| Overall Rating | Gold |
|---|---|
| Overall Score | 69.67 |
| Liaison | Julie Newman |
| Submission Date | Sept. 30, 2021 |
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
PA-1: Sustainability Coordination
| Status | Score | Responsible Party |
|---|---|---|
|
1.00 / 1.00 |
MIT
Office of Sustainability Director Office of Sustainability |
"---"
indicates that no data was submitted for this field
Sustainability committee(s)
Yes
The charter or mission statement of the committee(s) or a brief description of each committee's purview and activities:
In 2015, MIT Provost Martin Schmidt and Executive Vice President and Treasurer Israel Ruiz convened the Campus Sustainability Task Force with a charge to “shape the vision and plan of action for campus sustainability at MIT.” The task force was to engage the MIT community and to integrate “the campus sustainability perspectives of the MIT Office of Sustainability, MIT Energy Initiative, MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative, and build upon the MIT Plan for Climate Action.” Its primary activities were to 1) “initiate a process to agree upon a shared and actionable vision for campus sustainability at MIT through 2025, and design a roadmap for achieving this vision,” 2) “facilitate collaborative activities with faculty, students, and staff across MIT’s departments, laboratories, and centers to advance the overarching goal of using the campus as a living lab for sustainability,” and 3) “review outcomes and recommendations from the Sustainability Working Groups coordinated by the Office of Sustainability.”
The Pathway to Sustainability Leadership calls upon MIT to become:
• An exemplar that incorporates sustainability considerations into campus infrastructure, operations, student life, and daily decisions
• A model of organizational transformation for sustainability leadership
• A generator of meaningful new sustainability ideas and research, building on our history and current capacity for contributing solutions toward vital global needs and priorities
• An innovator of deep educational experiences for the diverse communities on campus and beyond
• A thoughtful partner to the local and global communities in which we operate, a clearinghouse of good ideas, and a mobilizer of actors who can implement sustainability solutions
MIT now seeks to leverage this vision and act boldly to advance the Pathway to Sustainability Leadership and become an organizational standard-bearer for a sustainable future.
The Pathway to Sustainability Leadership calls upon MIT to become:
• An exemplar that incorporates sustainability considerations into campus infrastructure, operations, student life, and daily decisions
• A model of organizational transformation for sustainability leadership
• A generator of meaningful new sustainability ideas and research, building on our history and current capacity for contributing solutions toward vital global needs and priorities
• An innovator of deep educational experiences for the diverse communities on campus and beyond
• A thoughtful partner to the local and global communities in which we operate, a clearinghouse of good ideas, and a mobilizer of actors who can implement sustainability solutions
MIT now seeks to leverage this vision and act boldly to advance the Pathway to Sustainability Leadership and become an organizational standard-bearer for a sustainable future.
Members of each committee, including affiliations and role:
Sustainability Leadership Steering Committee
Tolga Durak | Managing Director, Environment, Health and Safety Programs
John Fernández | Director, Environmental Solutions Initiative; Professor of Building Technology, Department of Architecture
Sarah Gallop | Co-Director, Office of Government and Community Relations
Timothy Gutowski | Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering
Mark Hayes | Director of Campus Dining
Joe Higgins | Vice President for Campus Services and Stewardship, Office of the Executive Vice President and Treasurer
Valerie Karplus | Assistant Professor of Global Economics and Management, Sloan School of Management
Janelle Knox-Hayes | Associate Professor of Economic Geography and Planning, Department of Urban Studies and Planning
John Lienhard | Director, Abdul Latif Jameel Water and Food Systems Lab; Abdul Latif Jameel Professor of Water Mechanical and Engineering
Maureen McCaffrey | Director, Real Estate, MIT Investment Management Company
David McGee | Director, Terrascope; Associate Professor of Paleoclimate, Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences (Co-Chair)
Julie Newman | Director, Office of Sustainability; Lecturer, Department of Urban Studies and Planning (Co-Chair)
Kate Trimble | Senior Associate Dean and Director, Office of Experiential Learning
Tolga Durak | Managing Director, Environment, Health and Safety Programs
John Fernández | Director, Environmental Solutions Initiative; Professor of Building Technology, Department of Architecture
Sarah Gallop | Co-Director, Office of Government and Community Relations
Timothy Gutowski | Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering
Mark Hayes | Director of Campus Dining
Joe Higgins | Vice President for Campus Services and Stewardship, Office of the Executive Vice President and Treasurer
Valerie Karplus | Assistant Professor of Global Economics and Management, Sloan School of Management
Janelle Knox-Hayes | Associate Professor of Economic Geography and Planning, Department of Urban Studies and Planning
John Lienhard | Director, Abdul Latif Jameel Water and Food Systems Lab; Abdul Latif Jameel Professor of Water Mechanical and Engineering
Maureen McCaffrey | Director, Real Estate, MIT Investment Management Company
David McGee | Director, Terrascope; Associate Professor of Paleoclimate, Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences (Co-Chair)
Julie Newman | Director, Office of Sustainability; Lecturer, Department of Urban Studies and Planning (Co-Chair)
Kate Trimble | Senior Associate Dean and Director, Office of Experiential Learning
Sustainability office(s)
Yes
A brief description of each sustainability office:
The MIT Office of Sustainability (MITOS) was established in 2013 under the Executive Vice President and Treasurer's Office to integrate sustainability across all levels of our campus by engaging the collective brainpower of our students, staff, faculty, alumni, and partners. The Office has set out to ensure that sustainability is a critical part of MIT’s standard operating procedures and is fully integrated into the working, research, teaching, social and cultural spheres of our campus. MIT's Office of Sustainability mission is to transform MIT into a powerful model that generates new and proven ways of responding to the unprecedented challenges of a changing planet via operational excellence, education, research and innovation on our campus.
