Jaclyn Olsen of Harvard’s Office for Sustainability and Erin Craig of 3Degrees describe Harvard’s ongoing decarbonization efforts that strive to eliminate its reliance on fossil fuels by 2050. Harvard’s climate action plan commitments to not only to reduce greenhouse gas emissions but also to become fossil-fuel neutral by 2026 and fossil-fuel free by 2050, an approach that seeks to reduce the university’s contribution to climate change and to the substantial impacts on health and ecosystems associated with fossil fuels’ sourcing, production, and combustion.

In this episode, Jaclyn—who oversees the implementation of Harvard’s climate plan—and Erin —who as a climate solutions expert is helping the university meet these goals—walk through the thought process and implementation of enabling Harvard to become fossil-free neutral and eventually fossil-fuel free.

Jaclyn and Erin discuss the sources of Harvard’s carbon footprint, the university’s efforts to reduce its emissions, and its emerging strategy on carbon offsets that will also offset the impacts of fossil fuels. They also talk about the value of working through a consortium of partners to pursue this work. And they share with us their advice for those interested in entering a climate and business career.

Resources

• Harvard University Climate Action Plan
• Harvard Presidential Committee on Sustainability PCS report providing guidance on the Fossil Fuel-Neutral by 2026 approach
• Harvard’s fossil fuel free approach (Harvard Gazette)
• 2020 Harvard Sustainability Report
• Harvard Science and Engineering Complex’s sustainability features

Guests

Climate Rising Host: Professor Mike Toffel, Faculty Chair, Business & Environment Initiative

Guest: Jaclyn Olsen, Associate Director of Harvard University’s Office for Sustainability

Guest: Erin Craig, Vice President of 3Degrees

Transcript

Editor’s Note: The following was prepared by a machine algorithm, and may not perfectly reflect the audio file of the interview.

Mike Toffel:
Jaclyn and Erin, thanks so much for joining us on Climate Rising today. I wonder if we could start with just having you each introduce yourself. Jaclyn, could we start with you?

Jaclyn Olsen:
Sure, thank you. Thank you so much for inviting us here today. We are really excited to be here to talk about all of our great work. So I am Jaclyn Olsen and I'm one of the Associate Directors at the Office for Sustainability at Harvard. And I've been here for more than 15 years. So really have worked on sustainability at Harvard's campus for a long time. And I've been working on our climate goals and really helped shape and lead our initial climate goals and our first sustainability plan, which was back in 2015 and then our second generation climate goals in 2018. And I've also been working quite a bit with the cities of Cambridge and Boston on some of our formal partnerships and collaborations with the cities and our tracking of regulations that are coming from our cities.

Mike Toffel:
Great, thank you. And Erin.

Erin Craig:
Thank you again also, I'm Erin Craig, I'm Vice President of Customer Solutions and Innovation at 3Degrees. We help organizations and their customers take urgent action on climate change. I've been at 3Degrees for about 15 years, and my focus has been on energy solutions and climate solutions involving direct reductions, both by organizations themselves, and then in the form of indirect reductions and carbon offsets and other kinds of economic market tools. Before 3Degrees, I was at Sun Microsystems and salesforce.com and Apple, and doing sustainability and environment health and safety work. And in case it wasn't obvious from that list of companies I'm on the West Coast, out here in California.

Mike Toffel:
Erin, how did you and 3Degrees get engaged with Harvard?

Erin Craig:
Yeah, so it was actually several years ago when Harvard was, under Jaclyn's leadership, looking to implement its recently adopted policy intent to go fossil fuel neutral and ultimately fossil fuel free and Harvard understood that that meant there was going to need to be a great deal of change in its energy systems. You were looking for help in identifying ways to do that,? Both from a strategic, but also an implementation, perspective. And we responded to an RFP, that was issuedAnd separately due to that relationship that started there, I've been working with Jaclyn and the Sustainability Office on a parallel basis to talk about Harvard's unique pathways,, to reach decarbonization according to its goals.

Mike Toffel:
Great. And we're going to get into all those goals in a few minutes. Jaclyn, if you could lay out the climate conversation at Harvard. I think a lot of people, when they think about Harvard and climate, they may think about the footprint, they may have read in the news about the divestiture movement. What's the landscape look like at Harvard?

