Zero by 2050

Staff from the Department of Facilities; Office of Sustainability; and Environment, Health and Safety Office advanced new solar panel installations on four major campus buildings: The Stratton Student Center (W20), the Dewey Library building (E53), and two newer buildings, New Vassar (W46) and the Theater Arts building (W97).

These four new installations, in addition to existing rooftop solar installations on campus, are “just one part of our broader strategy to reduce MIT’s carbon footprint and transition to clean energy,” says Joe Higgins, vice president for campus services and stewardship.

The installations will not only meet but exceed the target set for total solar energy production on campus in the Fast Forward climate action plan that was issued in 2021. With an initial target of 500 kilowatts of installed solar capacity on campus, the new installations, along with those already in place, will bring the total output to roughly 650 kW, exceeding the goal. The solar installations are an important facet of MIT’s approach to eliminating all direct campus emissions by 2050. Full MIT News story.

Heating and cooling can be an energy challenge for campuses like MIT, where existing building management systems (BMS) can’t respond quickly to internal factors like occupancy fluctuations or external factors such as forecast weather or the carbon intensity of the grid. This results in using more energy than needed to heat and cool spaces, often to sub-optimal levels. By engaging AI, researchers have begun to establish a framework to understand and predict optimal temperature set points (the temperature at which a thermostat has been set to maintain) at the individual room level and take into consideration a host of factors, allowing the existing systems to heat and cool more efficiently, all without manual intervention. 

Early pilots of the project focused on testing thermostat set points in NW23, home to the Department of Facilities and Office of Campus Planning, but Norford quickly realized that classrooms provide many more variables to test, and the pilot was expanded to Building 66, a mixed-use building that is home to classrooms, offices, and lab spaces. “We shifted our attention to study classrooms in part because of their complexity, but also the sheer scale — there are hundreds of them on campus, so [they offer] more opportunities to gather data and determine parameters of what we are testing,” says Norford. Full MIT News story. 

With the launch of Fast Forward: MIT’s Climate Action Plan for the Decade, the Institute committed to decarbonize campus operations by 2050 — an effort that touches on every corner of MIT, from building energy use to procurement and waste. At the operational level, the plan called for establishing a set of quantitative climate impact goals in the areas of food, water, and waste to inform the campus decarbonization roadmap. After an 18-month process that engaged staff, faculty, and researchers, the goals — as well as high-level strategies to reach them — were finalized in spring 2023.

Food
2030 Goal

• Target a 25 percent overall reduction in the greenhouse gas footprint of food purchases
• Target 0.5 ounces per meal for beef across MIT residential dining menus
• Recover all edible food waste in dining hall and retail operations where feasible
• Support MIT's food service contractor Bon Appetit in reaching its established Climate Goals

Water
2030 Goal

• Achieve a 10 percent reduction in water use compared to the 2019 baseline by 2030
• Update water reduction goal to align with the new metering program and proposed campus decarbonization plans

Waste
2030 Goal

• Reduce trash by 30 percent compared to 2019 baseline trash (municipal solid waste) totals
• Improve accuracy of indicators for semi-annual tracking
• Reduce percent of food scraps in trash; reduce percent of recycling in trash in selected locations (via waste audits compared to baseline waste audits 2018)
• Reduce percent of trash and recycling comprised of single use items
• Increase percent of campus dorms and high food consumption spaces implementing MIT food scrap collection program

MIT has been working steadfast to replace its current fleet of vehicles with alternative electric vehicle (EV) models when available on the market. The Department of Facilities, which has the largest fleet on campus, has led the charge with several new light duty trucks, replacing aging internal combustion engine vehicles. Purchasing guidance has also been established to make this transition more seamless for DLCIs across the Institute who own fleets of vehicles. 

Zachary Berzolla | Graduate Student, Department of Architecture, Building Technology

Meghan Blumstein | Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Jacopo Buongiorno | TEPCO Profoessor of Nuclear Science and Engineering, Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering

Yet-Ming Chiang | Professor, Department of Materials Science and Engineering

Ippolyti Dellatolas | Graduate Student, Department of Mechanical Engineering

Priya Donti | Assistant Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Betar Gallant | Associate Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering

Joe Higgins | Vice President for Campus Services and Stewardship

David Mazumder | Graduate Student, Harvard/MIT MD-PhD Program, Health Sciences and Technology

Julie Newman | Director, Office of Sustainability; Lecturer, Department of Urban Studies and Planning (Co-Chair)

Bradley Olsen | Professor, Department of Chemical Engineering

Joe Paradiso | Professor, Program in Media Arts and Science

Christoph Reinhart | Professor, Department of Architecture (Co-chair)

Andy Sun | Associate Professor, Sloan School of Management

Jessika Trancik | Professor, Institute for Data, Systems, and Society

Siqi Zheng | Samuel Tak Lee Professor of Urban and Real Estate Sustainability, Department of Urban Studies and Planning