Carbon neutrality should not be the end goal: Lessons for institutional climate action from U.S. higher education

Abstract

Climate action pledges have increasingly taken the form of commitments to net carbon neutrality. Higher education institutions (HEIs) are uniquely positioned to innovate in this area, and over 800 United States (U.S.) colleges and universities have pledged to achieve net carbon neutrality. We examine the approaches of 11 U.S. HEIs that have already announced achieving net carbon neutrality, highlighting risks associated with treating carbon offsets, unbundled renewable energy certificates, and bioenergy (collectively 77% of reductions across institutions) as best practice under current frameworks. While pursuing neutrality has led to important institutional shifts toward sustainability, the initial mix of approaches used by these HEIs appears out of alignment with a broader U.S. decarbonization roadmap; in aggregate, these early neutrality efforts underutilize electrification and new zero-carbon electricity. We conclude by envisioning how HEIs (and others) can refocus climate mitigation efforts toward decarbonization and actions that will help shift policy and markets at larger scales.