Full-time equivalent of people employed in the sustainability office(s):
7
Sustainability officer(s)
Yes
Name and title of each sustainability officer:
Julie Newman, Director of Sustainability
Institution-wide coordination
Yes
A brief description of the activities and substantive accomplishments of the institution-wide coordinating body or officer during the previous three years:
MIT Office of Sustainability
FY2020 Annual Report to the President
Authors: Julie Newman and the staff of the Office of Sustainability
Mission and Methodology
The mission of the MIT Office of Sustainability (MITOS) is to transform MIT into a powerful model that generates new and proven ways of responding to the unprecedented challenges of a changing planet through operational excellence, education, research, and innovation on our campus.
Since its inception, MITOS has worked to reimagine how a university sustainability office should be structured and operate. By viewing sustainability as a challenge to be grappled with at the level of the individual, campus, city, and globe, MITOS has established an innovative, comprehensive, and ever-evolving approach to addressing how an organization can transform in light of the biggest challenges of our time. The office applies a scientific methodology of inquiry, data analytics, and solution development in partnership with MIT researchers, staff, faculty and students, to engage in the work of addressing these global challenges at the local level.
Working in partnership with the City of Cambridge and Greater Boston; campus departments, labs, and centers (DLCs); student groups; and peers across the region and globe, MITOS continues to accelerate and support innovative systems focused on a low-carbon campus, materials lifecycle, campus food systems, healthy people, sustainable mobility, and climate resiliency. MITOS also leverages MIT’s campus as a testbed for ideas—serving as a microcosm for global issues and solutions.
Solutions found at MIT are the result of collaboration with stakeholders and individuals across the Institute. In working with individuals and teams across campus, MITOS is able to keep focus on the people at the center of a sustainable campus—understanding their needs, motivations, and unique abilities to contribute to solving for sustainability at MIT.
The challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in adjustments to many projects and programs facilitated by MITOS in FY20. However, as an office with a keen focus on resiliency, the unprecedented year has provided a test in progress of an adaptive campus and community.
Organizational Support
MITOS is supported by a team of seven full time staff: director, assistant director, senior project manager, project manager, senior administrative assistant, data scientist, and communications specialist . The latter two joined the team in FY20. This staffing model is organized around MITOS’s areas of impact: low-carbon campus, climate resiliency, material lifecycles, healthy people, and thriving networks supported by subject matter experts. The data specialist role works hand-in-hand with the staff focused on each of the “areas of impact” to manage data collection of current conditions, enable predictive analytics, and to open sourcing data to the MIT community to solve for sustainability at MIT. The addition of the communications specialist position in 2019 was demonstrative of a commitment to MIT community engagement and activation through increased outreach via traditional and digital media channels.
Student Fellows
The crucial work of the MITOS team is also supported by the integration of student fellows who focus on annual priority areas including design, waste, materials, greenhouse gas emissions, and more as needs evolve. These students—both undergraduate and graduate level—have contributed a tremendous amount of work to MITOS and MIT as a whole. MITOS Student Fellow projects to date include the development of a climate resiliency dashboard, design and implementation of MIT’s first sustainability pollinator garden, and the analysis of our parking and transportation trends. Each semester, MITOS is supported by six to eight student fellows, many of whom are often jointly hosted between our office and another department on campus.
Areas of Impact
Zero Carbon Campus
Greenhouse Gas Inventory and Reductions
Each year, MIT—with the support of MITOS—measures the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the operation of our campus to better understand our direct contribution to the heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere—the gases contributing to global climate change. This basis informs our carbon reduction strategies and allows for tracking progress over time. In 2019, MIT continued to advance towards its goal of achieving a 32% reduction in campus emissions by 2030. Since 2014, MIT has reduced its emissions by a total of 18% towards this 32% goal, taking into account the purchase of solar power from Summit Farms.
While MIT continues to explore strategies for achieving climate neutrality in the future, a core component remains scaling up campus energy efficiency. Working with MITOS, the Department of Facilities plays a deep and essential role in these efforts. One outcome of these collaborative efforts is significant planned efficiency gains from MIT’s new central utility plant as well as new complementary approaches to increase energy efficiency gains in buildings ranging from testing artificial intelligence to optimize building control systems, to wholesale mechanical systems, changes in labs to reduce air change, and requirements creating a more efficient, and comfortable work environment.
Expanding to Scope 3 Emissions
In 2019, MITOS expanded upon work to source data and build a preliminary picture of the Institute’s Scope 3, or “indirect”, GHG emissions. This is done to inform MIT’s total greenhouse gas emissions activities (Scopes 1 + 2 + 3) and explore where strategic opportunities may exist to reduce emissions. MITOS enlisted Dr. Jeremy Gregory, executive director and research scientist with the MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub, as a Faculty Fellow to build a preliminary estimate of Scope 3 GHG emissions activities. This estimate seeks available emissions data including that of purchased goods and services, MIT-sponsored travel, and commuting and capital goods using the World Resources Institute/ World Business Council for Sustainable Development GHG Protocol for Scope 3—referred to by the organizations as “Corporate Value Chain”—framework.
