MIT has announced a goal of achieving net-zero emissions from their campus by 2026, and eliminating direct emissions by 2050. The goal is one of a number of initiatives announced under the institution’s new plan titled “Fast Forward: MIT’s Climate Action Plan for the Decade,” aimed at intensifying new technologies, new policies, and new forms of outreach to tackle the climate crisis.

The plan sets out a desire to create “new ideas, transformed into practical solutions, in record time,” with key research areas including cement and steel production, heavy transportation, and ways to remove carbon from the air. Five broad areas of action are proposed: sparking innovation, educating future generations, informing and leveraging government action, reducing MIT’s own climate impact, and uniting and coordinating all of MIT’s climate efforts.

The specific aim of achieving a net-zero emissions campus by 2026 replaces a previous target, set in 2015, of reducing MIT's net carbon emissions by at least 32 percent by 2030. The previous goal was on track to being surpassed through a combination of innovative off-campus power purchase agreements that enable the construction of large-scale solar and wind farms, and an array of renewable energy and building efficiency measures on campus.

For the new target, MIT has used their campus as a living testbed, studying all aspect of its operations to assess their climate impacts, including heating and cooling, electricity, lighting, materials, and transportation. While MIT acknowledges the difficulties inherent in transforming large existing infrastructures, it seeks to make feasible reductions in emissions where possible. Among the plans, all new purchases of light vehicles will be zero-emissions if available, while the amount of solar generation on campus will increase fivefold, from 100 to 500 kilowatts. Shuttle buses will begin converting to electric power no later than 2026, and the number of car-charging stations will triple, to 360.

Meanwhile, a new working group will study possibilities for further reductions of on-campus emissions, including embedded energy in construction materials, as well as possible measures to offset off-campus Institute-sponsored travel. The group will also study goals relating to food, water, and waste systems, develop a campus climate resilience plan, and expand the accounting of greenhouse gas emissions to include MIT’s facilities outside the campus. MIT also plans to explore a variety of possible large-scale collaborative agreements to enable solar energy, wind energy, energy storage, and other emissions-curbing facilities.

News of the plan comes a month after MIT Press embarked on an unprecedented digitization program for architecture and design publications, with 34 classic architecture and urbanism books now freely available on its platform. Meanwhile, earlier this month, the MIT Senseable City Lab unveiled their “Favelas 4D” project, dedicated to mapping the largest favela in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.