Warren Wilson College President Sandy Pfeiffer has signed a letter of intent for the American College & University Presidents Climate Commitment, an initiative modeled after the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement.

The climate commitment is an effort to make campuses more sustainable and to help address global warming. Presidents and chancellors make institutional pledges to reduce and eventually neutralize greenhouse gas emissions on their campuses. Pfeiffer also has become a Founding Member of the Leadership Circle, which helps promote the commitment and recruit new signatories.

"Warren Wilson College has been a national leader for some time in sustainable facilities and practices," Pfeiffer said, "and we're glad to be among the schools committing to signing this vitally important agreement."

Signers of the commitment agree to take several steps in pursuit of climate neutrality, obligating their schools to work toward having little or no effect on the Earth's climate. Participating institutions are required to make an action plan, emissions inventory and progress reports available to the public through the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education.

Warren Wilson's Pfeiffer and James Moeser, chancellor of UNC-Chapel Hill, were the first signatories from the state of North Carolina. The climate initiative sought the commitment of at least 200 presidents and chancellors by June 2007, when a national summit of the group was held in Washington, D.C. More than 1,000 such commitments are sought by December 2009.

You can read a recent article in the Asheville Citizen-Times here on Pfeiffer's leadership on the climate commitment.