MGI and carbon footprint

MacGreenInvest and Carbon Footprint Reduction

On Wednesday, February 26 the Office of Financial Affairs at McMaster organized a townhall meeting to outline the university’s infrastructure and investment policies and plans. Part of the meeting was taken up with the plan to reduce the university’s carbon footprint. Reducing carbon footprint is clearly an essential part of addressing the climate crisis, and McMaster should be applauded to undertaking the initiative to do this. Carbon footprint represents the consumption of energy derived from burning fossil fuels, whether this is direct consumption such as using vehicles powered by internal combustion engines, or indirect such as using electricity generated in gas-fired power plants. The reduction of carbon footprint entails two courses of action. The first is conservation—finding ways to consume less energy by making energy use more efficient and less wasteful, such as developing more energy-efficient technologies. The second course of action involves switching from carbon based to non-carbon based sources of energy. In this respect, the transformation of energy production from fossil fuels to renewables, such as solar, wind, hydro and geo-thermal, will contribute further to the reduction of McMaster’s carbon footprint.

Energy consumption and production, in other words, are inextricably linked. Without addressing energy production, reducing carbon footprint simply by consuming less and more efficiently will only remain a half measure. To reduce carbon footprint in any significant sense also means de-carbonizing energy production. This is the reasoning behind the MacGreenInvest (MGI) campaign to encourage McMaster to move its endowment fund investments out of fossil fuels (coal, oil and gas) and into renewable “green” energy sources, viz. to reduce dependence on energy sources that are the cause of the climate crisis, and to expand capacity to produce clean alternatives that help mitigate the crisis. The aim of MGI is not to posit divestment-reinvestment as an alternative to carbon footprint reduction, but to see the two courses of action as fully complementary: divestment-reinvestment is the logical way to facilitate carbon footprint reduction. Tackling the climate crisis by addressing consumption alone will remain limited in effect at the same time that continued dependence on carbon based energy only makes the crisis worse.