Carbon Neutrality at U-Ms Campus Farm
by Lunia Oriol, University of Michigan | MURP Candidate '24 | BSE '22
If you were to visit the U-M Campus Farm at Matthaei Botanical Gardens right now, you might step into what appears to be just like any other day. The sun is shining and the crop fields are bursting with life as student interns and summer staff divy up the daily tasks of planting, weeding, watering, and harvesting. While they work hard to care for the local food system, hidden behind these daily routines is a flurry of a different kind of activity— one filled with meetings, Zoom calls, and emails about solar power generation. The reason— the Campus Farm is planning to go carbon-neutral.
The existence of climate change is no longer disputable, but as the global warming trend continues our society faces many uncertainties. To combat this climate crisis, the focus has tended toward reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the global energy sector. However, it is just as important to consider our global food regime, which accounts for approximately a quarter of all global GHG emissions. As the crisis worsens, changing weather patterns and increasingly occurring natural disasters can alter food systems for the worse, leading to damaged crops, food shortages, and global undernutrition and malnutrition.
Our small university farm is in no shape to dismantle the food system at the global level. However, achieving a large systemic shift requires the will and commitment of individuals, organizations, and communities alike. The Campus Farm saw it necessary to do its part in generating the action needed for large-scale change. It decided to take up the call to contribute to a more sustainable and just future in concert with agro-ecological movements around the globe.
The imperative to take action and promote stewardship for the planet has called students to the Campus Farm since its conception. As a living-learning laboratory for high-impact teaching, learning, and research in sustainable food systems, students have been at the forefront of its management and evolution. The farm’s push to act against climate change was accelerated by the university’s commitment to carbon neutrality, but the farm was considering it long before the university made its carbon neutrality commitments (even before it disinvested from fossil fuels).
The Campus Farm defines carbon neutrality as having net-zero on-farm carbon emissions via a combination of elimination, mitigation, and sequestration. The vast majority of its net annual emissions come from the use of a natural gas boiler and electricity supplied by DTE. The natural gas boiler, which heats the greenhouses, is the farm’s main source of its Scope 1 emissions (i.e., direct on-campus greenhouse gas emissions). The electricity from DTE powers a walk-in cooler and field office, the main sources of the farm’s Scope 2 emissions (i.e., emissions from purchased electricity). The farm’s proposed strategy aims to achieve carbon neutrality for all emissions generated and electricity consumed by 2026.
To tackle its Scope 1 emissions, the farm has its sights set on designing and implementing an agro-photovoltaics (APV) teaching, research and demonstration system. The farm seeks to explore how APV might bring synergy between clean energy generation and agricultural production. Solar panels would be elevated above the farm’s food production fields, potentially increasing crop quality and drought resistance while supplying all the electricity that the farm needs. This would be a bridge strategy while the farm determines ways to fully eliminate its dependence on natural gas, but in the meantime it would create a new research and demonstration space around APV.
As for its Scope 2 emissions, the farm wants to first upgrade its walk-in cooler. The cooler stores all of the farm’s student-grown produce, but its outdated and inefficient refrigeration system has driven up energy usage and consequently emissions. The farm would not only implement a high-efficiency compressor system, but also incorporate a cold air intake system that would utilize naturally cold outdoor air as an additional cooling source. This would increase the cooler’s energy savings and slash carbon emissions. This work was made possible thanks to a successful grant application through the Planet Blue Student Innovation Fund.
The farm’s Scope 3 emissions (i.e. indirect emission sources) come from those related to individual transportation, food delivery to MDining locations, and the receipt of shipped materials. These emissions are trickier to measure because they can be variable and more difficult to control. The farm is working to develop a plan to pinpoint its Scope 3 emission sources and quantify them before creating and releasing a plan for mitigation.
As part of a Tier One research university that is situated within an affluent city, it is a privilege and a necessity for the farm to progress toward carbon neutrality. It applauds the other students and campus organizations that have already begun addressing carbon neutrality, and it looks forward to engagement, collaboration and feedback. Through whatever successes and shortcomings it may encounter, the farm hopes to set an example of commitment and action as a carbon-neutral, living-learning laboratory focused on sustainable food systems, leadership development, equity, and justice for a sustainable and thriving future.
To contact the Campus Farm with questions, comments, or ideas, email us at campusfarm@umich.edu.