This month, Georgia Tech released its Climate Action Plan. This is a framework that will help schools become more sustainable in the coming decades.
ATLANTA — Georgia Tech is considering several changes on campus to reduce the effects of climate change.
The school has been at the forefront of sustainability since the '90s, and this month Georgia Tech announced its Climate Action Plan, a framework to help the school become more sustainable in the coming decades.
“Being a Yellow Jacket has always meant being a creative problem solver,” said Georgia Tech President Angel Cabrera, “devoted to progress and service, and committed to finding new solutions and… “People who are looking to creative technologies to help us live better lives.” For a better world. ”
The plan focuses on eight areas or strategies: building energy, renewable energy and offsets, mobility, materials management, water management, education, climate research and policy, and carbon sequestration.
From developing a reservoir to collect rain and storm runoff that will later be used for toilets and irrigation, to aiming for a zero-waste campus by 2050, the school has set some big goals to make important changes. It is set.
Parts of the plan are already being tested through the Kendra Building, the state's first building to be deemed “viable.”
“This building generates more energy than it consumes through a canopy of solar panels. It collects rainwater and processes the water itself,” Cabrera explained.
It is the first building in Georgia and the 28th building in the world to receive Living Building Challenge (LBC) certification.
The technology company is also trying to curb Atlanta's “urban heat island” by installing new eco-gardens in areas that were once covered with heat-absorbing asphalt.
Georgia Tech's campus is located in the heart of Atlanta, in Midtown. The city faces many challenges in a warmer world. The extremely hot days are getting hotter and hotter. Flooding becomes a greater threat as the atmosphere warms and can contain more water vapor. And consistently during the summer, the urban heat island effect makes parts of the city disproportionately hotter than other parts.
Cabrera noted that Georgia Tech was able to restore native plants, trees, shrubs and grasses to the Piedmont Forest.
“We're seeing insects now. We're seeing birds that we haven't seen on campus in years,” she added.
Leaders are also working on Georgia's first climate action plan with the help of funding from the Inflation Control Act. Cabrera hopes the framework in place on school campuses will be implemented on a larger scale.
“We're becoming one of the world's hubs for electric vehicle manufacturing. Our state has some of the leading manufacturers of solar panels. So, again, we're becoming cleaner and healthier. “Not only are we contributing to a better planet, we are also creating jobs, opportunities and economic growth,” Cabrera concluded.
She emphasized that she and her colleagues carefully manage the institute's annual tax funding. She said she understands that investments like the ones listed above may cost more upfront, but are much more cost-effective in the long run. She pointed out that it was increasing.
