Sustainability Climate & Air

Amherst has an ambitious and robust Climate Action Plan that lays out our path to decarbonization by 2030. At the core of the plan is the replacement of an antiquated fossil fuel driven steam distribution system with a new campus wide low temperature hot water distribution system that will be tied to a large geothermal well system and run completely on renewable energy sources.

Science centers are typically one of the largest energy users on a college campus. So optimizing efficiency in the design and operations are critical to keeping energy use down. The new Science Center is more than 70% more energy efficient than a typical college science center!

In 2018, Amherst College partnered with four other New England colleges to collectively purchase 25 megawatts of zero-carbon, solar-generated electricity annually from the Farmington Solar Project, one of the largest solar farms in New England. Each college signed a 20 year power purchase agreement with Farmington, which came online in November 2021. 

Valentine Dining Hall collects and composts all of its pre- and post-consumer food waste at a local composting bio-energy facility. Our food waste is combined with cow manure in an anaerobic digester, and becomes three different products: low-carbon liquid fertilizer, solid bedding for cows, and pipeline-quality methane natural gas.