As one of the most prestigious universities in the world, Harvard University is always drawing the attention of the whole world. It is one of the universities that have carried out the most extensive scale of sustainability development. In 2004, Harvard University applied a series of sustainability principles to define the mission of a university, that is, to make for a healthier and more elastic future. These principles have provided a broad vision to guide University operations and planning, to be more specific, to support the research and teaching at the university by means of the improvement of health, resource savings and energy efficiency in university operation. In the summer of 2008, Harvard University set a concrete emission reduction target which is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 30 percent below a 2006 baseline by 2016. Optimal governance structure and operation mechanism have provided systemic support for the realization of this goal. According to the sustainability impact report released by Harvard in 2013, the expected goal of greenhouse gas emission reduction would be achieved on time.

1. The Bottom-up Development for the Sustainability of University

The promotion of sustainability at Harvard University applies a bottom-up mode that also encourages the interaction between faculty/students and leaders at the university. An association involving faculty and students in different schools is the first group of people that realized the importance of promoting sustainability at Harvard University. They put their ideas into practice actively. Later their actions for sustainability gained support from the leaders of Harvard University. They were given funds and they were allowed to set up departments specifically for the promotion of sustainability at the university.

Activities to promote sustainability at Harvard, which are organized voluntarily by the students, faculty, and staff in the departments, have become more and more frequent ever since 1990. For instance, the student association for environmental education has been set up; Center for Earth and Planetary Physics has released the Harvard Environmental Report; the Harvard canteens have started monitoring the leftovers; the recycling activities have been carried out on campus; experiments have been done to make compost from leftovers and tree branches; courses, events, and resources concerning environment and sustainability at Harvard University have been sorted out, etc. All these activities have gained more and more attention on the Harvard Campus. Until 1999, when the association involving faculty and students in different schools organized the discussions and forums on the topic of sustainability development at Harvard, the teachers and students there realized that even though there were a lot of ideas raised by the association, without specialists working specifically to promote it, many ideas could only remain ideas and they could not be turned into practice.

In late 1999, Leith Sharp introduced her experience of promoting sustainability at UNSW to this association and afterwards she was hired by Harvard University. From March, 2000 to June, 2001, Harvard University has made and carried out a strategic plan to develop a green campus. In this period, the association entitled “Harvard Green Campus Imitative (HGCI)” was established. At the end of 2001, a five-year funding program in which $15,000 was given for the sustainability plans annually and $3,000,000,000 was used for related loans was approved of, which further advanced the development of green campus at Harvard.

Having got sufficient funding, Leith Sharp, the director of HGCI, started making great efforts to provide green campus programs and services to the schools and departments at Harvard. The responsibility of the director is to promote the development of sustainability programs, including calculating project investments, defining and clarifying the sustainability program, and training and managing the staff for the general program, but not to manage the concrete sub-programs, the operation of which is carried out by other staff. The mission of HGCI is to make Harvard become a living laboratory and learning organization in pursuit of campus sustainability and to make sure that every school and department at Harvard would adopt the sustainability principles. To be more specific, the functions performed by HGCI are to select tools, guiding principles, technologies and the places for the exchange of products and designs, to build a base for special research and innovation on campus, to provide the cost-benefit financial incentives, to provide training and expert consultancy, to assist meeting organization and making report requirements, and to provide effective methods to promote people’s participation in sustainability development, etc.

The staff in HGCI are categorized as staff in University Operations Services. During the period when HGCI was still an association, not all the schools and departments had participated in the sustainability practices, but in this period before HGCI was upgraded into Office of Sustainability, energy savings achieved from its operation has already excessively surpassed its operation costs.

In the summer of 2008, Harvard University set a concrete goal for emission reduction. To fulfill this goal, an office should be established to coordinate every school and every department at Harvard to make joint efforts. In the fall of 2008, HGCI was turned officially into Office of Sustainability (OFS). This is a total upgrade of sustainability practices in Harvard. OFS provides holistic campus-wide services to help Harvard accomplish its goal of sustainability development. OFS reports regularly to the deputy chancellor Forst. Led by Heather Henriksen, OFS continues to diversify the mission of HGCI, that is, with the aim of assisting Harvard with its emission reduction plan, OFS provides a vision of greenhouse gas emission reduction and supervise the process of accomplishing it.