Supporting Sustainable Mobility Choices through Access MIT
In 2016, MIT set out to reduce parking demand on campus by 10 percent over two years with the launch of Access MIT. MITOS participated in the design process with researchers and decision makers on the development of the program which combines pay-per-day parking with zero-cost access to MBTA subway and local bus, among other benefits for employees. The team also launched a public awareness campaign to accompany the new benefits and reframe the commuting experience.
The investment in the program incentivizes the MIT community to rethink their commute on a daily basis. In 2020, the program impact to date contributed to a nearly 15 percent reduction in on campus gated parking demand and consistent year over year increases in employee public transportation use, surpassing its initial goal. MITOS continues to work collaboratively with MIT Parking and Transportation, the Transit Lab, and student research fellows to analyze data and understand the current and potential impact of Access MIT. The data is being used to inform the next phase of Access MIT.
Climate Resiliency
Planning for a climate resilient MIT involves understanding what risks and disruptions may impact the campus in order to prepare the campus community for the impacts of climate change. MITOS is leading a cross campus effort which includes researchers and operations staff to understand and address the potential impacts which include:
• Flooding from more frequent and extreme rains
• Flooding from storm surges and rising sea-levels
• Extreme heat events
MITOS views a climate resilient MIT as an Institute that continues to fulfill its mission in the face of these impacts. Recent disruptive weather events—both localized and regional—have helped to raise the awareness of and vulnerability to flooding in the region. To build a climate resilient MIT, we seek to understand and prepare for the flood risk to campus as well as extreme heat events. Additionally, lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic are being applied to future resiliency planning.
Healthy People
The Hive Garden and Hive@Home
In 2019, the MIT Undergraduate Association Committee (UA Sustain) envisioned a campus pollinator garden to engage students and support sustainable ecosystems. Working closely with both the Office of Sustainability (MITOS) and MIT Grounds Services, that idea became a reality in fall 2019. Designed as a sustainability pollinator garden that is in part maintained by students, the Hive Garden hosts nearly 40 unique varieties of plants to attract and support pollinators like bees, birds, butterflies, and moths—essential contributors to sustainable ecosystems and food systems. The garden also serves as a test bed for co-designing outdoor spaces to connect to, and learn from, nature in an urban setting.
In spring 2020, the closure of campus due to the COVID-19 pandemic meant that many of those who put great effort into creating the Hive Garden would miss its first spring bloom. Working with MITOS, UA Sustain students hatched the idea for the Hive@Home—a project that empowers students and staff to try their hands at home gardening. Like the on-campus garden, the Hive@Home project links students and staff through gardening. With funding from UA Sustain and MindHandHeart, the Hive@Home pilot launched in April with more than four dozen community members receiving vegetable seeds and growing supplies. The community shared their sprouts and lessons learned on Slack throughout the summer with guidance from MIT Grounds and one another.
Kendall Food Prize
In fall 2019, MIT Dining—and its food service management partner, Bon Appetit—in collaboration with MITOS was one of six winners of the Henry P. Kendall Foundation New England Food Vision Prize. MIT Dining was awarded $250,000 to explore bold and innovative ideas that strengthen the region’s food system. MIT’s winning proposal—so-called “Food from Here”—set out to increase the amount of New England-grown food served on campus, while strengthening the capacity of local farm and processing partners to supply food to the region.
With the closure of campus and a changed dining landscape for fall 2020, stakeholders in the program sought to pivot the proposal to serve the needs of a “new normal” while still addressing original goals of the proposed program to meet the measurable, sustainable, and replicable goals of the Food Vision Prize while incorporating social justice, food security, and recommendations from the MIT Food and Sustainability Working Group.
Material Lifecycles
In fall 2019, MITOS, along with the Abdul Latif Jameel Water and Food Systems Lab (J-WAFS), the Environmental Solutions Initiative (ESI), MIT Dining, the Office of the First Year, and the MIT Water Club worked to encourage sustainable water use practices across MIT’s campus by advocating for the regular use of reusable bottles and other service ware throughout campus. To support this, MITOS offered branded, stainless steel water bottles to first year students attending orientation. To get the water bottle, students simply had to take a pledge to use their bottle at least 10 times—the minimum amount of uses needed to provide a better environmental performance than a typical single-use water bottle.
Four months after the giveaway, MITOS sent a survey to all recipients to test the efficacy the giveaway. With over 145 respondents, the results were encouraging:
• After four months, 92% of recipients still had and were using the reusable bottle
• Over 81% of recipients stated that they fulfilled their pledged commitment to use the bottle at least 10 times instead of buying a single use container beverage
• Over 52% of recipients reporting sparking at least one additional conversation with others about the importance of using reusable containers
The idea for the bottle giveaway was first raised by the Sustainability Leadership Steering Committee and the Water Stewardship Working Group. While welcoming new students, the aim was to introduce them to MITOS and MIT’s commitment to building a sustainable future and educate them about the benefits of choosing tap water over single-use plastic bottles.
Waste Pilots
In recent years, the Office of Sustainability, in partnership with Institute departments, labs, and centers, has worked to pilot a number of studies focused on waste disposal practices and specifically waste stream contamination. In 2019, these pilots continued across campus at the Media Lab, School of Architecture and Planning (SA+P), Baker Dining Hall, and the Howard Dining Hall at Maseeh Hall. The pilots contribute to an overall understanding of the issues of waste stream contamination on campus. The results of the pilots to date are shared on the MITOS website and provide a data-driven picture of campus waste challenges and the linkages among seemingly independent systems, helping to envision ways to contribute to broader campus solutions. As campus operations resume, so will the pilots in an effort to better understand efforts MITOS can take to address waste stream contamination and positively change behavior.
