero carbon emissions from campus operations to do its part to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Running a college without fossil fuels is tricky, and work needs to start on this immediately.
The College should repay its historic carbon debt in the form of offsets by 2050, pitching in to the global effort to eliminate emissions.
Of course, it’s foolish to assume that Williams would willingly pay millions of dollars to fight climate change — its mission is to provide us with “the finest possible liberal arts education.” But no matter how good an education we get at this college, it doesn’t matter if we don’t live long enough to use it. Only pressure from us, the students, will force the College to take action. Our moment is now: Let’s make our voices heard.
Liam Carey ’27 is from Falls Church, Va.