2. Governance Structure for the Sustainability Plan at Harvard University

The goal of sustainability development at Harvard University is very clear, that is, to translate academics and research into practices to deal with the challenges of climate change and to reduce greenhouse gas emission 30 percent below a 2006 baseline. The realization of this goal requires the campus-wide cooperation among faculty, students in all schools and staff in every department, and OFS’s job is to manage and guide the implementation of sustainability plan at Harvard, to build partnerships with different teams, to share the best practices, to advocate new policies and practices, and to make creative solutions that can be used not only on the Harvard campus but also beyond the Harvard campus.

The realization of these goals requires a high level of cooperation among the diverse schools and departments scattered in the community at Harvard. Since the establishment of OFS in 2008, the collaborative policy mechanism, administrative leadership and organizational management framework for sustainability development at Harvard become much clearer, which helps better attract the students, faculty and staff in different schools and departments and authorize them to participate in the sustainability practices. The governance structure of sustainability development at Harvard University not only helps boost the improvement and adjustment of the sustainability policies, but also enables all the stakeholders to actively participate in the planning and implementation of policies and to voice their opinions concerning the policies.

Sustainability development is a dynamic objective. In order to adapt to the change at the university, it will be upgraded rapidly and extensively. Therefore, the key issue is to organize the changing challenges. A university should improve its creativity and the speed of this creativity improvement should be in accordance with the ideal speed of sustainability development. OFS at Harvard University is one of such on-campus organizations that can provide these kinds of services. The governance structure with its center on OFS has boosted the innovation and sustainability at Harvard University. OFS is the center of governance structure. It helps gather and coordinate every committee at Harvard and other teams that represent every stakeholder at the university. These teams arrange meetings regularly, draw on ideas about strategies and objectives extensively, and in this way boost the sustainable improvement in the long run.

The stakeholders in the governance structure of sustainability practices at Harvard University mainly include: (1) Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction Executive Committee; (2) Sustainability and Energy Management Committee, which is comprised of leaders in charge of equipment and energy on campus and representatives from departments such as HR, Finance, IT, and Information, etc.; (3) The Council of Student Sustainability Leaders; (4) Network of Green Team Leaders.

Besides the internal governance mechanism, Harvard University also maintains its partnership with the government, higher education, NGOs, and other private departments to enlarge the influence of its sustainability plan. Here are some of the institutions that maintain partnerships with Harvard University: The Boston Green Ribbon Commission (GRC), Cambridge Community Compact for a Sustainable Future, EcoAmerica MomentUS Initiative, International Sustainable Campus Network, Sustainability Working Group, Council of Ivy Presidents, and Northeast Campus Sustainability Consortium.

3. The Project-Driven Operation Mechanism of Sustainability Development at Harvard University

OFS has reduced the negative impact of Harvard University on the environment and its operation costs through the way of promoting programs such as green labs, green living, green offices, green revolving fund, green teams, and student grants in the following areas: academics and research, Harvard solution to climate change on a community scale, community engagement, energy, gas emission, food, green buildings, health and wellness, IT, operation and maintenance, transportation, wastes, and water saving, etc.

3.1 The Core of This Project-Driven Operation Mechanism: Harvard Green Revolving Fund

Harvard Green Revolving Fund (GRF) is a $12 million revolving loan fund that provides capital for high-performance campus design, operations, maintenance, and occupant behavior projects to reduce Harvard’s environmental impact. It is managed by Harvard Green Campus Initiative and a cross-department advisory committee.

The GRF was founded in 2006. Harvard Green Campus Loan Fun (GCLF), which was founded in 2001, is regarded as its predecessor. Since its inception, the GRF has supported nearly 200 projects that have yielded over $4 million in energy savings annually, with an average payback period of 5-10 years or even less, and the rates of return of these projects all exceed 20%.