Jaclyn Olsen:
There are three main pillars for our climate action at Harvard. And we are a research and teaching institution, so the first pillar is the research and teaching efforts on climate. And Harvard hired its first Vice Provost for Climate and Sustainability last year, Professor James Stock. And Professor Stock's role is to knit together the faculty, the research, the teaching initiatives that are already happening across the university and amplify and accelerate this work and bring it together for the university for exciting, new initiatives and exciting, new research and teaching here at the university.

And then the second pillar, Harvard does have an investment strategy for its endowment. The endowment is managed by a Harvard Management Company, which is a separate entity from the university, separate from the reporting that our office goes through up through the President's Office. But HMC was actually the first endowment in the country to commit to achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions across their entire investment portfolio by 2050, sort of paralleling the university's climate goals for our campus operations.

And the third pillar is the area that I work on in what we'll mostly be talking about, which is really the work of the Sustainability Office on our campus footprint and our campus operations and our role in the community. And our mission is really to use the campus as a living lab, to pilot and test solutions to global sustainability challenges, including our climate goals, which we're talking about today.

Mike Toffel:
And in disclosure, I am working with Jaclyn and Erin and their team and their effort to help us figure out our strategy and also with Jim Stock on his strategy. We're going to spend most of our time today, as you mentioned, on the campus operations, what's the importance that drives the attention there?

Jaclyn Olsen:
Well, I think the real importance is not our footprint, which is actually fairly small, but the real importance is how we can use our approach to solving the challenges associated with running a major university, like Harvard, and the way we're approaching understanding the climate and other sustainability impacts that our operational choices every day are having on the world.

And then share that out with the world and really leverage the intellectual faculty and students that we have here who can help inform our efforts and help us think about the way we can be doing this better. And Harvard is the size of multinational companies like Google and others. And we actually operate in a decentralized management environment, similar to companies as well. So we think we're a good model for addressing these global challenges.

Mike Toffel:
How many buildings do we have across the university?

Jaclyn Olsen:
We have over 600 buildings across North America. Mostly here in Cambridge and Boston, of course.

Mike Toffel:
Yeah. I don't think people have an appreciation for just how large this university is.

Jaclyn Olsen:
That's right. And we have a really wide variety of building types. We serve thousands of meals a day. We house people, we have laboratories. We pretty much have almost every building type you can imagine here at Harvard.

Mike Toffel:
So the ability to focus on our own footprint enables us to some extent to be a demonstration project, to be a pilot.

Jaclyn Olsen:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Mike Toffel:
So what are the major sources of greenhouse gas emissions, or we could talk about fossil fuel emissions as well, across the Harvard's footprint? We can think: Scope One, which is onsite operations, Scope Two, which is purchased electricity and Scope Three kind of everything else. At a high level, what are the major sources?

Jaclyn Olsen:
Our Scope One emissions are primarily our buildings. 95% of our Scope One and Scope Two emissions combined are from heating, cooling, and powering our buildings. And our Scope One emissions are primarily from our district energy facilities that Harvard owns and operates. And we have maybe a quarter of the emissions or so from buildings that have boilers in the building because that's fuel being burned directly on campus. And then our vehicles that we own and operate and our refrigerants in our buildings make up the other small proportion of our emissions.

Mike Toffel:
Okay. So that's Scope One. That's the emissions, the combustions that are happening on campus.

Jaclyn Olsen:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Mike Toffel:
Great. How about Scope Two?

Jaclyn Olsen:
Our Scope Two emissions are primarily purchased electricity, which is used for powering our buildings and also used for producing chilled water for cooling our buildings. And then we do have some energy contracts that are part of our Scope Two, for steam, for heating our buildings from other centralized district systems that we don't own and operate.

Mike Toffel:
Great. And then Scope Three, the everything else. What are the priorities there?

Jaclyn Olsen:
A university is a little different from a business in that we're not producing a product. So we actually have a very large breadth of activities under our Scope Three emissions. And our priorities are the built environments. So construction projects and renovation projects and the embodied carbon that goes into the materials that you use: concrete, steel, glass. And we also are looking at our air travel emissions and our commuting emissions. And we have a focus on food emissions as well, both from the food procurement side and the food waste side. And then we also track our water emissions and waste emissions, which are smaller for us, but have other really important reasons for managing those well. And then we have a very long tail of other procured goods and services, that's where you really get that wide range of different types of things that we buy and services that we purchase for the university.