Governance and Committee Involvement
Sustainability Leadership Steering Committee
Published in 2018, the Campus Sustainability Task Force report, "Pathway to Sustainability Leadership by MIT: Incubation, Transformation, and Mobilization”, provided a vision and comprehensive framework for MIT’s commitment to campus sustainability, now and into the future. With leadership from MITOS, the Sustainability Leadership Steering Committee of faculty and staff—reporting to the Provost and Executive Vice President and Treasurer—continued to support implementation of actions to realize the vision of this report by making recommendations, reviewing progress, and determining priorities as sustainability benchmarks are set and achieved.
Climate Resiliency Committee
The MIT Climate Resiliency Committee, managed by the Office of Sustainability is tasked with assessing, planning, and operationalizing a climate resilient MIT. The Committee is a collaboration among faculty; engineering and facility staff; risk, insurance, and climate science experts; emergency management; and students individually and collectively driving efforts that grow a climate resilient campus.
Water Stewardship Working Group
Comprised of faculty, staff, and students, the Water Stewardship Working Group developed and delivered preliminary recommendations to advance a water stewardship program on campus with a focus on water efficiency, outreach and education, as well as research opportunities to use the campus as a test bed for new approaches.
Thriving Networks
City of Cambridge
In FY20, MITOS continued to serve as an MIT representative on a number of city committees and teams focused on climate change mitigation and adaptation, as well as materials management, transportation, and water. MITOS has worked closely with the City of Cambridge as part of the Cambridge Compact for a Sustainable Future, the City of Cambridge Climate Change Preparedness and Resilience Plan, the Net Zero Action Plan, the City of Cambridge Climate Resilience Zoning Task Force, and more. MITOS has worked hard to forge new methods of collaboration that build trust, develop better solutions, and accelerate progress with diverse stakeholders. Strategies from these collaborations have direct impact on the campus and city level, while serving as a model for collaborative approach to other universities and municipalities.
International Sustainable Campus Network
MIT is an active member of the International Sustainable Campus Network (ISCN), working with peers across the globe to devise and open source solutions for campus sustainability. ISCN is a global forum supporting leading colleges, universities, and corporate campuses in the exchange of information, ideas, and best practices for achieving sustainable campus operations and integrating sustainability in research and teaching. MITOS Director Julie Newman was a founding member of the network and now sits on the Advisory Board which is creating a vision for the future.
International Visiting Scholars Program
In 2019, MITOS launched an International Visiting Scholars program to enable an open exchange of information and ideas between international partners. MITOS provided physical space and devised a schedule for the two different groups to join them from Sweden and then Peru. Because of its methodology, MITOS is uniquely positioned to be host to either operational staff, researchers, or a combination of both.
First to visit as part of the program was a cohort of researchers from the KTH Royal Institute of Technology. With their visit, the researchers sought to gain a deeper understanding of MIT’s sustainability framework and specifically how MITOS leverages the campus as a test bed. The KTH researchers also shared their work on a “Live-In Lab” model, where they had turned four apartments within a dormitory into a live-in-lab data collection model that is used to inform flexible design, and how to optimize resource use in housing.
The second cohort visited MITOS from the Pontifica Universidad Catolica de Peru (PUCP) with financial support from the ISCN. Ideas from the exchange aided in the formalization of plans to launch an Office of Sustainability at PUCP in 2020. This exchange was also part of the development of an ISCN Latin America network to advance campus sustainability throughout the Americas by understanding what can be gained via cross cultural exchanges and support a roadmap for Office of Sustainability implementation among ISCN university members in the Latin America region based on the success of PUCP.
Campus Sustainability Incubator Fund
As MIT sought to resume campus operations for Fall 2020 for select researchers, faculty, students, and staff, the need for vast amounts of personal protective equipment (PPE) for these individuals became an opportunity for MITOS to support the development of a strategy and framework to guide sustainable campus PPE procurement.
Via a grant from the Sustainability Incubator Fund campus researchers were invited to craft a research proposal to study the supply chain, lifecycle use, and disposal processes of PPE and the potential impact on the MIT campus. When complete, the findings will inform a plan for sustainable PPE procurement over the next one to two years. The study seeks to inform the entire PPE process from procurement to use to re-use to disposal. The researcher team includes representation from MIT Sloan, the Concrete Sustainability Hub, the Center for Transportation and Logistics, and the MIT Humanitarian Supply Chain. The project commenced with a first-of-its-kind meeting between the research team and the MIT operational team managing all aspects of PPEs on campus. The research will take place throughout FY21 with a communication chain in place to inform those leading campus PPE procurement efforts.
Boston Green Ribbon Commission Higher Ed Working Groups
MITOS team members served on three separate working groups as part of the Boston Green Ribbon Commission Higher Ed Working Groups. The goal of the working groups is to building upon the significant accomplishments of the Higher Ed Working Group of the past decade. Team members share their subject matter expertise in these groups to advance the goals of: transferring knowledge to other sectors to accelerate change for the equitable implementation of climate mitigation and resilience.
