A shorter version of  this article was published previously in Canada’s National Observer (click here)

As faculty members at the University of Toronto, we were pleased to read Amy Mann’s recent opinion piece in the National Observer, “Beware all promises to reach net-zero emissions with offsets.” Organizations are increasingly using obfuscating language and sophisticated brand management strategies in order to polish their climate bona fides, and Mann, a climate activist and an undergraduate studying atmospheric physics at the U of T, wants her own university to substantiate the claims made on behalf of its much-touted Climate Positive initiative. Does “Climate Positive” give us a laundered version of the increasingly discredited language of “net-zero”? Does it back up its ambitious claims with data and details that would allow us to truly evaluate its impact on GHG emissions? These are legitimate questions to ask, but the university administration has declined the opportunity to defend its position in print, opting instead to ask the National Observer to retract Mann’s piece or, failing that, for certain key terms (like “net zero”) to be removed from an updated version.

The language of “Climate Positive” is used to suggest that an organization will not only cut emissions associated with its operations to zero but will go above and beyond (“defying gravity,” to use the administration’s own paradoxical branding slogan) in order to “offset” emissions being produced elsewhere. In the UofT’s case, this means promising to reduce 80% of its emissions “through absolute carbon reductions on campus” while offsetting the remainder (”and beyond”) by “generating renewable energy on university properties off-campus” and by “staying flexible to explore and incorporate emerging technologies and approaches.”  Even if we accept these promises at face value, what are we supposed to make of such nebulous concepts as “staying flexible” in a plan that claims to be addressing what President Gertler has previously referred to as the “global threat” posed by fossil-fuel driven climate warming? Where are the data supporting the claim that the UofT will be able to generate solar energy to account for 20% of its energy needs “and beyond” by 2050? Similarly, the Climate Positive website says that the plan is to achieve a “climate positive campus” by “us[ing] renewables and other strategies” to “offset” the balance of campus carbon emissions and “further reduce other carbon emissions in Ontario.” But these “other strategies,” which include the wholly unproven solution called “carbon capture,” are left distressingly vague. Moreover, what does it mean that the UofT plans to be “Climate Positive” while refusing to count emissions associated with the enormous amounts of new construction it is undertaking (the university plans to double its floor space on the downtown campus by 2050)? Given all this uncertainty, it should not be surprising when concerned students do what we supposedly train them to do: ask questions, evaluate claims and refuse to settle for lazy answers.

And let’s not forget, as our gaze is distracted by glossy Climate Positive brochures, that UTAM, the organization that manages the university’s multi-billion dollar endowment fund, continues to make indirect investments in fossil fuel companies eight years after U of T President Meric Gertler’s own ad hoc committee of experts recommended that the university “refrain from making any new investments” in fossil fuel companies. The U of T administration’s only excuse is that divesting from indirect investments is “complicated,” as if innovative and creative thinking in the service of a better world was not central to the U of T’s mission as a top research university. As we all know by now, local sustainability efforts amount to band-aid solutions as long as fossil fuel companies and the banks that finance them continue to enjoy the social licence that reputable institutions like the U of T grant them by investing in their stocks and partnering with them to fund climate initiatives. The question of what really makes a difference when it comes to addressing the climate crisis is a vital one, and seriously committed students need to be a part of that conversation.

But rather than encourage such engagement, the U of T administration apparently wants to use its media relations office to silence any student who publicly questions its self-presentation. In Ms. Mann’s case, the university’s Director of Media Communications included in his list of demands to the National Observer that Mann remove a reference to the “dubious” college rankings that play such an oversized role in the UofT’s marketing strategy. Since at least 2010, leading academics have been questioning the validity of commercially produced college rankings. Writing in the Edmonton Journal, for example, Carl Amrhein (Provost of the University of Alberta from 2003-14 and one-time Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Science at the U of T), reminded readers that “these third-party organizations are profit-driven; their rankings are designed to sell publications or online advertising.” Ranking the rankings, Amrhein and his co-author, former UofA President, Indira Samarasekera, assigned them “an A for effort and C to D . . . for overall effectiveness in measuring the quality of higher education institutions.” Others have also raised questions about the commercial aspects of the rankings business and their links to the international student recruitment industry (see “The Dubious Practice of University Rankings”: https://elephantinthelab.org/the-accuracy-of-university-rankings-in-a-international-perspective/). QS, a private company whose rankings UofT regularly relies on in its advertising campaigns, holds recruitment events around the world, as the “market” for high-tuition international students heats up. And just in case you were wondering about the relationship between the UofT’s “Climate Positive” campaign and global rankings: QS recently raised the U of T’s ranking after adding “sustainability” efforts (although not actual emissions data) to its metrics. There are, in other words, serious and substantial reasons for suggesting that global university rankings (which, after all, only measure a tiny proportion of the student populations of the countries concerned) are not only “dubious” but are having a deleterious impact on how university administrators conduct their work and engage with critics. “What is the vision of the world of higher education and research that [these rankings] convey”? asked a recent article in Le Monde. This is a question we should all be asking.

We can and should have debates about U of T’s GHG emissions mitigation plans, and we can and should disagree at times. But fixating on polishing up the image of the university and intimidating committed students rather than responding to them in good faith works against these kinds of substantive discussions. Atmospheric warming is already having catastrophic effects throughout the world and particularly for those who have been least responsible for bringing it about. Universities should be leading the response to this “global threat” by offering clear, transparent and detailed proposals backed by genuine accountability rather than obsessing over brand identity, marketing catchphrases, and global rankings.

Paul Downes, Professor, Department of English, University of Toronto

Paul Hamel, Professor, Department of Laboratory Medicine & Pathiobiology, University of Toronto

Scott Prudham, Professor, Department of Geography, University of Toronto

Gavin Smith, Professor Emeritus, Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto