Community Feedback Powers Stanford’s Climate Action Plan

At Stanford, tackling climate change is a community effort. Stanford’s updated Climate Action Plan aims to be a comprehensive roadmap outlining specific activities the university will undertake to reduce the impacts of climate change. A key goal of the plan is to ensure that climate solutions reflect the voices and values of the people who live, study, and work on campus. This spring, Sustainable Stanford interns Atessa Anoshiravani, Anushka Vijay, Kaitlyn Celine Sanchez, and Camden John Burk brought that vision to life—by actively inviting students to share their ideas, concerns, and hopes for Stanford’s climate future.

“The goal of the Climate Action Plan is to not just avoid harm, but to actually be beneficial to the community on campus and off campus,” explained rising junior Atessa. “My team thinks these actions will work, but do students more broadly agree?”

The team focused on feedback in three key focus areas: Waste, Transportation, and Climate Resilience. On May 17th, the intern team led focus groups  to gather student input and uncover opportunities within each category. They also hosted four tabling events, speaking with over 100 students to collect real-time feedback on the plan’s strategies. Here is what they heard:

• Waste
  • Students highlighted a big opportunity for improvement: more education on how to properly sort waste. While they appreciated the virtual training module provided before freshman year, many felt additional resources would help them make better choices.
  • Another common theme was improving how leftover event food is handled. Typically, leftover food is either taken home by organizers or composted. Many students suggested creating a system to redirect surplus food to those on campus who need it most.
• Transportation
  • When it came to sustainable transportation, students voiced a wide range of perspectives. Many appreciated the free electric Marguerite shuttle as a valuable resource but saw room to better connect it to the broader community including introducing more routes to nearby shopping centers and Catrain. Their feedback reflected a desire to make sustainable options even more convenient and accessible for all.
• Climate Resilience
  • Students valued having action-oriented spaces where they could contribute to climate resilience efforts, especially during extreme events like the LA wildfires. “We know there aren’t many places to talk about these things,” said Atessa. Students wanted more opportunities to engage meaningfully in climate work, which they felt could build community and boost morale.

After gathering and consolidating input from both the working session and tabling events, the intern team presented their findings to the Climate Action Plan’s working groups, who are responsible for developing and implementing initiatives in the Climate Action Plan. This feedback is now helping shape how Stanford moves forward.

Looking ahead, with the help of the Sustainable Stanford Living Lab program, more opportunities will be available for the community to engage with the Climate Action Planning effort.  

“You can only learn so much in a classroom,” Atessa reflected. “I spend a lot of fall quarter scouring documents and learning about what is in this plan. That type of overview is something that you rarely get in a typical internship. It’s been great to be deeply involved in something so broad… it’s been totally invaluable.”