Mike Toffel:
So that's helpful just to understand where these emissions are coming from, that contribute to our overall greenhouse gas emissions, our overall carbon footprint. Erin alluded earlier to some of the goals that Harvard has set, and I think it's quite interesting that they're in terms of fossil fuels as opposed to greenhouse gas emissions, right? And so we have a fossil fuel neutral by 2026 goal and a fossil fuel free goal by 2050. Why are we contemplating fossil fuels as opposed to greenhouse gas emissions?

Jaclyn Olsen:
This was a very intentional language choice by our faculty-led task force that set these goals for Harvard back in 2018. And this is because fossil fuels are the primary driver of greenhouse gas emissions that are causing change. So using the language, recognizing that we need to address our reliance on fossil fuel energy systems is an important part of the way we're approaching our climate goals. And the faculty on this committee told us that a focus on carbon is too restrictive because there are other pollutants that are the result of burning of fossil fuels and they cause a lot of health harm in our communities.

And there's actually some interesting recent research from last year from the Chan School of Public Health they found that there's 8,000,000 premature deaths a year globally as a result of fossil fuel air pollution. And when we talk only about carbon emissions, we're ignoring the fact that burning fossil fuels causes lots of other health harm every year.

Mike Toffel:
And Erin, You work with lots of companies and institutions and organizations, how unusual is a fossil fuel goal as opposed to a greenhouse gas emission goal?

Erin Craig:
So it's unique, as far as the companies that we work with. That's not to say that other organizations don't look at a large set of issues that are caused by the same sources that cause their greenhouse gas emissions and try to redress all of those issues simultaneously. But the focus on fossil fuels and really naming that as the problem, honestly, Harvard is the only organization at least that we work with and I can't think of another one off hand, that has set that as the target.

Jaclyn Olsen:
There have been a few other organizations that have set it since Harvard has, including actually I think the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. And Biogen announced a fossil fuel free goal as well about a year after Harvard did.

Mike Toffel:
And one of the complexities of this goal, which sounds clean and easy, is how you measure this. And I was part of a committee with both of you where we discussed a variety of approaches. One could be, "Oh, fossil fuel goals mean for every gallon of gasoline you use, you have to figure out how to ensure someone else isn't using that gallon of gasoline beyond that which you can reduce." Or maybe it's the health impacts of that. So if you combust it and a gallon of gasoline and it has X parts per million of particulates, we need to consider those particulates elsewhere as well. Even if it's not from gasoline, maybe it's from a different fuel source or maybe it's actually the health impacts of those particulates. So it's not just that it's 17 parts per million is released it's, and they are within 300 feet of 400 people who are exposed to that. And this gets awfully complicated, in fact. Which of those definitions is Harvard settled on, Jaclyn?

Jaclyn Olsen:
We settled on the definition where we're looking to measure the health impacts of the fossil fuel use to the best extent that we can. And so we're first looking at the health impacts of the fossil fuel energy that we use here on campus for our Scope One and our Scope Two emissions. We don't have that kind of analysis for our scope of three emissions at this point. And we've been working with researchers at the Chan School here at the Public Health School at Harvard to do this analysis. They have tools that they've been developing that help develop a factor that helps you see the health damages caused by every megawatt hour of electricity that you use, or every therm of natural gas that you use.

And so that footprint is being developed as we speak. And then for our fossil fuel neutral goal by 2026, which means that we are going to neutralize our greenhouse gas emissions, of course, which is how most organizations approach neutrality. But we are also going to make sure we neutralize or zero out the health damage impacts that we're able to measure as well. So when we look at projects outside of our campus, we'll measure the avoided greenhouse gas emissions from that project or the removed greenhouse gas. And we'll look at the health benefits that result from that project, to the extent that we can with the data that's available.

Mike Toffel:
And that's where that Chan School research comes in handy because on a project by project basis, you need to figure out what's the avoided exposure to people from less combustion of fossil fuels.

Let's go through these scopes in a little more detail. I believe the largest of these three categories in terms of carbon footprint actually is Scope Three. The ones that are difficult to calculate, that happen offsite, that are embedded in the materials that we procure. So you had mentioned earlier that some of the biggest impacts are from building materials and embedded carbon and concrete and steel, for example. Air travel, food, water, waste. What are some examples of what Harvard is doing to reduce its Scope Three emissions?

