After growing up in a small, progressive town, I don’t think I truly understood the global climate crisis until I was released, aka went to college, from what felt like my bubble. I was shocked, and unpleasantly surprised, about how common daily practices for me, such as recycling, using reusable water bottles or shopping local, […]

The NextGen Committee of the Ray C. Anderson Foundation has awarded a $90,000 grant to Second Nature to provide the tools necessary to allow universities to collaborate and pool their financial investments, to increase the number of large-scale renewable energy projects in the national grid, and to achieve climate neutrality on more U.S. campuses.

Join this webinar for an introduction to purchasing carbon offsets through the voluntary carbon market. The webinar will cover how schools can use verified carbon offsets to meet emissions reduction targets under the Climate Leadership Commitments, and the basics of how the voluntary carbon market works. Presenters will also provide guidance for buying offsets, considerations […]

Electricity customers in 17 states are able to choose who they buy their electricity supply from. This “retail choice” has become important as campuses look to fulfill their sustainability goals through clean energy supply. Whereas buying off-site renewable energy from your incumbent utility would require the development of a Green Tariff in a vertically-integrated market, […]

A statistics-driven look into why project location impacts the ability to hedge against rising electricity costs. This technical brief explores the impact of a renewable project’s location relative to the location of a campus’s load in hedging against rising electricity costs.

In late September, 400 energy buyers, service providers, developers, financiers, NGOs, and utilities convened to identify opportunities to accelerate procurement of renewable energy at the Renewable Energy Buyer’s Alliance (REBA) Conference. At this 4th annual event, energy buyers were asking questions that many of you may be facing on campus today, including how to get to […]

Hastily constructed buildings. We’ve all been in them. Built quickly during eras of historical growth, no one could ever get a handle on their clunky radiators or leaky windows. And now, 50 years later, we’re saying, “Why didn’t they think about how this was going to work down the road?” This webinar is designed for […]

Second Nature partnered with the Rocky Mountain Institute to provide signatories of the Presidents’ Climate Leadership Commitments with complimentary access to the Business Renewables Center (BRC) in order to streamline and facilitate renewable energy procurement. By becoming members in the BRC, signatories will greatly benefit from existing technical resources and can explore additional solutions with […]

By Nathaniel Graf, Climate Action Senior Fellow, Swarthmore College ([email protected]) & Brett Pasinella, Senior Manager of Innovative Services, Second Nature Sustainability and climate action planning is a long-term project that spans many 5-year budget cycles, more than one master planning cycle, or many other common planning mechanisms used by colleges and universities. Many signatories of […]

Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) are a big portion of campus energy budgets and carbon emissions. But the combination of aging equipment and ever-tightening budgets means campus facilities departments have to do more with less, resulting in inefficiencies that can get worse over time. Automated closed-loop control of campus HVAC systems can help cut energy costs, reduce […]

Your school can take advantage of carbon markets to generate revenue as you work to reduce your carbon footprint. This webinar will help you understand the steps involved in developing a carbon-credit-funding opportunity through the Voluntary Carbon Market; including the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) protocols for the third-party validation and verification. You will learn about […]

The case study series “Solar University Network: Innovation in Solar Energy Finance & Development” highlights higher education investment in solar energy projects. The purpose of these case studies is to showcase working financial models for universities and other higher education institutions to invest in solar energy on campus. In this case study, we look at […]