Strategic Plan 2017

The Strategic Plan 2017 envisioning UAA as "a university of first choice distinguished for its commitment to sustainability and environmental responsibility" and listing sustainability and stewardship as two of its core values.

Click here to download a copy of the Strategic Plan 2017

Facilities Master Plan

The draft Facilities Master Plan envisions a pedestrian, bicycle, and transit-friendly campus with fewer parking lots.  It advocates construction of taller buildings built to accommodate change and to as high a LEED standard as is economically feasible, with an emphasis on reducing impact on our natural environment.  This plan also emphasizes use of life-cycle costs in preference to initial capital costs to assess the value of systems and materials.

Click here to learn more about UAA's facilities plans

Academic Plan

Our Academic Plan requires accountability ".  .  .  for good stewardship of the resources entrusted to us, and for accountability to the public for the performance of our missions." The purpose of the plan includes " . . . to use our resources to serve society, most especially to assure a socially, environmentally, and economically sustainable future."

Click here to download a copy of UAA's Academic Plan

UAA Energy Policy

 

Click on the picture to download a copy of UAA's Energy Policy.

Our Energy Policy commits UAA to responsible energy and resource management as a part of an overall environmental strategy. This policy is helping us take steps to minimize energy use, costs, environmental impacts caused from harmful emission, and to limit the depletion of non-renewable resources. The policy states that it "is just part of a comprehensive sustainability program including new building designs and retrofits, designed to reduce UAA's carbon footprint".

 

Carbon Emissions Reduction and Monitoring Plan (CERM)

The Carbon Emissions Reduction and Monitoring Plan (CERM) is UAA's initial effort to identify actions to reduce its carbon emissions and to also serve as a major component of an integrated and comprehensive Sustainability Plan, which UAA will develop over the next two years.

A major part of sustainability is fiscal implications and ensuring actions are cost effective.  Evaluating expenditures through the sustainability lens is causing UAA and many other institutions to consider life-cycle cost effectiveness, not just purchase price.  Assessing what the full costs of an item are includes purchase price, maintenance, disposal and replacement.  Finding options, best practices and alternatives to reduce costs throughout the life-cycle holds great promise for substantial cost savings.

In conducting projects and events on sustainability over the last several years, we've also learned that technological actions need to be leveraged and complemented with awareness building and motivating the university community in order to move UAA towards sustainable practices that align with newly adopted policies and plans. (PDF)