Chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little said Friday she would not sign a comprehensive sustainability action plan proposed by the student body president and vice president.

The action plan, called the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment (ACUPCC), was a central component of KUnited’s sustainability platform. It calls for the heads of universities and colleges to commit themselves to a list of wide-ranging sustainability goals.

Gray-Little said the University would be unable to meet all of the commitment’s benchmarks within their respective time frames. She said she didn’t want to sign an agreement the University couldn’t fully commit to.

The ACUPCC requires signatories to develop a comprehensive plan aimed at reaching climate neutrality — a net-zero carboon footprint — as quickly as possible. It calls for the development of an institutional action plan for becoming climate neutral within two years of signing.

So far 674 universities and colleges have signed onto the ACUPCC, including three smaller colleges in Kansas: Johnson County Community College, Labette Community College and Southwestern College.

Despite the apparent defeat, Student Body President Michael Wade Smith said he supported the chancellor’s decision. He had initially encouraged the chancellor to sign the plan as a means to gain broader administrative support for sustainability efforts on campus.

“This was one way to get the administrative buy-in,” Smith said. “What she has done, though, is said, ‘We can’t realistically commit to this, but I buy in.’”

What the chancellor has bought into is the University’s own campus sustainability plan that University officials, students and environmental consultants will begin work on this month.

Though it wasn’t their initial plan, Smith and Vice President Megan Ritter said they remained confident in the chancellor’s commitment to sustainability.

“In effect we’re still fulfilling what we had hoped for,” Ritter said. “She’s definitely committed to what we wanted, which was helping move KU forward towards a more sustainable campus.”

The University’s plan would likely draw from some of the ACUPCC guidelines, said Jeff Severin, director of the Center for Sustainability. He said it should include steps to integrate sustainability and climate change education into the curriculum. The University has already established a greenhouse gas inventory. The ACUPCC lists both.

Severin said it was important to incorporate sustainability goals into a timeline that fit the structure of the University’s plan. In doing so, the University would be better suited to reach those goals. He said many universities and colleges that had signed on to the ACUPCC had a difficult time fulfilling their initial objectives.

“Since we’re already working towards these steps, I feel like it’s a good idea to take our own approach,” Severin said. “I have no doubts that we can meet a lot of the requirements of the actual commitment.”

The chancellor did not specify whether she would reconsider signing the ACUPCC at a later date.

— Edited by Clark Goble