Communicating Impact
Sustainability DataPool
Since it first launched in 2016, MITOS’s Sustainability DataPool has served as a collaborative project that provides the MIT community with access to campus sustainability data and visualizations. Using real time data—from building energy use to campus water use—the tool empowers MIT community members by giving them the data they need to understand current performance and inform innovative sustainability solutions and ideas. The DataPool has been cited in FY20 research and projects across campus including the DUSP Climate Action Plan, MIT Facts, and Town Gown Report for the City of Cambridge. A signature data project of 2019 focused on working with the MBTA and other transportation data sources to better understand and communicate the commuting patterns and impacts of those traveling to and from the Institute.
Sustainability Digest
In an effort to engage and inform a larger audience, MITOS launched its first monthly newsletter with the support of the communications specialist position. With an audience of more than 1,000 subscribers at MIT and beyond, the MITOS Digest connects the audience with news, research, photos, and updates on sustainability projects to engage individuals and groups in solving global issues at the local level. The Digest is also reflective of the responsive work of the MITOS team, sharing reading lists, podcasts, and videos that the team uses to support ongoing education and work.
Conclusion
Looking to FY21 the Office of Sustainability aims to build upon its strong track record of success, established partnerships, and innovative methodology to advance solving global problems at the local level. The added challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic have pushed the office to rely on its core strengths of agility, responsiveness, and collaboration.
MITOS is focused on an outcome-oriented vision—imagining MIT as an example of a state-of-the-art sustainable campus, and understanding the work we must do to get there. The ultimate goal of MITOS is an MIT where sustainability is embedded into the fiber of the Institute and considered in every decision that is made.
The coming year will see the update to MIT’s Plan for Climate Action, which will engage the office in further addressing the challenges of climate change at the organizational level and laying the groundwork for a carbon neutral campus. MITOS will continue its work in moving from silos to systems to serve the campus, city, and globe, while also having special focus on the role of the individual in grappling with the challenges and opportunities in sustainability on campus.
Effectively and broadly communicating how community members can support the mission of MITOS is of increased importance for the future. Exciting and meaningful work launched in FY20 provides the basis for our success going forward as we continue to engage the MIT community in:
• Moving toward a zero-carbon campus
• Supporting sustainable food systems
• Modeling and planning for a climate resilient MIT
• Developing a research initiative that studies the intersection of public health and sustainability
• Managing the impact of the Institute’s purchasing and waste systems in a manner that takes the full lifecycle costs and impacts of materials and products into consideration
• Broadening and deepening MIT’s commitment to sustainable transportation and robust participation in Access MIT
• Expansion of data collection and accessibility of data sources and visualizations
• Advancing sustainability principles and practices for the future of MIT via Task Force 2021
Sustainability MIT News Features
http://news.mit.edu/2020/mit-continues-advance-toward-greenhouse-gas-reduction-goals-0221
http://news.mit.edu/2020/students-propose-plans-carbon-neutral-mit-campus-0117
http://news.mit.edu/2019/mit-dining-wins-new-england-food-vision-prize-1206
http://news.mit.edu/2019/mit-sustainability-garden-creates-buzz-1125
http://news.mit.edu/2019/first-year-water-bottles-reuse-refill-replenish-0925
FY2020 Annual Report to the President
Authors: Julie Newman and the staff of the Office of Sustainability
Mission and Methodology
The mission of the MIT Office of Sustainability (MITOS) is to transform MIT into a powerful model that generates new and proven ways of responding to the unprecedented challenges of a changing planet through operational excellence, education, research, and innovation on our campus.
Since its inception, MITOS has worked to reimagine how a university sustainability office should be structured and operate. By viewing sustainability as a challenge to be grappled with at the level of the individual, campus, city, and globe, MITOS has established an innovative, comprehensive, and ever-evolving approach to addressing how an organization can transform in light of the biggest challenges of our time. The office applies a scientific methodology of inquiry, data analytics, and solution development in partnership with MIT researchers, staff, faculty and students, to engage in the work of addressing these global challenges at the local level.
Working in partnership with the City of Cambridge and Greater Boston; campus departments, labs, and centers (DLCs); student groups; and peers across the region and globe, MITOS continues to accelerate and support innovative systems focused on a low-carbon campus, materials lifecycle, campus food systems, healthy people, sustainable mobility, and climate resiliency. MITOS also leverages MIT’s campus as a testbed for ideas—serving as a microcosm for global issues and solutions.
Solutions found at MIT are the result of collaboration with stakeholders and individuals across the Institute. In working with individuals and teams across campus, MITOS is able to keep focus on the people at the center of a sustainable campus—understanding their needs, motivations, and unique abilities to contribute to solving for sustainability at MIT.
The challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in adjustments to many projects and programs facilitated by MITOS in FY20. However, as an office with a keen focus on resiliency, the unprecedented year has provided a test in progress of an adaptive campus and community.
Organizational Support
MITOS is supported by a team of seven full time staff: director, assistant director, senior project manager, project manager, senior administrative assistant, data scientist, and communications specialist . The latter two joined the team in FY20. This staffing model is organized around MITOS’s areas of impact: low-carbon campus, climate resiliency, material lifecycles, healthy people, and thriving networks supported by subject matter experts. The data specialist role works hand-in-hand with the staff focused on each of the “areas of impact” to manage data collection of current conditions, enable predictive analytics, and to open sourcing data to the MIT community to solve for sustainability at MIT. The addition of the communications specialist position in 2019 was demonstrative of a commitment to MIT community engagement and activation through increased outreach via traditional and digital media channels.
