On April 23, 2024, Duke Kunshan University (DKU) kicked off its own Climate and Sustainability Initiative to complement the Duke Climate Commitment. Nearly 80 DKU community members attended this launch, which featured DKU faculty, staff, and students and covered topics including future DKU climate and sustainability activities, empowering climate change mitigation and sustainability through interdisciplinary education and research, and students’ perspectives on steering DKU sustainability.
The event followed the release of DKU’s first-ever campus sustainability report in late 2023. Sixteen undergraduate students and five DKU faculty members, under the direction of the DKU Operations team, undertook an investigation into DKU’s environmental footprint, primarily focused on energy usage, air quality, water, food and waste for the campus. The report made recommendations in each of these areas, particularly around monitoring and data collection for environmental parameters and resource use. Additionally, the report recommended that DKU set institution-level sustainability goals and establish a DKU Sustainability Office for monitoring and reporting. The analysis focused on Phase I of DKU’s campus, which was completed in 2019. Phase II of DKU’s campus, which includes an additional 611,000 square feet of building space, opened in 2023.