UW-Madison aims to receive all of its electricity from renewable energy sources by 2030 and have net-zero emissions by 2048 — the university's 200th anniversary — as part of a new sustainability plan to combat climate change.

While sustainability initiatives at UW-Madison are not new, the latest push is the first that pulls in all aspects of campus. 

Getting UW-Madison's 2030 goal will take serious assistance from its energy partners, largely from in Madison Gas and Electric, as space on the 900-acre campus is limited for generating the amount of renewable energy the university needs. UW-Madison also will need to develop more solar on campus as it constructs new buildings.

The net-zero emissions goal, which includes UW-Madison's electricity use and all of its energy needs from its heating and cooling plants, will be a larger lift, and therefore needs more time to come to fruition, said Missy Nergard, sustainability director for Facilities Planning and Management.

"The next shift is going to be to something that's less carbon intensive. We're looking at electrification and different fuel sources, and solar and battery storage and micro grids," Nergard said. And there's actually a study out right now ... looking at what are the different pathways that the institution can take to decarbonize by 2048."

UW-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin announced the new sustainability initiative during her second-annual speech to the UW Board of Regents on Thursday, saying the university "owes it to the people of the state" to be responsible stewards of the environment.

"This initiative builds on UW–Madison’s great Wisconsin Idea, our tradition of innovation for the public good,” Mnookin said. “It prioritizes issues that affect the people and communities of our state ... these goals set us on our way while building on the great strides we’ve taken in recent years."

In addition to reducing UW-Madison's carbon footprint, the initiative also looks to establish a "hub" by this spring where staff can get assistance with facilitating large-scale sustainability research and connecting with others on campus interested in cross-campus collaborations.

The initiative also seeks to make UW-Madison a "zero waste" campus through improving material management systems by 2040; increasing capacity in sustainability-related degree programs to meet student demand; and improving the campus' environmental responsibility rating from silver to gold.

The new Computer, Data and Information Sciences under construction will feature solar panels, rainwater collection and a "green roof," where vegetation planted on the roof will reduce the building's urban heat island effect by removing heat from the air and reducing the temperature of the roof by anywhere from 30-40 degrees. Out at UW-Madison's Kegonsa Research Campus northwest of Stoughton, a solar farm partnership with Alliant Energy could generate enough energy to power 450 homes, for which UW-Madison will get renewable energy credits.

UW-Madison will be playing catch-up to some of its fellow Universities of Wisconsin schools, though. UW-Stevens Point, known for its environmental science program, was the first UW system university to source all of its energy needs from renewable sources, nearly a decade ago, through purchasing energy derived from renewable sources and reducing its energy consumption.

Good stewards

The plan comes at a time as climate change is starting to show tangible, and often detrimental, impacts on the state's people, economy and crops.

December 2023 was the warmest in Wisconsin and many other Midwest and Great Plains states since record-keeping began in the 1880s, a report from UW-Madison state climatologist Steve Vavrus said. The average temperature was 10.9 degrees higher than the average in the last 30 years.

Developing a campus-wide sustainability plan was a priority for Mnookin when she joined UW-Madison in 2022, Nergard said. But it isn't like the university hasn't made progress prior, she said.

UW-Madison has made strides toward its sustainability goals in recent years, as its heating plant switched away from burning coal to natural gas, as well as other biomasses, in 2012. It also purchases about 5% of its electricity from a 20-megawatt, MGE-run solar farm in Fitchburg. The hope is to purchase additional solar power from future MGE solar farm projects, Nergard said.

In 2006, Facilities Planning and Management launched its "We Conserve" program, where in four years, UW-Madison reduced its energy usage by 25% by upgrading heating and cooling systems in buildings that are major energy users. 

"Our faculty would say the time was 50 years ago, when we started Earth Day," she said. "It hasn't been just that we are doing it now, we've been doing stuff all along. I think (Mnookin's) vision, and sharing that vision so everyone understands and is part of the solution, has been probably the biggest change."