Progress Continues on Lehigh Sustainability Strategic Plan 2030

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Lehigh University has taken numerous steps to integrate sustainability into its academic and operational processes over the years. Despite the current remote learning and working environment, the Office of Sustainability and the Lehigh Sustainability Council continue to make progress on developing Lehigh's Sustainability Strategic Plan 2030. The year-long strategic planning process kicked off in fall 2019. The 10-year plan will build on a legacy of integrating financially prudent, just, and verdant practices into our administrative, academic, and operational prcoesses. Below is an update on some of the key progress.

  • Progress Report Scorecard: Assessed the current state of sustainability at Lehigh and put together a Progress Report Scorecard. Over the last four years, we have achieved many of our Campus Sustainability Plan 2020 goals as a result of hardwork and collaboration across stems. This scorecard shows the progress for each of the goals as green (achieved), yellow (in progress), or red (not achieved) and it will serve as a baseline assessment for our next plan. There are some goals that are yellow and red that we are actively making progress on and we hope to turn many of these goals green by the end of the year. There are also some goals that are out of our control where institutional priorities have shifted.

  • Alumni Advisory Council: Established an Alumni Advisory Council for the next Sustainability Strategic Plan. This council is made up of nine esteemed alumni. You can view their bios here.

  • Campus Sustainability Strategic Planning Workshops: Hosted a two-part series of workshops open to all faculty, staff, and students on both Asa Packer Campus and Mountaintop Campus. Part one of the workshop series focused on understanding progress on Lehigh's sustainability goals and part two focused on crafting a sustainability strategy and goals. Participants learned about sustainability at Lehigh, shared current best practices, helped identify strategic priorities, and drafted new campus sustainability goals. You can watch a recording of each of the workshops here.

  • Goal Setting Meetings: Led goal setting meetings with key departments to get buy-in and establish sustainability goals for our next plan.

  • Bethlehem Community Meeting: Will be hosting a Bethlehem community meeting. Due to the COVID-19 outbreak, this meeting has been temporarily postponed. Please stay tuned for updates

In addition, the Office of Sustainability wants to continue to engage the talented Lehigh campus community. A Sustainability Strategic Plan website was launched in early spring 2020. On this site you will find information about the timeline, plan overview, engagement provess, and progress report along with the six focus areas for the plan. The Office of Sustainability encourages you to submit your feedback, comments, or questions using the submit feedback form at the bottom of the webpage. 

The Office of Sustainability will continue to develop the Sustainability Strategic Plan 2030 with the support of the Lehigh Sustainability Countil and the Alumni Advisory Council throughout the summer. The 2030 plan is scheduled to be released to campus in fall 2020.