The Associated Students of Oregon State University, OSU Sustainability Office and the OSU Foundation have launched the university’s first fundraising effort focused on reducing university carbon emissions. Addressing climate change means setting ambitious carbon emissions reduction goals – and doing everything we can to meet them! So, for the first time ever, we are partnering with the OSU Foundation to raise money from donors to fund projects that reduce carbon from campus activities.
Because we have never done this before, we are unsure of the donor appetite to support an initiative like this. So we are starting with a modest project. The Foundation has set up this page for a small project in Kelley Engineering Center, which would save around 2,000 lbs of carbon emissions annually. The project repairs a solar hot water system on the roof of Kelley that has been consistently problematic and, in recent years, not functioning at all. The project will replace the collector assembly with more standard technology that allows lower maintenance and more continued operations. The project also provides student engagement and research opportunities. This helps reach our objective of using the campus as a living lab, and providing real world, applied learning for our students!
This project has only a $7,500 fundraising target, but what makes this so big is that this is the Foundation’s test for donor appetite. If we meet this goal and things go well, the Foundation will invest their resources in fundraising for larger, more impactful projects and use their networks to garner larger contributions.
Even if you can only give $10 or $15, please contribute. This project is as much about demonstrating the number of donors willing to contribute as it is about dollar amount. Please use this link to donate, share it with everyone you know, and together we will start OSU’s major carbon reduction fundraising campaign off on the right foot!
CATEGORIES: Campus Sustainability Climate Action Plan Energy
6 thoughts on “Join our first fundraising initiative focused on carbon emissions!”
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I’m glad to see some movement with the kelly roof. I feel I have to remind everyone that Horticulture has been trying to be a part of a green-roof on Kelly for the past ten years.
I had industry support and even President Ray inquiring about the potential, but still could not gain traction.
If you would like me to contact the potential players or have a presentation made by Columbia Green Technologies, whose CEO is an Alumna and eager to help. Please let me know.
I applaud this tentative, almost symbolic move, but it pains me greatly that I cannot contribute to the OSU Foundation until it divests from fossil fuel companies, as requested by the OSU Faculty Senate some years ago.
Sorry – Associated Students and Sustainability students, but the OSU Foundation is misleading you.
Folks from the larger community (and some on campus) have for years been trying to get the OSU FOUNDATION to take their invested money OUT of fossil fuels…the very thing that is destroying your future. They refuse to divest. So ask them why they are willing to risk your whole future by keeping their money invested in fossil fuels, but then pretend they are dong something big with this very small project. A citizen from the community who cares.
If only for the sake of efficiency, it is a good idea for OSU to repair the solar water heater. It’s hard to take your greenwashing seriously, however, when you refuse to divest from fossil fuels.
I’d like to know whether the Foundation (or the other organizations) support companies, or get funding from them, that emit carbon and thus contributes to the problem. It doesn’t do OSU or students or anyone any good to support this project, while these organizations are part of the very problem targeted.
I won’t donate anything through the OSU Foundation while the Foundation is still invested in fossil fuels.