PSCI Spring 2019 Semesterly Report
PSCI had an extremely busy 2019 Spring semester. We are very excited for everything our teams have accomplished and are even more excited for what’s to come! Check out all our accomplishments in our report below.
Princeton Student Climate Initiative
Spring 2019 Report
Accomplishments Overview
This semester, PSCI supported five principal project teams: New Jersey Climate Policy (renamed New Jersey Student Climate Activists), Climate Incubator, Research, Carbon Neutral Campus, and Climate Action Plan Emission Reduction Strategies. In response to organizational concerns and to facilitate PSCI’s gradual expansion, we adopted a decentralized structure to ensure increased autonomy and flexibility for project teams. The PSCI Leadership Board’s organization consisted of six officer positions (President, Vice-President, Treasurer, Publicity Chair, Graphic Design Chair, Webmaster) and the five project leads. Overlap between project leads and officers resulted in a Leadership Board size of 10.
We reached numerous milestones this semester. The Princeton domain name was secured for PSCI’s official website. A PSCI tablecloth and team regalia were purchased for the first time to facilitate publicity. PSCI organized for three outside professionals to give talks to the campus community on Veganism, IKIGAI and Sustainable Development Goals, and the PJM Regional Transmission Organization, which were well received. Three PSCI officers also gave talks on climate change and on their project team activities. An entry describing PSCI was written for the upcoming Climate Encyclopedia Project. Two PSCI officers were elected to the University Council.
Each project team achieved or surpassed its objectives. The New Jersey Climate Student Activists (NJSCA) Team reached 60 active members, expanded its network of legislators, environmental leaders, and business executives, and presented its carbon pricing policy proposal at the World Bank’s 1st International Conference on Carbon Pricing in New Delhi. The Climate Incubator Team nurtured two environmental startups, Terrabite and MTL Solutions, the latter of which participated in a campus summer accelerator program. The Research Team completed over 45 research topics to support the activities of NJSCA and the Climate Incubator Team, and reached over 20 members. The Carbon Neutral Campus Team sponsored an Undergraduate Student Government referendum, which called on Princeton to accelerate its decarbonization efforts; the referendum passed overwhelmingly, with 95% of student votes cast in favor. The Climate Action Plan Emissions Reductions Strategies (CAPERS) team completed essential research for the municipality of Princeton’s Climate Action Plan, with contributions from 14 undergraduates, graduate students, and community members. Team members presented at more than ten community events for the Plan, which was approved by the town Council in July 2019.
New Jersey Student Climate Advocates (NJSCA)
The New Jersey Student Climate Advocates (NJSCA) launched in 2017 as the NJ Climate Policy team and is now in its third year. The current group name, NJSCA, is the result of a name change agreed to in spring 2019 to establish NJSCA’s independence from PSCI as a student organization within Princeton University. To recap on prior accomplishments, in 2017, NJSCA began drafting a white paper titled “A Proposal for a Carbon Cashback Policy in New Jersey” to detail the implementation, impacts, and political feasibility of a revenue-positive carbon fee and dividend policy in New Jersey. NJSCA also initiated a partnership with Assemblyman Andrew Zwicker (D-16th district) and in 2018 completed a first draft of the white paper and began drafting a policy outline. In September 2018, NJSCA organized the New Jersey Climate Policy Stakeholder Forum, which convened over 100 stakeholders representing businesses, labor, environmental organizations, and state government at Princeton University to discuss climate policy in six core areas: transportation, buildings, solid waste, emissions, economic transition, and resiliency.
In spring 2019, NJSCA initiated a coalition-building process to build support with key business, labor, local government, environmental, and conservative stakeholders, hosting biweekly stakeholder meetings beginning in March. Additionally, we submitted a policy outline to the Office of Legislative Services (OLS) through Asm. Zwicker and received a policy outline in June. With the current policy outline, we are making partnership asks to the stakeholders we have connected with.
NJSCA created several new subteams this semester: the data science team uses household expenditure data, gas tax data, and other datasets to address various policy-related questions such as the impact of the carbon fee on households in each income quintile, the feasibility of a progressive rebate, pollution in environmental justice communities and a number of other topics; the community action team, which is planning an energy efficiency awareness campaign for low-income and environmental justice communities; and a social media team, which manages NJSCA’s Instagram account and develops the organization’s digital strategy.
NJSCA adopted several administrative changes this year in order to establish itself as a group that is officially independent from (but still collaborates closely with) PSCI—the reason for these changes is that PSCI is a subsidiary of Princeton University’s Pace Center, a 501(c)(3) entity, and as a result, its primary purpose cannot be to lobby for legislation. Within Princeton University, NJSCA is officially recognized as the “Princeton Student Climate Advocates” and is under the Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Students (ODUS). Additionally, the name “New Jersey Student Climate Advocates” was chosen to avoid any potential confusion between the team and PSCI.
Climate Incubator
After building the teams for both the TerraBite and MTL Solutions environmental startups in the fall, the Climate Incubator has worked hard this spring to mainly focus on further developing their product and preparing the teams for the eLab Summer Accelerator program. The incubator’s role in this process has been very diverse, but mainly focused on either providing research (through the PSCI Research Team) and guiding the teams in the right direction with the help of the incredible expertise found at Princeton itself and the world around it. This involved connecting the teams with industry experts, potential customers and possible advisers, all geared towards slowly turning an idea into a real startup.
Because of all this hard work from the Climate Incubator, the PSCI Research Team and the teams’ motivation, both the TerraBite and MTL Solutions (which is now called Reclaim Energies) teams were admitted into the selective (30% admission rate) eLab Summer Accelerator program. In this program, the teams get the opportunity to work on their startups full-time, allowing for immense progress and developments. While TerraBite was unfortunately eventually not able to participate in the program, Reclaim Energies had a very productive summer, growing their product development and contacts. Throughout the summer, the Climate Incubator maintained contact, mainly to learn in preparation for next year. This was only the first year of the Climate Incubator and while it was a great success, there is always room for improvement and the team was very helpful in providing their feedback for next year.