Student Fellows
The crucial work of the MITOS team is also supported by the integration of student fellows who focus on annual priority areas including design, waste, materials, greenhouse gas emissions, and more as needs evolve. These students—both undergraduate and graduate level—have contributed a tremendous amount of work to MITOS and MIT as a whole. MITOS Student Fellow projects to date include the development of a climate resiliency dashboard, design and implementation of MIT’s first sustainability pollinator garden, and the analysis of our parking and transportation trends. Each semester, MITOS is supported by six to eight student fellows, many of whom are often jointly hosted between our office and another department on campus.
Areas of Impact
Zero Carbon Campus
Greenhouse Gas Inventory and Reductions
Each year, MIT—with the support of MITOS—measures the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the operation of our campus to better understand our direct contribution to the heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere—the gases contributing to global climate change. This basis informs our carbon reduction strategies and allows for tracking progress over time. In 2019, MIT continued to advance towards its goal of achieving a 32% reduction in campus emissions by 2030. Since 2014, MIT has reduced its emissions by a total of 18% towards this 32% goal, taking into account the purchase of solar power from Summit Farms.
While MIT continues to explore strategies for achieving climate neutrality in the future, a core component remains scaling up campus energy efficiency. Working with MITOS, the Department of Facilities plays a deep and essential role in these efforts. One outcome of these collaborative efforts is significant planned efficiency gains from MIT’s new central utility plant as well as new complementary approaches to increase energy efficiency gains in buildings ranging from testing artificial intelligence to optimize building control systems, to wholesale mechanical systems, changes in labs to reduce air change, and requirements creating a more efficient, and comfortable work environment.
Expanding to Scope 3 Emissions
In 2019, MITOS expanded upon work to source data and build a preliminary picture of the Institute’s Scope 3, or “indirect”, GHG emissions. This is done to inform MIT’s total greenhouse gas emissions activities (Scopes 1 + 2 + 3) and explore where strategic opportunities may exist to reduce emissions. MITOS enlisted Dr. Jeremy Gregory, executive director and research scientist with the MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub, as a Faculty Fellow to build a preliminary estimate of Scope 3 GHG emissions activities. This estimate seeks available emissions data including that of purchased goods and services, MIT-sponsored travel, and commuting and capital goods using the World Resources Institute/ World Business Council for Sustainable Development GHG Protocol for Scope 3—referred to by the organizations as “Corporate Value Chain”—framework.
Supporting Sustainable Mobility Choices through Access MIT
In 2016, MIT set out to reduce parking demand on campus by 10 percent over two years with the launch of Access MIT. MITOS participated in the design process with researchers and decision makers on the development of the program which combines pay-per-day parking with zero-cost access to MBTA subway and local bus, among other benefits for employees. The team also launched a public awareness campaign to accompany the new benefits and reframe the commuting experience.
The investment in the program incentivizes the MIT community to rethink their commute on a daily basis. In 2020, the program impact to date contributed to a nearly 15 percent reduction in on campus gated parking demand and consistent year over year increases in employee public transportation use, surpassing its initial goal. MITOS continues to work collaboratively with MIT Parking and Transportation, the Transit Lab, and student research fellows to analyze data and understand the current and potential impact of Access MIT. The data is being used to inform the next phase of Access MIT.
Climate Resiliency
Planning for a climate resilient MIT involves understanding what risks and disruptions may impact the campus in order to prepare the campus community for the impacts of climate change. MITOS is leading a cross campus effort which includes researchers and operations staff to understand and address the potential impacts which include:
• Flooding from more frequent and extreme rains
• Flooding from storm surges and rising sea-levels
• Extreme heat events
MITOS views a climate resilient MIT as an Institute that continues to fulfill its mission in the face of these impacts. Recent disruptive weather events—both localized and regional—have helped to raise the awareness of and vulnerability to flooding in the region. To build a climate resilient MIT, we seek to understand and prepare for the flood risk to campus as well as extreme heat events. Additionally, lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic are being applied to future resiliency planning.
Healthy People
The Hive Garden and Hive@Home
In 2019, the MIT Undergraduate Association Committee (UA Sustain) envisioned a campus pollinator garden to engage students and support sustainable ecosystems. Working closely with both the Office of Sustainability (MITOS) and MIT Grounds Services, that idea became a reality in fall 2019. Designed as a sustainability pollinator garden that is in part maintained by students, the Hive Garden hosts nearly 40 unique varieties of plants to attract and support pollinators like bees, birds, butterflies, and moths—essential contributors to sustainable ecosystems and food systems. The garden also serves as a test bed for co-designing outdoor spaces to connect to, and learn from, nature in an urban setting.
In spring 2020, the closure of campus due to the COVID-19 pandemic meant that many of those who put great effort into creating the Hive Garden would miss its first spring bloom. Working with MITOS, UA Sustain students hatched the idea for the Hive@Home—a project that empowers students and staff to try their hands at home gardening. Like the on-campus garden, the Hive@Home project links students and staff through gardening. With funding from UA Sustain and MindHandHeart, the Hive@Home pilot launched in April with more than four dozen community members receiving vegetable seeds and growing supplies. The community shared their sprouts and lessons learned on Slack throughout the summer with guidance from MIT Grounds and one another.
Kendall Food Prize
In fall 2019, MIT Dining—and its food service management partner, Bon Appetit—in collaboration with MITOS was one of six winners of the Henry P. Kendall Foundation New England Food Vision Prize. MIT Dining was awarded $250,000 to explore bold and innovative ideas that strengthen the region’s food system. MIT’s winning proposal—so-called “Food from Here”—set out to increase the amount of New England-grown food served on campus, while strengthening the capacity of local farm and processing partners to supply food to the region.