Jaclyn Olsen:
Yeah. So I'd like to provide two examples. One is on our building projects and one is on our food procurement and food waste. And on building projects, we know that the embodied carbon, the carbon that's used to produce things like concrete and steel to build our buildings is one of our largest Scope Three categories. And so, one of our projects right now is piloting using cross-laminated timber as a replacement for steel in building a large building. And this is a way to dramatically reduce the emissions of the building, right from the design phase, right from the beginning. And that same project is also piloting using alternative additions to concrete mix that can reduce the emissions that are required to develop the concrete.

And this is a really great example of how Harvard takes a very holistic approach. When we think about these challenges, we want to address the carbon emissions that go into developing the concrete, but we do not want to add toxic byproducts or toxic materials into these alternatives that we're looking at. And it turns out that a lot of the alternatives for concrete use fly ash, which is a byproduct of the coal industry and could be harmful to human health. And so we are piloting other options like glass porcelain in the concrete that do not have the toxic additives and can dramatically reduce the greenhouse gas emissions, which is really what our goal is.

Another example of where we're addressing our Scope Three emissions is in food. And just like we're tracking and reducing emissions from our energy choices. Since 2019, we've been tracking and reducing emissions from our food purchases. We actually signed the Cool Food Pledge, which is a science based group pledge that was set up by several different organizations who are all committing to reduce our food related emissions by about 25% by 2030 as a group. So it's not an individual commitment, it's a group commitment. And our food service partners have been making great progress and really making new, delicious plant-based dishes and in thinking of ways to nudge customers towards climate friendly options.

And we've also been focusing on food waste this year. In particular, we have a leading expert on this professor, Emily Broad Leib from Harvard Law School, who is from the Food Law Policy Clinic. And food waste is estimated to be eight to 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions. This is an incredibly important area for us to be looking at, and we're developing a roadmap to zero food waste for Harvard to think about how we can be doing this in the future.

Mike Toffel:
Great. Okay. So that's a bit about Scope Three, let's move on to Scope Two, the purchased electricity. And here, I know that the university's done a lot of work on building standards and trying to make, at least, our newer buildings, more energy efficient. But of course Harvard's got lots of older buildings as well, and we've got a lot of energy-intensive buildings labs, for example.

Jaclyn Olsen:
Yeah. So for our Scope Two emissions, for the fossil fuel neutral by 2026 goal, we are looking at renewable procurement opportunities outside of our campus to address our electricity emissions in the near term. As we move towards our longer term goal by 2050, which is to have all renewable electricity sources here in New England.

Mike Toffel:
And so here's where the idea of fossil fuel neutrality starts to bite, right? This is getting more complicated. We have to think about for the electricity that we're procuring to run our buildings, we have to figure out what are those fossil fuel emissions that are driving that, and then estimate the health impacts of that, and that becomes what we need to offset. So then we go to someone like 3Degrees and say, "Erin, can you help us source some projects to figure out how to offset the fossil fuel emissions and, by the way, greenhouse gas emissions, associated with our Scope Two emissions?" So Erin, how do you start with a project like that?

Erin Craig:
Yeah. So just let me give a super brief overview of what the different ways that organizations address their Scope Two emissions, because it is one of the most powerful levers that organizations have right now. So the most common way that organizations reduce their electricity emissions is they use renewable energy credits, which is a market tool that provides a subsidy in the form of a firm market price for renewable energy, as distinct from non-renewable energy. And credits like that can be purchased all over the world in most countries as a way to both provide a demand signal, albeit an indirect one, and a price signal for renewable energy. So, that is the most popular and the most common way because it's very easy to execute and it's widely available. Second, is you can go to your energy supplier and ask them to help you source renewable energy for your electricity supply.

This option is popular because it's convenient, right? It's an on bill addition typically to your electricity price and it, and it bears lots of convenience and you're dealing with energy experts, presumably, your suppliers. The downside of this option is that often, they will simply go to the market on your behalf and purchase renewable energy credits for example, and they may not be providing you a higher quality solution. And then finally, and this is where Harvard is acting, is you can do a little bit more of a DIY approach where you decide to take it in to your own hands and design a portfolio of renewable energy commitments that are long term enough to inspire, or indeed instigate the actual development of new renewable energy projects.