The GRF is a commercialized operational mechanism for the campus-wide sustainability participation and learning. There are two key elements in its operational mechanism. The first element is the giving and repaying of the interest-free environmental loan fund. This is a revolving loan fund, ranging from $300 to $500. Any member at the university, whose reduction project is approved of, can get a loan with a payback period of less than 5 years. During the pilot period from 1993 to 1998, this mechanism was believed to be very successful. In the pilot period, about $2.4 million has been invested in 32 projects for environmental protection through this interest-free and revolving loan mechanism. The average return on investment is as high as 34%, and the annual savings amount to $880,000. Besides, the environmental benefits, including 8.8 million tons of CO2 emission reduction annually, are also very prominent. The success of this step is closely connected with the use of green construction standards, energy modeling tools, and Life Cycle Costing Calculator. The second important element is the mechanism established by OFS to involve every school at Harvard in the activities and practices such as exchange of strategic information, education, training, etc., in the implementation of research, auditing, experiments, evaluation and development of the environmental information system on an extensive scale, and in the strategic planning of project promotion and fund raising. Up till now this management mechanism has become a great success.

The GRF provides capital for projects that can reduce the costs in the areas such as operation and maintenance in construction projects, transportation, purchasing, as well as design and renovation of buildings. These projects funded by the GRF have gained the support of every school at Harvard. Occupants in the community have actively participated in these projects and OFS has provided its support by sharing its specialists and information. One part of the cost savings achieved by project-related reductions will be used to repay the fund, one part of it will be included in the budget of the school, and the rest will be given back to OFS for the development and promotion of faculty’s innovation ability and creativity.

3.2 The Support for the Successful Operation of Programs: Extensive and Convenient Participation

Besides Green Revolving Fund, there are still many other programs promoted at Harvard University for sustainability development, and programs that encourage and support the participation of different stakeholders are also included in them, such as Green Labs, Green Living, Green Offices, Green Teams and Student Grants.

The Green Labs Program works with researchers, staff, faculty, and building managers to implement sustainable practices. Labs account for nearly 50% of energy use at Harvard but take up only 23% of the space. Because of the resource intensity of lab science and the unique conditions in each individual lab, sustainability is approached at the lab-specific level in addition to a building-wide perspective. The Green Labs Program encourages users to manage the freezers in the labs and to shut the windows and doors on time. It also encourages safe reuse of equipment and materials that are no longer needed and is responsible for certification of green labs on campus.

Green Living programs at Harvard educate students and residents living on campus on sustainable practices and behaviors. There are four major programs: Undergraduate Resource Efficiency Program, Harvard Law School Green Living Program, Harvard Business School Student Sustainability Associates, and Harvard University Housing Sustainable Community Program. The first three programs are the peer education programs. These programs are used as platforms and on them various means are used to educate students participating in these projects on issues such as energy and water conservation, food waste reduction, and other waste reduction. The last program is to change residents’ lifestyle through education and training.

The Green Office Program is a 4-scale-based DIY and self-managed program designed for staff who try to pioneer the work of greening the workplace. Once an office finishes the registration and application procedures and reaches the standards of being a green office, it will receive a Green Office certificate and decal stating the level of achievement. The Green Office action has directly reduced the resource, energy and water waste. Up to September, 2014, 175 offices at Harvard have been listed as Green Offices (with four leaf levels), with 2800 staff engaged.

Green Teams are comprised of individuals dedicated to creating a more sustainable Harvard. These green teams belong to different schools or related departments and they are carrying out various sustainability activities in their own field. These green teams that occur at the School level and in some cases at a department level are led by specific administrators. All these administrators of green teams in different schools and departments make up a network of green team leaders, sharing with each other the best experiences for practice and working together to learn more professional knowledge for sustainability development and to improve the techniques to lead the green teams.

The Student Sustainability Grant Program was founded in 2010 to support students who dedicated themselves to reducing greenhouse gas emission on campus and promoting on-campus sustainability. Students with innovative projects concerning the on-campus emission reduction, sustainability development and a healthier campus culture can apply for the grants. After passing the evaluation carried out by the evaluation committee comprised of faculty, students and staff in the departments, applicants can get funding ranging from $500 to $5,000.

In order to promote these green programs, Harvard University has designed and provided over 260 courses related to the issues of energy, sustainability or environment. On its website, OFS has posted the knowledge of sustainability in the related areas, listed clearly the instruction and links for the participation in each program, and also provided its Facebook and LinkedIn information for future information sharing.

Note: The author (PhD) is a lecturer in the School of Economics and Management at Tongji University and a scholar of the Think Tank of Sustainable Development and New-Style Urbanization at Tongji University. This article first appeared in IDM Research.