Background: Environmental economists are concerned with identifying specific problems to be rectified, but there can be many approaches to solving the same environmental problem. If a state is trying to impose a transition to clean energy, for example, they have several options they can take. For example, a government can impose a forcible limit on carbon emissions, or it can adopt more incentive-based solutions, like placing quantity-based taxes on carbon emissions or offering tax credits to companies that adopt renewable power sources. This principle can also be applied at various scales, including businesses and academic institutions.

Task: Assuming you are the President of a State University such as Rutgers (that has a student population of around 30,000 and a staff population of 8,000 with 3 main satellite campuses), and you would like to make the University greener. An initial environmental audit identified several problems that required urgent attention. Problems of note included a high and increasing energy bill each year (linked to poor energy conservation practices and the use of inefficient and outdated lab equipment and lighting infrastructure), high waste generation particularly grey water and PET containers and a fairly high annual water utility bill (a large portion of which is due to leakages and poor conservation practices by the University community). Suggest three (3) strategies you would recommend as President to achieve your goal(s) of making the University greener. For each strategy, provide a brief description of how that particular action would be rolled out, resources necessary for it to work, possible challenges, and possible indicators of success.

Here is what you need to do:

• Each student should draft a strategy paper outlining: (i) the problem (feel free to add additional parameters or context); (ii) an overarching goal; (iii) details of each strategy, including a brief description of how each strategic action would be implemented, resources you think would be necessary for each strategy to work, possible challenges you could encounter, and possible indicators of success.
• Strategy papers should not exceed three (3) pages.

Format:

Papers must be word-processed using a 12-point font (Times New Roman or Calibri), with 1.5 spacing. References are not necessary.