And over the past five years, this has become an increasingly popular way to go. And there are both financial mechanisms that have become popular enough to be standardized whereby you can make these long term commitments to renewable energy projects outside your immediate area. And the way this benefits Harvard is that you are able to choose renewable energy projects to commit to that maximize those health benefits that you're seeking, whether or not they are in New England. Whereas if you were buying strictly for your supply, your projects would have to be in New England.

Mike Toffel:
And by maximizing the health benefits, does that mean substituting for the dirtiest power that's out there for example?

Erin Craig:
Yeah. So this is where the research from Harvard has been really helpful. We're going to put new, renewable energy projects on the electricity grid. And the question is, what effect does that have? What does that do? What doesn't appear on the electricity grid at the moment we turn on those new renewable energy projects? And that's a modeling exercise, right? You can't tell that in precise ways. And we are modeling exactly what you've suggested, Mike, which is, "Okay, if we put on a renewable energy project over here or one over there, and if it's wind or if it's solar, what effect will that have on grid emissions?" And fortunately, here in the US, we have enough data to actually do that modeling so that we can predict not only with some accuracy, the carbon emission reductions that will result but also the health benefits that will result from those new projects.

Mike Toffel:
Great. So you get this traceability because you know exactly which projects you are investing in. And-

Erin Craig:
That's correct.

Mike Toffel:
Some assurance that it's new capacity. This is one of the questions I had about RECs, right? So RECs are pretty controversial in part, I think because sometimes, or maybe most of the time, RECs actually channel money to renewables that are actually already online. What's the logic there? How does that, actually, stimulate the renewable market if you're paying for infrastructure that's already been built?

Erin Craig:
Yeah. So you're absolutely right. It's a financial market, where renewable energy credits are actively traded. And by the time they get into a voluntary buyer's hands, usually, they are not paying the generator directly. It's a market with traders and forward contracts and all the kinds of arrangements that economic markets inspire. So it is an indirect way that provides a price signal,? So if I'm a renewable energy developer and I am looking to put a project down somewhere, I'm going to be looking at the energy prices and how much it costs me to develop. So I can figure out whether or not I'm going to make my money back. But I'm also looking at my predictions of how much money I can sell my renewable energy credits for.

Mike Toffel:
And Jaclyn, where is Harvard now in its journey to think about offsetting or in this case, I guess it would be engaging in virtual PPA, Virtual Purchasing Power Agreements... A lot of acronyms in this space. To try and achieve its fossil fuel neutral by 2026 goals?

Jaclyn Olsen:
We had over the past two plus years, been forming a consortium, an aggregation of other partners who are local around here, who are also interested in sourcing these offsite, renewable electricity projects and other projects too, we're looking for projects that have high avoided greenhouse gas emissions and high health benefit impacts from the projects. This is when we hired 3Degrees to be our advisor and partner in this effort.

We are not looking to purchase the unbundled RECs that are in the markets. We are looking for new projects that have not been developed, where the project developer can build this new project because they know they have a buyer. And in this case it's not just Harvard as a buyer, it's Harvard plus all the other partners that we're bringing along in our consortium.

Mike Toffel:
Let's pivot and talk about Scope One, the on-campus combustion. So let's start with what is district energy and why do we have it?

Jaclyn Olsen:
District energy is a central plant where the heating is being produced. And in this case, it's running off of natural gas boilers. And then there's actually piping underneath the grounds throughout the city that provides the steam that's produced from the central plant. And it's used to heat the buildings around Harvard's campus. And Harvard actually owns and operates Blackstone Steam Plant here in Cambridge. And we built a new facility in Allston, the district energy facility to serve some new load over there. So this infrastructure has been here and it's an efficient way to be serving a lot of buildings off of one central plant system.

Mike Toffel:
Got it. So it's more efficient than every building, having their own boiler heating their own steam.

Jaclyn Olsen:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Mike Toffel:
"So let's do it centrally. And even though we have to pipe it tens or hundreds or thousands of feet, it's still more efficient." That's the logic behind district energy here?

Jaclyn Olsen:
Yep. That's right.

Mike Toffel:
Great. Okay. Basically it sounds like we have a lot of natural gas going on. We have some gasoline, maybe diesel, perhaps on some of our vehicles. If that's the supply side, how are we thinking about reducing and then offsetting the rest?

