SU Senate’s Green Energy Resolution calling for Washington University to achieve carbon neutrality by 2035 was passed unanimously in a Senate meeting Oct. 29.

The resolution, sponsored by sophomore Senators Diva Harsoor and Philip Keisler as well as sophomore committee members Joe Billips and Bryan Peltier and junior committee member Elizabeth Phelan, also called for the University to “vigorously” invest in on-site and off-site renewable energy.

Dugan Marieb, Student Environmental Council president, and Christina Lee, executive member of Green Action, also signed the resolution.

The resolution originated as a report on green energy which was drafted over the summer. In September, Harsoor and Keisler presented the draft to Senate for feedback. During the process, they also reached out to Marieb and Lee as well as University administration for feedback.

The decision to set 2035 as a goal for neutrality was inspired by St. Louis’ pledge to become completely dependent on renewable energy by 2035 as well as other universities’ strides towards neutrality, specifically American University, which achieved carbon neutrality in 2018.

Harsoor says the University’s path to carbon neutrality would involve drastic cuts to carbon emissions, purchasing carbon offsets only to cancel out intractable sources of carbon emissions.

“It’s not only a question of our carbon neutrality goals and greenhouse gases in the planet,” Harsoor said. “It’s also a question of, Washington University claims to be a leader in public health, claims to be really good on environmental issues, but you look around and you see all these peer institutions with much, much better goals.”

Keisler said they ran into difficulty while drafting the report because of the lack of available information regarding the University’s current energy use. The resolution calls for the University to become more transparent “by equipping students and other members of the Washington University community with the information required to comment meaningfully on the University’s energy decisions.”

Keisler hopes this change will allow students to be well-informed enough to allow them to “meaningfully push” for change.

“It’s not that the University doesn’t care about lowering emissions. The question is how ambitious they’re willing to be,” Keisler said. “I think that Wash. U. has made an effort. It’s just that part of Student Union’s job is [to] try and push Wash. U. to make more of an effort.”

Divestment, an issue of constant discussion among groups such as Fossil Free WashU, was not included in the report. At the time the first draft was written, SU members were prohibited from taking stances on political issues like divestment, but on Sept. 26, SU passed a statute that would have allowed SU to take a stance on divestment. According to Harsoor, however, the report was designed to focus on operational goals and not every issue related to sustainability.

“We didn’t want it to be about every single issue. We wanted to give both issues their full due,” Harsoor said.

Harsoor also emphasized the importance of encouraging student engagement in climate-related issues.

“I’m hoping that people will see what needs to be done—that they’ll see students are really invested in it,” Harsoor said. “And with the 2020 Midwest Collegiate Climate Summit coming up, I’m also hopeful that this’ll be another arena where voices in the administration and student voices that support carbon neutrality can really be heard.”

While Assistant Vice Chancellor for Sustainability Phil Valko did not work directly on the resolution due to a mutual desire to keep the document student-driven, he spoke positively of their efforts.

“Carbon neutrality is a pretty complex thing and there’s a lot of different ways to define how and when to achieve carbon neutrality,” Valko said. “I think it’s ambitious, but I also believe that the world needs to be setting ambitious goals.”

Senate now plans to present the resolution to administrators and go through it together to garner additional input.

“I don’t think this is the end step,” Keisler said. “It takes a level of student engagement in activism to keep this going…We’re going to keep pushing the administration on this, not only giving them the report but also working with the environmental groups to keep pushing on it to make sure that this campus becomes greener and more sustainable.”