Pursuit February Session Videos

2021 Climate Action Pursuit 
February Milestone Session Videos
 


Every session video below is marked with the icon of the Pursuit theme it falls under.  Some of the sessions fall under more than one theme.  In that case, they’re marked with the overarching theme they fall under. 
The theme icons are:

Community Knowledge Neutrality Policy Racial Justice Student Leadership


More Information Abut the Pursuit Themes


Thank you to all of the speakers and cohort leaders who participated in the February Milestone!

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Carbon Neutrality: Maximum Ambition for Aligning Campus, Endowment, and Community Commitments

Pursue Neutrality: Hear from University of California President Michael Drake, Chief Investment Officer Jagdeep Bachher, and other leaders about the next generation of carbon neutrality commitments.

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Climate Action Pursuit Welcome

Kick-Off to the 2021 Climate Action Pursuit.

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End of the Day Reflection (Wednesday, February 24, 2021)

Open space for recapping the day’s sessions, reflecting, and planning for the work ahead.

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A New Social Contract between Students and Higher Ed Institutions

Hear stories highlighting youth and college activism and empowerment, how and where to get engaged, and the need for intersectionality and multifaceted solutions in the sustainability and higher education sectors.

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Partnering on EVs: How Cities and Universities are Electrifying Their Fleets to Help Achieve Common Climate Goals

Representatives from the City of Orlando and neighboring University of Central Florida discuss their coordination and advancements in electrifying fleet vehicles to help achieve their climate goals.

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Net Zero Across Asset Classes

Explore the concept of net-zero portfolio construction across asset classes. Panelists provided perspectives on how public and private equity and fixed income strategies can be aligned to achieve net-zero goals. They also explored the role of Scope 3 emissions and the impact of investing in climate solutions as part of a comprehensive net-zero portfolio strategy.

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Higher Education and Racial Equity

As higher education institutions seek to shift their role to become actively anti-racist, how can we align climate action and all other institutional priorities with efforts to dismantle structural racism and lift up BIPOC communities?

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Policy Brief: What the New Administration Means for Higher Ed, Climate Action, and Sustainable Investing

Hear from senior leaders what the new Administration means for Higher Ed, Climate Action, and Sustainable Investing.

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Leveraging Technology: Bold Planning and Steps to the Resilient, Carbon Neutral Campus of the Future

Hear from Keene State College and Siemens about about their paths towards achieving their carbon neutrality goals.

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What Do Retirement Plan Sponsors Need to Know About Sustainability?

Nonprofit institutions offer limited Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) investing options in their retirement plans, despite substantial evidence that these strategies reduce risk and enhance long-term investment performance. This panel helped clarify how plan sponsors and trustees can consider sustainable investing strategies.

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Pushing the Frontiers of Knowledge with Digital Twins

How new tools are being applied in new ways to revolutionize and democratize the fields of smart city planning, campus energy retrofits, construction, and climate resilience.

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The Offset Network: Carbon Offsets Done Differently Through Campus Driven Projects

Learn about the Offset Network-- a collaboration of higher education institutions to catalyze and support unique offset projects that provide educational and research opportunities for students, faculty, and staff. The mission of the network is to reduce barriers to entry for higher education institutions to implement offset projects.

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Strategies to Reduce Commuter Emissions

Signatories of the Climate Leadership Commitments have been required to track and draw down their commuting emissions but it continues to be a challenging output to track accurately and even more difficult to reduce. Despite these challenges, campuses continue to explore ways to track these emissions and offer access to alternative transportation options.

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End-of-Day Reflection (Thursday, February 25, 2021)

Open space for recapping the day’s sessions, reflecting, and planning for the work ahead.

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Maximizing Impact of Renewable Energy and Carbon Offsets

Learn about the best practices and latest trends for carbon reduction tactics, focusing on renewable energy, carbon offsets, and biomethane. While many campuses are procuring renewable energy and/or carbon offsets, many do not know the details of how to ensure they are high-quality and having maximum impact.

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What’s in My Retirement Plan?

Nonprofit institutions offer limited Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) investing options in their retirement plans, despite substantial evidence that these strategies reduce risk and enhance long-term investment performance. For those organizations that have added those funds, they have also recognized that it helps to attract and retain top employees.

