Client:
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Solutions:
Climate Action Plan
Energy & Sustainability Advisory Services
Between the Summer of 2023 and the Spring of 2024, The University of Nevada, Las Vegas
(“UNLV”) created the Rebel Climate Action Plan (“Rebel CAP”) with a team of students, staff,
and faculty led by Facilities Management and the UNLV Sustainability Task Force (“STF”), with
support from Brailsford & Dunlavey (“B&D”), Affiliated Engineers Incorporated (“AEI”), and
Cascadia Consulting Group (“Cascadia”). Focused on the goal of carbon neutrality by 2057, or
sooner, the UNLV campus community completed a series of constituent engagement meetings,
surveys, data validation and modeling, and life-cycle-cost analysis, resulting in an actionable,
realistic, and economically feasible pathway for UNLV to reach its goal.
The Rebel CAP outlines a core set of initiatives that, if funded and implemented, would reduce
greenhouse gas (“GHG”) emissions from campus and lower the overall cost of campus
operations. The plan includes a bold strategy to eliminate operational GHG emissions through
complete electrification of campus energy and related building systems, paired with increased
procurement of onsite and offsite renewable energy. In addition to direct climate action
initiatives that address emissions, this plan includes climate-related initiatives in the areas of
academics and research, buildings and energy, green procurement and policies, stewardship
and climate justice, sustainable transportation, waste management, and water resource
management. The Rebel CAP is a university-wide strategic plan, intentionally designed to guide
UNLV institutional decision-making.
A climate action plan at a higher education institution must consider the education of the next
generation of leaders and innovators to address the urgent challenges facing our planet and
build a more sustainable future. The plan must also consider UNLV’s role as a member of the
larger Southern Nevada community. While the Rebel CAP emphasizes climate action at UNLV,
it was developed with local, regional, national, and international sustainability and climate-
related goals and mandates in mind. This plan intends to document the initiatives and actions
UNLV is uniquely positioned to take as an institution.