With the closure of campus and a changed dining landscape for fall 2020, stakeholders in the program sought to pivot the proposal to serve the needs of a “new normal” while still addressing original goals of the proposed program to meet the measurable, sustainable, and replicable goals of the Food Vision Prize while incorporating social justice, food security, and recommendations from the MIT Food and Sustainability Working Group.
Material Lifecycles
In fall 2019, MITOS, along with the Abdul Latif Jameel Water and Food Systems Lab (J-WAFS), the Environmental Solutions Initiative (ESI), MIT Dining, the Office of the First Year, and the MIT Water Club worked to encourage sustainable water use practices across MIT’s campus by advocating for the regular use of reusable bottles and other service ware throughout campus. To support this, MITOS offered branded, stainless steel water bottles to first year students attending orientation. To get the water bottle, students simply had to take a pledge to use their bottle at least 10 times—the minimum amount of uses needed to provide a better environmental performance than a typical single-use water bottle.
Four months after the giveaway, MITOS sent a survey to all recipients to test the efficacy the giveaway. With over 145 respondents, the results were encouraging:
• After four months, 92% of recipients still had and were using the reusable bottle
• Over 81% of recipients stated that they fulfilled their pledged commitment to use the bottle at least 10 times instead of buying a single use container beverage
• Over 52% of recipients reporting sparking at least one additional conversation with others about the importance of using reusable containers
The idea for the bottle giveaway was first raised by the Sustainability Leadership Steering Committee and the Water Stewardship Working Group. While welcoming new students, the aim was to introduce them to MITOS and MIT’s commitment to building a sustainable future and educate them about the benefits of choosing tap water over single-use plastic bottles.
Waste Pilots
In recent years, the Office of Sustainability, in partnership with Institute departments, labs, and centers, has worked to pilot a number of studies focused on waste disposal practices and specifically waste stream contamination. In 2019, these pilots continued across campus at the Media Lab, School of Architecture and Planning (SA+P), Baker Dining Hall, and the Howard Dining Hall at Maseeh Hall. The pilots contribute to an overall understanding of the issues of waste stream contamination on campus. The results of the pilots to date are shared on the MITOS website and provide a data-driven picture of campus waste challenges and the linkages among seemingly independent systems, helping to envision ways to contribute to broader campus solutions. As campus operations resume, so will the pilots in an effort to better understand efforts MITOS can take to address waste stream contamination and positively change behavior.
Governance and Committee Involvement
Sustainability Leadership Steering Committee
Published in 2018, the Campus Sustainability Task Force report, "Pathway to Sustainability Leadership by MIT: Incubation, Transformation, and Mobilization”, provided a vision and comprehensive framework for MIT’s commitment to campus sustainability, now and into the future. With leadership from MITOS, the Sustainability Leadership Steering Committee of faculty and staff—reporting to the Provost and Executive Vice President and Treasurer—continued to support implementation of actions to realize the vision of this report by making recommendations, reviewing progress, and determining priorities as sustainability benchmarks are set and achieved.
Climate Resiliency Committee
The MIT Climate Resiliency Committee, managed by the Office of Sustainability is tasked with assessing, planning, and operationalizing a climate resilient MIT. The Committee is a collaboration among faculty; engineering and facility staff; risk, insurance, and climate science experts; emergency management; and students individually and collectively driving efforts that grow a climate resilient campus.
Water Stewardship Working Group
Comprised of faculty, staff, and students, the Water Stewardship Working Group developed and delivered preliminary recommendations to advance a water stewardship program on campus with a focus on water efficiency, outreach and education, as well as research opportunities to use the campus as a test bed for new approaches.
Thriving Networks
City of Cambridge
In FY20, MITOS continued to serve as an MIT representative on a number of city committees and teams focused on climate change mitigation and adaptation, as well as materials management, transportation, and water. MITOS has worked closely with the City of Cambridge as part of the Cambridge Compact for a Sustainable Future, the City of Cambridge Climate Change Preparedness and Resilience Plan, the Net Zero Action Plan, the City of Cambridge Climate Resilience Zoning Task Force, and more. MITOS has worked hard to forge new methods of collaboration that build trust, develop better solutions, and accelerate progress with diverse stakeholders. Strategies from these collaborations have direct impact on the campus and city level, while serving as a model for collaborative approach to other universities and municipalities.
International Sustainable Campus Network
MIT is an active member of the International Sustainable Campus Network (ISCN), working with peers across the globe to devise and open source solutions for campus sustainability. ISCN is a global forum supporting leading colleges, universities, and corporate campuses in the exchange of information, ideas, and best practices for achieving sustainable campus operations and integrating sustainability in research and teaching. MITOS Director Julie Newman was a founding member of the network and now sits on the Advisory Board which is creating a vision for the future.
International Visiting Scholars Program
In 2019, MITOS launched an International Visiting Scholars program to enable an open exchange of information and ideas between international partners. MITOS provided physical space and devised a schedule for the two different groups to join them from Sweden and then Peru. Because of its methodology, MITOS is uniquely positioned to be host to either operational staff, researchers, or a combination of both.