Jaclyn Olsen:
Yeah, so we have had sustainable building standards for our buildings since 2009. And we've had these sustainable building standards that help the buildings set targets for being efficient. And the schools have been investing in energy efficiency projects in their buildings for quite a long time. Harvard does have a decentralized environment. They pay their own energy bills, so they are incented to be investing in energy efficiency projects in their buildings that are cost effective. So this has been a strategy for the university for many years and the primary way that we met our first climate goal, which was a 30% reduction from 2006 to 2016, was through addition of co-generation and fuel switching in our district energy system.

So that's how we have been addressing the opportunities that we have on the campus to reduce our Scope One emissions. And we do need to get these emissions to zero by 2050, but we know it's going to be a major infrastructure investment to figure out how we address the district system in particular.

And we're evaluating the technology options that are available and going through a process of thinking about what are the interim next steps to prepare and future proof ourselves, to thinking about what solutions we want to use for that major infrastructure investment. And then the fossil fuel neutral goal by 2026 is where we're going to be looking at offsetting carbon credit markets to neutralize those emissions. Because we know we can't get our buildings off of fossil fuels in such a short period of time, but we also know that we need to be reducing global emissions faster than 2050. We need to be doing more than we can be doing so that's where the offsetting mechanisms come in.

Mike Toffel:
Right. And for offsets, there's a whole host of different technologies. There's carbon removal, there's emissions reduction, there's technology options, there's nature based solutions. So Erin, with this wealth of options on the carbon offset space, if Harvard says, "Okay, we're Harvard, we want to try and offset our carbon emissions, but not just that actually the fossil fuel-caused health impacts." And we give you a tally of, "Here are the numbers." And we ask you to try and help us figure that out. What are the next steps?

Erin Craig:
Okay. So you're actually entering the market and the opportunity to participate in carbon offsets in a really interesting time because the market and the opportunity to use or to develop carbon offsets, it really started to take hold in about 2007, 2008, and then promptly fell through the floor in about 2014. And that all had to do with the Kyoto Protocol and its sort of demise. And prior to the signing of the Paris Agreement, now the market has picked up again and there are an incredible variety of really innovative and interesting ways that new companies and new ideas are being explored to directly reduce carbon emissions or to sequester carbon in just really fascinating ways. And so when organizations come to us, like Harvard, the first thing you need to do is decide your priorities.

Like, "What is it you actually want to accomplish in addition to the greenhouse gas emission reductions because there are many opportunities." And because of the work of the subcommittee and Harvard's goals, looking at both health impacts and fossil fuel neutral. Fossil fuel offsets, right? We have been looking in those kinds of categories. And so as an example, another goal or another objective, I should say, of Harvard is to look at things that are innovative, right? Look at things that aren't sort of the usual suspects that one could go to a carbon offset market and buy, but rather instigating new ideas and new projects with Harvard's commitment to buy some credits from them to demonstrate whether something works or not.

And so, what we did for Harvard is we have gone to the broad carbon offset development marketplace, looking for new projects and no decisions have been made yet. We're still in the middle of that, but there are some really, really interesting and diverse projects that we're looking at. Which I think, it's an embarrassment of riches on the one hand, but also makes for some complex decision making on what is most important.

Mike Toffel:
Jaclyn, let's just run through a bunch of different criteria of things that are going on in your mind, if you think about this. If each row is a project and each column are the criteria you're using to judge it based on, right, like clearly there's, "Well, how much greenhouse gas emission does it reduce? How much estimated health impact does it yield, based on that modeling that we've discussed?" There's cost, right? So dollars per greenhouse gas ton or other metrics like that. And then we've talked about innovation, which is how scalable is this? If we invest, does it help prove a new technology or reduce the cost of the new technology? That's sort of the innovation piece that Erin was picking up. What are some of the other criteria that are on your mind?

Jaclyn Olsen:
We really did think long, hard about our priorities and our criteria. So innovation was a huge priority for Harvard and for many of our consortium partners. We also were interested in looking at the location of the projects. So we recognize that climate change is a global issue. So we want to look at global projects and national... But we know that the health impacts of our fossil fuel use is local here, right? So that's a different calculation. So we want to look at local, national and global project opportunities.

