Document Type
White Paper
Publication Date
10-20-2025
Abstract
Carbon neutrality emerged as an overall framework for climate action several decades ago, with the assumption that institutions would follow a carbon management hierarchy - reducing their own emissions (i.e. decarbonization) and relying on high-quality offsets to address any residual emissions. In practice, offsets and other accounting-based emissions reductions have often dominated both discussion and action. However, sector-wide studies examining the balance between decarbonization and offsetting have been limited. Here, we examine 23 U.S. Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) that have declared carbon neutrality and contrast their direct (Scope 1) greenhouse gas emissions reduction efforts with a broader universe of U.S. HEIs, including those that have not declared carbon neutrality but have made strong campus decarbonization efforts. In our overall population of over 600 U.S. HEIs that report GHG emissions, we find that the median direct emissions reduction was only 9%, with 37% of HEIs reporting recent emissions that are higher than their baseline emissions. At the same time we find that HEIs have already demonstrated that decarbonization of a majority of direct emissions is possible today, and many others are in the process of similar infrastructure changes. In particular, we identify six institutions that have not declared carbon neutrality but which have made significant (50->90% Scope 1 reductions from baseline) progress in reducing emissions through the use of decarbonized heating technology (primarily ground-source heat pump systems), and energy efficiency upgrades. In contrast our data suggest that the collective actions of carbon neutral HEIs remain centered on offsets rather than decarbonization. Offsets remain the dominant strategy (69% of aggregate reductions) for Scope 1 emissions reductions at carbon neutral HEIs, with 17% of institutions actually increasing Scope 1 emissions from their baseline year while claiming carbon neutrality. Of the 23 carbon neutral HEIs we examined, only one has made >50% progress in decarbonizing its campus. These results suggest a serious need for HEIs to rethink carbon neutrality as the foundational framework for institutional climate action but also highlight the achievability of significant decarbonization if the economic, technical and leadership conditions are right.
Keywords
Net zero, geoexchange, thermal energy network, fuel switching, bioenergy
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Rights
Licensed to Smith College and distributed CC-BY 4.0 under the Smith College Faculty Open Access Policy
Version
Author's Submitted Manuscript
Recommended Citation
Barron, Alexander R.; Khan, Nubraz F.; Anesko, Greta; Larsen, Emma S.; Ding, Junwen; Sanges, Shey P.; and Strong, Aaron L., "Decarbonization is Happening in U.S. Higher Education, but Carbon Neutrality Goals Alone are not Delivering it" (2025). Environmental Science and Policy: Faculty Publications, Smith College, Northampton, MA.
https://scholarworks.smith.edu/env_facpubs/35
Comments
Working Paper.