By SHANNON O. WELLS
From a Climate Action Plan carbon emissions-reduction perspective, Green Building Alliance-generated maps showing that hundreds of Pitt faculty and staff members live 10 miles or more from the Oakland campus is not particularly encouraging.
“You can see that plenty of folks live out in the 10- or 20-plus mile range from Oakland,” noted Emily Potoczny, sustainability engagement manager for Pitt’s Office of Sustainability during a recent presentation to the Senate Research Committee. “And this is important because those that live further out tend to not have as many options besides driving,” she said, referring to 2018 data from the alliance’s countywide commuter survey.
“This impacts the emissions output of those living in these areas, because there are fewer transit options,” she added, “and also because the driving distance is further.”
This was among the information Potoczny presented at the Senate Research Committee’s Oct. 18 meeting. As Pitt celebrated Sustainability Month through October with a wide range of events and activities, Potoczny was invited to share sustainability-related innovations around the University, including some connected to or potentially affecting research activities.
Potoczny noted that Pitt Sustainability has set aggressive goals to operate a “sustainable and equitable University,” including being a carbon neutral campus by 2037. The goal was set in 2020, with the Climate Action Plan launched in 2022 laying out a pathway toward carbon neutrality.
“Our office has worked with the entire University to create a plan,” Potoczny said, following four “overarching strategies” — energy-demand reductions, cleaning up Pitt’s energy supply, making low-carbon connections, and “leading the way to carbon neutral.”
Better commutes
The CommuteInfo system offers those living further away from Oakland a viable alternative to daily, solo driving.
“You might have been introduced to this when you were onboarded to the University, but I find that it's not often mentioned beyond that,” she said. “But this is a really great system.”
To use CommuteInfo, input your regular work commute and schedule, verify you're a Pitt employee, then you'll see other commuters who might be a match for your commute. “And you can then contact them within the system with protected information to ask about carpooling and see if it's a match.”
Potoczny encouraged those with a campus parking space to register their commute.
“It doesn't mean you'll be automatically set up with a carpool or anything,” but you'll be visible to and can see other drivers, she said. Those who don’t drive every day and don’t have a parking space also can register and see if there are others to match with based on your schedule and the route you want to take.
Potoczny stressed that more carpooling is central to Pitt Sustainability strategies and assumptions in the Climate Action Plan. “We estimated that we could increase carpooling just over 5%, so registering our commute is really helpful to help us get there,” she said.
The COVID pandemic changed worker habits and assumptions to a significant degree. “Work-from-home and flex-work agreements have already resulted in really large emission savings from commuting,” she said, noting commute-related emissions dropped from 16% of the pre-pandemic greenhouse gas inventory to 5% in 2023. “So we’re already seeing some pretty big jumps there.”
Potoczny also encouraged everyone to provide feedback on the Pittsburgh Regional Transit bus-line redesign. Released in early October, the redesign proposes several new routes directly to Oakland from community to community, “so you’re avoiding that downtown connection.”
Feedback can be shared via scanning a QR code on the PRT website or attending a pop-up engagement session.
Selective flights
University-related travel — including air and ground, via rail, bus and cars — used for trips outside of usual, day-to-day work, is another climate-action focus.
“Changes to the ways we travel and how we mitigate the emissions from travel will account for over one-fifth, or 20.9%, of our overall strategy,” Potoczny said, noting that carbon dioxide from traveling is “our third-largest source of emissions as a University after purchase of electricity and steam” used to power Pitt buildings. “Our University travel uses enough energy to power nearly 4,500 homes per year.”
Flying by airplane, she added, is “quite simply the most impactful individual decision one can make on a recurring basis, particularly on long-distance flights. … So each trip is really a distinct decision-making opportunity to reduce emissions, whereas other decisions are more habitual, and over the course of a lifetime accumulates, so it’s a significant impact.”
Air travel also presents issues of local and global equity, so a relatively small number of flyers are responsible for most global greenhouse greenhouse gas emissions, she said, most of them from high-income countries.
“And the harms of climate change are disproportionately borne by lower-income populations in the global south,” she said, “but also closer to home by the communities that live near airports and the extract industries that support them.”
Reducing air-travel emissions is expected to save the University 1.5% of total emissions on Pitt’s path to neutrality, or around 3,500 or 3,400 metric tons of carbon dioxide. “And we know that you travel for a reason, to conduct research, to build relationships or partnerships and funding to compete against regional and national teams,” she said. “And those are really valuable and critical to Pitt’s mission.”
Pitt Sustainability developed a Sustainable Travel Guide to help community members prioritize travel and lead to the most sustainable options.
Step one of the guide focuses on: “‘Do you need to travel?’ So we have a series of questions for you to work through, but it all begins with figuring out the purpose of your trip. Is it to make those important social and business connections? To do hands-on research or lead a study abroad program? Or is it to learn something, meet a continuing education requirement or some other business function that you might, if possible, be able to do virtually or at an event closer to home?
“So making the decision to go virtual for one trip can make a significant difference in your personal emissions and the emissions of that event,” Potoczny noted.
Chilling and defrosting
Potoczny also addressed some research lab-specific ways to be more sustainable:
Lab electricity usage: Those who work in a lab have particularly important opportunities to impact campus energy use, she said. “An easy way to minimize energy use is to adopt protocols for shutting your labs’ fume hoods, which can save as much energy as three or four homes use in a day.”
Chilling up: Ultra-low temperature (ULT) freezers that operate down to minus 80 degrees Celsius, particularly large, poorly maintained ones, can use about 18,000 pounds of carbon dioxide a year, and Pitt has approximately 750 of those in use, Potoczny said, equivalent to more than 1,600 cars driving for a year. Three ways to decrease energy use associated with ULTs include:
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Reducing about 37% of energy through “chilling up” or raising your ULT’s temperature from minus 80 to minus 70 degrees Celsius, which Potoczny said has been demonstrated as safe by the Centers for Disease Control for a wide variety of materials.
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Reducing 10% by annually defrosting your ULT.
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Upgrading to a more efficient, Energy Star-rated ULT, which can be a challenge without having an additional freezer to move materials during defrost.
Potoczny said Pitt Sustainability and the Office of the Senior Vice Chancellor for Research are developing a rebate program that combines the best practices she shared. It encourages labs to share an additional upgraded, chilled-up ULT. The 30% rebate is set to be released in November.
“So be on the lookout for that and start following the sustainability newsletter … for information about that rebate program,” she said.
Sustainability month
Aurora Sharrard, Pitt’s inaugural assistant vice chancellor for sustainability, said Sustainability Month was another success, and she and her colleagues have enjoyed the activities, events and presentations throughout October.
"Campus Sustainability Month is an opportunity for all higher education institutions across the world to celebrate their sustainability progress and journeys,” she said. “Here at Pitt, we’ve been advancing sustainability in the classroom, research, operations and partnerships for decades.
“Our recent progress has showcased new student-led conversations on reducing single-use plastics, expanded rooftop solar, acres of sustainable landscapes, and cutting-edge research on circular economies, sustainable healthcare and the environmental and human health impacts of chemicals,” she added.
Shannon O. Wells is a writer for the University Times. Reach him at shannonw@pitt.edu.
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