We also are looking at who are the populations that are benefiting from the projects and trying to target vulnerable populations and using diversity, inclusion and belonging and equity considerations, and really trying to push for data on who the populations are that are benefiting so we can understand the impacts of the projects. And then we also have the consideration of, are these projects addressing fossil fuel energy sources. But we also think it's very important that we are addressing the fossil fuel energy systems that we're so reliant on through many of these projects. And then, there's the basic quality criteria for when you're looking at offsetting projects of additionality and how the project's quantified and the permanence, how it's verified and attributed to Harvard as well. So those are sort of the basic criteria that we look at as well, looking at the projects.

Mike Toffel:
That's quite a list of criteria. I counted maybe a dozen or so in that.

Jaclyn Olsen:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Mike Toffel:
So, when I spoke in the last episode with Oxford about the Oxford Principles for Net Zero Aligned Carbon Offsetting, one of the criteria they were talking about is the shift from carbon reduction to carbon removal, which I think makes perfect sense when you're thinking exclusively about greenhouse gas emissions, which is really what that's focused on. How does that apply to Harvard's fossil fuel emissions targets? Is that also something that you're thinking about or is that only applied to the greenhouse gas side?

Jaclyn Olsen:
I mean, it's very interesting and we're definitely thinking about at it as well, and it's a part of the considerations. Harvard's approach is to focus on the projects that have the health benefits and the carbon benefits first. And then we will want to be focusing more on carbon removals as well . We're really looking to build a portfolio of projects to achieve this neutrality goal.

So not every project has to meet those criteria that we just laid out, the portfolio needs to meet those criteria on the overall frame. So there's definitely opportunities on the innovation side to be looking at carbon removal projects.

Mike Toffel:
Got it. Okay, great. So Erin, what are the next steps, not just for Harvard, but for any organization that you're dealing with? So you give them a list of maybe a 100 projects that might five times, five X, their tally of what their footprint is. So they only need to create a subset of that for their portfolio. You work with them and create that portfolio. And then, once you get aligned, then do you serve as an intermediary? How does this work?

Erin Craig:
Yes. So, there are a couple of different frames. One is the one that you mentioned, where my company, 3Degrees, can and does actually originate. As in, we are a carbon offset project developer and/or we are the primary customer of those developers, so we will actually purchase the tons and put them on our little store shelf, that is a function that we provide. And in that case, our customers buy from us, 3Degrees. But also, commonly, we create portfolios for companies. And especially, for large buyers, they, in the end, do not buy from us, they buy directly from the principals.

And so we have specialized contract forms and other kinds of negotiation tools that we use on behalf of our customers in any case to help make arrangements that make good sense for the customers and the project developers. There's a big debate in the carbon offset world that might be of interest to the business school folks, especially, about whether we should be aiming for more uniform carbon offsets,. Which is to say a ton is a ton is a ton. And what we really need is a very broad based and liquid economic market where all carbon offsets can be traded so that it sends a clear demand signal. And carbon offset developers will go scramble and meet the demand based on the price signal versus what it is today, which is a much more diverse marketplace, where there are all kinds of things that you can decide to purchase.

And I think in the end, what we'll find is at the international level where countries are trying to meet their nationally determined commitments on to the Paris Agreement, you will find those carbon offsets becoming more standardized because they're going to be traded in such enormous volumes. And then, at the smaller volume and I think quite properly so, you will find organizations like Harvard and lots of other organizations looking to make immediate and meaningful mitigations, right? And the carbon space is a place where the kinds of goals that organizations are setting, they differ quite a lot. And so I expect that to continue. The market may bifurcate a little bit that way.

Mike Toffel:
So I think of your role, in one way, as a broker. You're a consultant, but also one of the services you provide is brokerage. How many brokers are there of carbon offsets across the country, would you estimate?

Erin Craig:
So when I mentioned that the world, we're in this emergence, right, the carbon markets are reemerging. They are reemerging in business models too. And so it's not easy to say that, "Oh. Well, there's developers and there's brokers and there's buyers."? It's much more diverse than that. So for example, there are companies who are forming themselves as vertically integrated providers. And if you want their kind of innovative carbon offset, you need to buy it from them period. And so it's to say where to bucket all those kinds of organizations. But I will say, the number of large carbon offset helpers and providers in the United States, there is a small number of large ones. Definitely less than 10, because the market has been so small for the past decade. I expect that to change over the next few years.