The team emphasized the importance of the professionalism they were treated with to continue, and to solidify startup teams on some sort of contract basis, which the Incubator can provide more assistance on next year. Additionally, their feedback indicated that the Incubator can be very helpful in applying to grants and finding pitch competitions, which will therefore be important focus points in the coming year. The Reclaim Energies team will continue to work together with the Climate Incubator in the coming time, in two directions: the Climate Incubator will keep connecting them to experts and providing interesting opportunities, while the Reclaim Energies team will be able to provide advice and feedback for the new teams that will join the Incubator next year.
All in all, this past semester was a great success and it provides a very solid base for another, even more successful period this coming year. In this coming period, the Incubator will likely try to adopt 2-3 new projects in addition to Reclaim Energies and work in a very similar method as last year, by building a team, product and preparing for the eLab Summer Accelerator.
Research Team
The research team has been operating since PSCI’s initial phase and developed into an independent team in 2019. Its job is to investigate the most pressing issues facing the other teams, and to help them obtain and analyze the necessary information to make informed decisions. The Research Team mostly works with the Carbon Cashback policy under the New Jersey Student Climate Advocate Team, with a focus on the economics, policy, and government aspects. The research team's work is cyclical: questions are raised by stakeholders during their meetings with the NJSCA outreach team. The outreach team would then write up the research project. The research team then steps in and answer those questions, typically on a weekly basis. In the end, the research will be used for either answering the stakeholder's concerns or implementing policy amendments accordingly. The research team also supported the Climate Incubator and Carbon Neutral Campus in various projects throughout the year. During the last semester, the team finished around 30 short weekly projects for the NJSCA policy and conducted several market research for the MTL startup and a cost-benefit analysis of plastic usage on the Princeton campus for the Waste team.
Carbon Neutral Campus (CNC)
This year marked the first year of the Carbon Neutral Campus team. The group started up as a result of several freshmen expressing interest in reducing Princeton’s campus emissions, a topic which PSCI had not previously addressed. After meeting with the Princeton Office of Sustainability, the CNC team learned of Princeton’s goal to become carbon neutral by 2046 (the university’s 300th anniversary). With further research, the team developed a set of three policies for Princeton to accelerate its actions toward reaching this carbon neutrality goal: (1) begin assessing campus Scope III emissions (i.e., those indirectly related to fossil fuel combustion from areas like product procurement and transportation to/from campus), (2) set benchmark dates within the 2046 goal to reach key milestones (e.g., decarbonized building heating/cooling, electric transportation system), and (3) fully engage students in the path to carbon neutrality. The CNC team next decided to raise awareness about these three policies by sponsoring an Undergraduate Student Government referendum, a document which is voted on by all undergraduates in order to send a clear statement to Princeton’s administration. After working with USG to get the referendum on the spring 2019 ballot, the CNC team launched an aggressive get-out-the-vote campaign with the slogan, “Vote for Climate.” The referendum ended up passing overwhelmingly, with 42% of the student body voting (well above both Princeton’s average voter turnout rate and the 33% minimum turnout for referenda) and with 95% voting in favor of it. This coming year, the CNC team will focus on implementing the referendum and continuing to raise awareness among students about their carbon emissions on campus and how they can work to reduce them.
Climate Action Plan Emission Reduction Strategies (CAPERS)
Since October 2018, the CAPERS team has worked with the non-profit organization Sustainable Princeton to conduct research for the municipality of Princeton’s Climate Action Plan (CAP). When CAPERS began, the CAP had been in development for several months, with many committees of local subject-matter experts spearheaded by Sustainable Princeton. However, the committees still needed a research team to quantify whether the considered actions could meet the plan’s goals for reducing the town’s carbon footprint. Several students from PSCI initiated that team, which grew to include University graduate students as well as diverse community members, ranging from high school students to retired professors. The team found that the municipality can achieve its goal to reduce emissions 80% by 2050 (from 2010 levels) if ambitious, multi-scale policies are implemented. Key factors include New Jersey’s Renewable Portfolio Standards, the University’s emissions targets, converting the town’s gasoline emissions to electric vehicles or alternative transport, and accelerating the use of state energy efficiency programs in buildings. Team members have presented at several meetings and events, including:
The last five CAP Steering Committee Meetings (starting in December)
Work session for all CAP Committees
Princeton Research Day (campus poster session)
Princeton GreenFest (outdoor community event)
Science on Tap at Triumph Brewery (one-hour presentation/discussion)
Princeton Sustainability Committee lunch meeting (one-hour presentation/discussion)
Sustainable Jersey meeting (local environmental groups)
Team members directly contributed to key aspects of the final CAP, including emissions reductions estimates and a 20-page methodology. Councilmembers praised the data-driven materials upon adopting the CAP in July 2019. However, they also noted the need to prioritize among nearly 100 suggested actions, which will require further research. The CAPERS team seeks to fill that need in the coming year, answering policy-specific questions with the help of our strong community network. In addition, the group hopes to improve its long-term sustainability through increased delegation to interested members.
Upcoming Ambitions
PSCI intends to expand and solidify the existing 5 teams over the next semester. In addition, we plan to create a Princeton campus Zero-Waste team, and are exploring the possibility to create a Princeton Partners program to empower high schoolers to start their own projects. Other administrative objectives are to streamline the Fall recruiting process, to broaden PSCI’s membership, and to create a framework that empowers incoming students to create and lead their own sustainability-related projects.