The Chewonki Foundation announced that it has formally adopted a set of carbon emissions reduction goals as set forth by the organization's staff and students.

On Wednesday, February 13, Chewonki staff presented a set of goals before the organization's 27-member board of trustees that included a goal to reduce Chewonki's carbon emissions 10 percent from baseline 2005-2006 levels by 2010; 20 percent by 2015; and 80 percent by 2050. The board unanimously adopted the new measures.

"Chewonki's campus already provides an excellent example how long-term thinking and investments in insulation, water conservation and alternative lighting and heating methods can pay off over the long-term," said Chewonki Board President Joshua Marvil. "The latest move by our board provides an important public statement that our organization will continue to do its best to preserve our planet's fragile resources and to model sustainable behavior."

The effort to adopt formal standards has been the focused effort of Chewonki's Sustainability Coordinator Peter Arnold and Maine Coast Semester Head of School Willard Morgan. The project was propelled last May when a group of students of Maine Coast Semester presented the findings of the organization's first-ever carbon emission inventory to Chewonki's staff and board and made a recommendation to further reduce its emissions.

"Sustainability is not a new concept around Chewonki," said Chewonki President Don Hudson, who added that the organization has been putting its conservation philosophy into action since the 1970s. "What thrilled me about the carbon inventory report was learning that Chewonki emits the equivalent carbon of approximately 17 U.S. households. This is an amazingly low rate, given that we serve nearly 40,000 students each year."

The recent vote by Chewonki's board is a formal and public statement of the organizations' continued commitment to carbon emission reductions in the face of imminent climate change. The targets also provide a tool to guide the organization's decision-making as it pertains to operations.

Willard Morgan concurred with Hudson and added that while we have much to be proud of at Chewonki, we must continue to set a high bar as a way to inspire families and organizations to do the same. He added that Chewonki would resist the popular path of organizations that buy offsets as a way to reduce their carbon emissions numbers.

"Instead, we are proposing real on-the-ground reductions, which force us to scrutinize our behavior and to make hard decisions about our operations," he said. Buying carbon offsets can lead to a green-wash effect, said Morgan. For this same reason, Chewonki will not claim a goal of carbon neutrality, but instead will pursue a schedule of ambitious carbon emission reductions.

In 2001, Chewonki was a voluntary signatory of the Governor's Carbon Challenge, a voluntary carbon emission reduction agreement with Maine's Department of Environmental Protection. This non-binding agreement challenged Chewonki to achieve four ambitious goals: conduct an inventory of our direct and indirect carbon sources; establish a baseline for carbon emissions; achieve a 10 percent carbon reduction by 2010; and report each January on our prior year's carbon emissions.

The board's vote to formally adopt these aggressive emissions standards is another step on a long path to influencing people's perceptions about their impact on the earth's limited resources, said Hudson. "Some may think we are hopelessly optimistic about the planet's chances for success, especially in the face of monumental global environmental problems," he said. "We don't believe our optimism is unfounded, however. We believe that good work starts close to home and that help from friends and colleagues nearly always produces synergistic results—greater than the sum of our individual parts."