Mike Toffel:
So if I'm trying to create a new technology or a new business model that involves sequestering carbon or reducing emissions, and I want to reach organizations like Harvard, there's maybe only a dozen or so brokers that I need to reach out to be on their call list. So that when next time they have a client that's looking, they let you know in an RFP way. Is that how it's working?

Erin Craig:
Yes, yes. And you don't want to wait for an RFP. I mean, we love to hear about projects or companies that are starting up because sometimes having a new idea will inspire a company that didn't think they wanted to buy carbon offsets, or use that as a mitigation tool. It might make a lot more sense to them if there were a project that fit really nicely into their business model. It's easy, like send us an email, we'll put you on our list for RFPs. But also don't wait for that. We'd love to hear about new projects and new companies, as they're forming the new business models. It's really an exciting space.

Mike Toffel:
Super interesting. So before we conclude, Jaclyn, we can't have a conversation about climate change in Harvard and not talk about the other side of the ledger, which is the adaptation side. what are some of the major adaptation threats that Harvard faces? And can you give us an example or two of some projects that your office has been involved with to help make Harvard more resilient against those threats?

Jaclyn Olsen:
Yeah, absolutely. So the major threats are common to other areas as well of sea level rise and also increased heavy rain events. So more storm water issues in our streets and buildings. And then heat, having a lot more high heat days in our region. And interestingly, the city of Cambridge has done a lot of analysis to evaluate the vulnerabilities of our area. And heat was the one that they were most worried about immediately. And we've been approaching most of the resiliency planning work project by project or local area, because there might be different flood risks or different risks in different buildings, in different parts of the campus. And a good example is the Science and Engineering Complex building that was built over in Allston.

And there's actually a whole series of resiliency components that were built into the building But one of the most interesting things was the district energy facility to serve that buildingWas originally designed to be in the basement of the Science and Engineering Complex. And our office had initiated a faculty request that we should really be looking more closely at the future climate impacts of that site and making sure that we were thinking about that in the design development.

And when we brought in technical experts specific, who really understood and looked at these kind of issues more closely, the university made a change and pulled that utility and infrastructure out of the building. And instead built this district energy facility, which is raised up a bit on the land there, because it's recognized that there is a flood risk in that area. And so then the building was designed differently to be able to adapt to those potential flood risks in the future. And then all that utility infrastructure is now in a location that it is much better protected against that.

Mike Toffel:
So one of the questions I like to ask is for our listeners who are thinking about going into business and climate change, and they're wondering it's a vast space, where should I look? Where are the exciting opportunities? What advice do you have for them? So Erin, can we start with you?

Erin Craig:
Yeah, sure. So first, go to the 3Degrees website we're hiring. But more broadly... So the opportunities are expansive. And so I would first look to what excites you, right? Is it technology? Is it the biosphere? Is it public policy? Is it corporate strategy? Right. And think about where you will be over the longest term, right, interested in applying your skills. And then within that sphere, you will find enormous opportunities in climate change because it's one of those system level challenges that is everywhere. And so rather than saying, "I want to get into climate change and therefore, what should I do?" I would think of it the other way around, which is, "What really excites me and how can I apply that to climate change?"

Mike Toffel:
Great. Jaclyn.

Jaclyn Olsen:
Yeah. I 100% agree with that. I mean, figure out what you are good at and what you like to do and where you think that you can most add value. I think sustainability and climate are now part of almost every job, in every field at this point. So we need people who are business people. We need lawyers, we need poets, we need communications experts. We really need all kinds of expertise being applied to these global challenges at this point.

Jaclyn Olsen:
And I have to also add that to really think more holistically than just about climate. Climate, it is the biggest challenge that we're facing, but it's really intersected with lots of other complex challenges, especially, around health. Health in the built environment, the kinds of materials that we're using and toxic chemicals that we apply to our building projects. And we really work very hard in Harvard Sustainability Office to take a holistic view when we're approaching these problems, because there's a history of solving one problem by causing another. And that is, really what I think the biggest challenge is going forward for sustainability and climate is to not go down pathways that are going to cause other future harms.

Mike Toffel:
Great. Well, Erin and Jaclyn, thank you both so much for joining us here today on Climate Rising. I always learn when I talk to you and really appreciate it.

Erin Craig:
Oh, it was our pleasure for sure.

Jaclyn Olsen:
Yeah. Thank you so much. Really appreciate it.