First to visit as part of the program was a cohort of researchers from the KTH Royal Institute of Technology. With their visit, the researchers sought to gain a deeper understanding of MIT’s sustainability framework and specifically how MITOS leverages the campus as a test bed. The KTH researchers also shared their work on a “Live-In Lab” model, where they had turned four apartments within a dormitory into a live-in-lab data collection model that is used to inform flexible design, and how to optimize resource use in housing.
The second cohort visited MITOS from the Pontifica Universidad Catolica de Peru (PUCP) with financial support from the ISCN. Ideas from the exchange aided in the formalization of plans to launch an Office of Sustainability at PUCP in 2020. This exchange was also part of the development of an ISCN Latin America network to advance campus sustainability throughout the Americas by understanding what can be gained via cross cultural exchanges and support a roadmap for Office of Sustainability implementation among ISCN university members in the Latin America region based on the success of PUCP.
Campus Sustainability Incubator Fund
As MIT sought to resume campus operations for Fall 2020 for select researchers, faculty, students, and staff, the need for vast amounts of personal protective equipment (PPE) for these individuals became an opportunity for MITOS to support the development of a strategy and framework to guide sustainable campus PPE procurement.
Via a grant from the Sustainability Incubator Fund campus researchers were invited to craft a research proposal to study the supply chain, lifecycle use, and disposal processes of PPE and the potential impact on the MIT campus. When complete, the findings will inform a plan for sustainable PPE procurement over the next one to two years. The study seeks to inform the entire PPE process from procurement to use to re-use to disposal. The researcher team includes representation from MIT Sloan, the Concrete Sustainability Hub, the Center for Transportation and Logistics, and the MIT Humanitarian Supply Chain. The project commenced with a first-of-its-kind meeting between the research team and the MIT operational team managing all aspects of PPEs on campus. The research will take place throughout FY21 with a communication chain in place to inform those leading campus PPE procurement efforts.
Boston Green Ribbon Commission Higher Ed Working Groups
MITOS team members served on three separate working groups as part of the Boston Green Ribbon Commission Higher Ed Working Groups. The goal of the working groups is to building upon the significant accomplishments of the Higher Ed Working Group of the past decade. Team members share their subject matter expertise in these groups to advance the goals of: transferring knowledge to other sectors to accelerate change for the equitable implementation of climate mitigation and resilience.
Communicating Impact
Sustainability DataPool
Since it first launched in 2016, MITOS’s Sustainability DataPool has served as a collaborative project that provides the MIT community with access to campus sustainability data and visualizations. Using real time data—from building energy use to campus water use—the tool empowers MIT community members by giving them the data they need to understand current performance and inform innovative sustainability solutions and ideas. The DataPool has been cited in FY20 research and projects across campus including the DUSP Climate Action Plan, MIT Facts, and Town Gown Report for the City of Cambridge. A signature data project of 2019 focused on working with the MBTA and other transportation data sources to better understand and communicate the commuting patterns and impacts of those traveling to and from the Institute.
Sustainability Digest
In an effort to engage and inform a larger audience, MITOS launched its first monthly newsletter with the support of the communications specialist position. With an audience of more than 1,000 subscribers at MIT and beyond, the MITOS Digest connects the audience with news, research, photos, and updates on sustainability projects to engage individuals and groups in solving global issues at the local level. The Digest is also reflective of the responsive work of the MITOS team, sharing reading lists, podcasts, and videos that the team uses to support ongoing education and work.
Conclusion
Looking to FY21 the Office of Sustainability aims to build upon its strong track record of success, established partnerships, and innovative methodology to advance solving global problems at the local level. The added challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic have pushed the office to rely on its core strengths of agility, responsiveness, and collaboration.
MITOS is focused on an outcome-oriented vision—imagining MIT as an example of a state-of-the-art sustainable campus, and understanding the work we must do to get there. The ultimate goal of MITOS is an MIT where sustainability is embedded into the fiber of the Institute and considered in every decision that is made.
The coming year will see the update to MIT’s Plan for Climate Action, which will engage the office in further addressing the challenges of climate change at the organizational level and laying the groundwork for a carbon neutral campus. MITOS will continue its work in moving from silos to systems to serve the campus, city, and globe, while also having special focus on the role of the individual in grappling with the challenges and opportunities in sustainability on campus.
Effectively and broadly communicating how community members can support the mission of MITOS is of increased importance for the future. Exciting and meaningful work launched in FY20 provides the basis for our success going forward as we continue to engage the MIT community in:
• Moving toward a zero-carbon campus
• Supporting sustainable food systems
• Modeling and planning for a climate resilient MIT
• Developing a research initiative that studies the intersection of public health and sustainability
• Managing the impact of the Institute’s purchasing and waste systems in a manner that takes the full lifecycle costs and impacts of materials and products into consideration
• Broadening and deepening MIT’s commitment to sustainable transportation and robust participation in Access MIT
• Expansion of data collection and accessibility of data sources and visualizations
• Advancing sustainability principles and practices for the future of MIT via Task Force 2021
Sustainability MIT News Features
http://news.mit.edu/2020/mit-continues-advance-toward-greenhouse-gas-reduction-goals-0221
http://news.mit.edu/2020/students-propose-plans-carbon-neutral-mit-campus-0117
http://news.mit.edu/2019/mit-dining-wins-new-england-food-vision-prize-1206
http://news.mit.edu/2019/mit-sustainability-garden-creates-buzz-1125
http://news.mit.edu/2019/first-year-water-bottles-reuse-refill-replenish-0925
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Director of Sustainability
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Sustainability Data Analyst
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