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What is a Net Zero or Net Positive Portfolio? Q&A with the Net Zero Asset Owners Alliance

Hear about what making a net zero commitment entails, the importance and impact of doing so, and what the challenges and emerging tools and solutions are.

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Endowment Managment 101

Get a quick introduction to endowment management - who is making decisions about how the endowment is invested, what factors they’re considering, and why it’s relevant to social equity and climate justice.

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What is Shareholder Engagement?

What role do shareholders have in shaping the behavior of the companies they own? Whether you're an individual with mutual funds or an endowment with billions invested, you have power as a shareholder to ensure sustainable business practices.

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Solutions Center and Accelerating Climate Action Planning

A review some of the many solutions that are being applied on campuses to reduce climate impacts, and an introduction to the Solutions Center; a tool that was created to better inform senior campus decision makers.

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The Path to Carbon Neutrality: Thoughts and Reflections from North American Research Universities

Hear from research universities about their journeys of approaches and experiences that can help other institutions in their own race to address the climate crisis.

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Keynote Conversation: NAACP & Climate Justice

Climate change has a disproportionate impact on communities of color and low income communities in the United States and around the world. The NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Program supports community leadership in addressing this human and civil rights issue. Learn about this work, and about ways the higher education community can enhance its climate justice leadership in terms of campus culture, community engagement, education, and endowment investing.

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Community Resilience Building on Your Campus: A Workshop with The Nature Conservancy and Second Nature

Learn about the overall objectives, process, and outcomes of the Community Resilience Building process along with specific examples from campuses in hopes of creating greater awareness and opportunity of an important and growing need amongst academic institutions across the United States and beyond.

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How Students Can Impact Corporate Behavior Through Engagement

Hear from students, faculty, and industry professionals as they discuss how, through working with their institution's endowment, utilizing student-managed investment funds, and participating in extracurricular activities, they are impacting corporate behavior through shareholder engagement.

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Active Ownership in the Endowment: Warren Wilson College

Active ownership is an effective tool in the long term value creation of the companies colleges own. Hear from the investment Committee Chair at Warren Wilson College, a recent alum of the school, and the people in the active shareowner community who supported them as they co-filed resolutions at BlackRock, Alphabet and Amazon and voted proxies to support their institutional mission.

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GRITS and SIMAP - Updates and New Functionality

Learn about the GRITS Goals and the Sustainability Indicator Management and Analysis Platform (SIMAP) new suite of features and updates, and how these tools can help your climate action planning.

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Net Zero Endowments: Making the Commitment

Hear from leading asset owners on how their institution made the decision to commit to net zero, what challenges they face, and next steps in the process of measuring, setting targets, and reporting on progress.

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Pursuing Climate Justice Through Climate Action: Perspectives across North American Universities

An opportunity for board members, executives, faculty, staff and students to learn how climate justice is being incorporated into teaching, research and strategic planning at three North American universities.

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Avoiding Greenwashing: Identifying True Integration in Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) Investing

Hear from managers who will provide concrete examples of the way ESG is integrated into their investment decisions.

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Social Media Bootcamp

Learn about the impact of social media in forwarding your institution’s mission and goals, and learn concrete strategies for how to identify your target community and how to reach them.

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Racial Equity Investing - Creating Your Own Best Practices

Hear from an asset allocator, investment consultant, and asset manager who have made considerable strides in racial equity investing, spanning from enhancing diversity within their own institutions, investing with diverse founders, allocating to funds or businesses that focus on improving socio-economic outcomes for people of color, or engaging with companies on issues that relate to diversity, equity, and inclusion.

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Racial Equity Investing 101: No Justice, No Peace Without Prison Free Portfolios

Hear directly from a lawyer and activist formerly with the Mecklenburg County Public Defenders' office, with first-hand experience inside the penal system due to the protests last summer, and learn how to begin taking action from pioneers in racial equity and prison free investing.

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Community Investing through CDFIs

A panel of experts who answered questions like: What is community investing and what is the role of CDFIs? Why may institutional investors like university endowments explore community investing? How may investment managers consider CDFIs in an Investment Policy Statement?

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End-of-Milestone Reflection & Next Steps

Open space for recapping the milestone, reflecting, and planning for the work ahead.

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