Bates is one of eight colleges and universities in Maine, and more than 100 nationwide, to sign an agreement to become “carbon neutral” — that is, to reduce institutional emissions of carbon-based greenhouse gases such that they no longer increase the atmospheric total of such gases.

In February, Bates President Elaine Tuttle Hansen signed the American College & University Presidents Climate Commitment. She is one of 62 chief executives in the coalition’s Leadership Circle, which provides guidance, peer encouragement and direction to the effort.

Hansen’s commitment on behalf of the college came just weeks after the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, established by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme, issued a report that leaves little doubt about the link among human activity, greenhouse gas emissions and the warming of the Earth’s climate, a phenomenon with potentially devastating consequences.

“Many Bates students, faculty and staff members are vitally concerned about all aspects of environmental stewardship,” Hansen says. “We’ve worked hard for many years on researching and teaching about the environment, and Bates also has a proud history of success in programs ranging from Dining Services’ food-waste management to our recent decision to purchase green energy.”

She says, “The time was right for Bates to step forward.”

Patterned after the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement, the ACUPCC commits Bates and its fellow signatories to an ultimate goal of eliminating greenhouse gas emissions through a five-step process:

1) Completing an institutional inventory of emissions (which in Bates’ case should be done this spring); 2) setting a target date and milestones for achieving climate neutrality; 3) taking immediate short-term steps to reduce emissions; 4) integrating sustainability into the curriculum and the educational experience; and 5) making the action plan, emissions inventory and progress reports publicly available. (The agreement also calls for participants to step up research relevant to climate change.)

“Colleges and universities play a very important role in sustainability,” Hansen says. “We are, after all, educating future leaders, so we have both a special responsibility and a special opportunity to instill students with a sense of the urgency and complexities of finding solutions to the problems of living on Earth.”

She adds, “As institutions, we should also be able to demonstrate operationally how to make innovative, sustainable choices. And we should encourage other institutions to follow our lead in working to protect the environment.”

Winning individual hearts and minds to the cause will be key to the Bates effort, says environmental coordinator Julie Rosenbach. “We can work on policies, incentive programs and infrastructures to help people with their decisions,” she says.

“If you tell people, ‘We have to stop climate change,’ it’s totally overwhelming,” she added. “But if you give them concrete steps to take, most people are interested.”

Three national nonprofit organizations that advocate environmental sustainability initiated the ACUPCC: EcoAmerica, Second Nature and the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education. The latter two are involved specifically with higher education.

Presidents Bernie Machen of the University of Florida, Michael Crow of Arizona State University and Jo Ann M. Gora of Ball State University were among the first to sign the commitment, late last year. As of March 5, 108 colleges and universities were on board.

At the request of college President Elaine Tuttle Hansen, students, staff and faculty at Bates College have created an environmental task force.

Chaired by Professor of Physics John Smedley, the 11-member group is charged with creating a five-year plan to bring the college closer to environmental sustainability. In addition, the task force will facilitate campus communications around environmental issues and help educate Bates students, staff and faculty about those issues.

In essence, Smedley says, “we’re trying to infuse a sustainability ethic at all levels of the college” — affecting not only such obvious factors as energy use, recycling and waste management, but considerations like the environmental friendliness of the school’s financial investments.

“A goal is to think as broadly as we can about the environment,” Smedley says, and how Bates — with 109 acres, 85 buildings, 1,750 students and 700 staff and faculty — affects it.

“The most important objective of the task force at this point is to establish clear priorities among the many things that can be done, so that we’re making sound choices and finding the most feasible, coherent ways to be environmentally responsible,” says Terry Beckmann, vice president for finance and administration at Bates.

The task force aims to have its plan ready by the start of the new year. At the same time, it is creating a Web site that will share information about its work and serve as a means of collecting information and ideas from the campus community.

“In the process of developing a five-year plan, we’re going to be looking for feedback from people,” Smedley says.

“Bates has a history of commitment to environmental issues,” says Hansen, “and to sustain this commitment we need to re-examine periodically what we’re doing and make sure that we’re reaching our goals in the most effective and well-coordinated way.”

Bates Dining Services, in particular, is known for sustainability measures that include an innovative, money-saving system of recycling food wastes that has been held up as a model for other Maine institutions.

Launched in 1996, the college’s interdisciplinary Environmental Studies program was the seventh most popular major among the class of 2004. Coupled with Bates’ robust commitment to service-learning, the ES program puts many students right into the community to explore first-hand the environmental issues affecting local residents.

Bates’ Environmental Coalition is an active student organization with members now serving on the task force.

The educational piece of the task force effort is key, Smedley says. For one thing, given the green consciousness of Bates students, the task force is a necessary symbol of the institution’s commitment to sustainability.

In addition, environmental issues constitute “a really important part of a student’s education,” Smedley says. “What do we want students to know when they graduate from Bates? We just can’t ignore an institution’s impact on the environment.”