Ourselves: Embed sustainability into the One VCU culture

Strategy: Incorporate a wide range of sustainability topics throughout the academic curriculum

• In-progress: Developing a system to track courses that incorporate sustainability content, prioritizing ease of use for faculty and students.
  • VCU Sustainability, VCU Academic Affairs and the University of Richmond Office for Sustainability are partnering to explore opportunities to track sustainability course tracking. 

Strategy: Embed sustainability into VCU and VCU Health operations

• Completed: Expanded sustainability as a component of student and employee orientation.
  • Incorporated campus sustainability resources into a virtual orientation module for first-year and transfer students, new employee orientation, and new employee onboarding. Similar materials will be incorporated into the new VCU Health employee onboarding process in the future. 
• In-progress: Developed a resource for current students and employees to learn about the One VCU Sustainability Plan and how sustainable behaviors can be incorporated into our daily lives. 
  • Developed and shared widely the Green Guide -- a public resource to incorporate sustainable behaviors into daily lives.
• In-progress: Developing new well-being resources that encourage healthy lifestyles and support the needs of the VCU community.

Strategy: Optimize VCU’s physical infrastructure

• Completed: Continued to employ green building standards (e.g., LEED, VEES) for new construction and renovation projects.
  • The university is now home to 24 LEED certified buildings, including one LEED Platinum certified building -- the highest designation -- and six LEED Gold buildings. 
• Completed: Established “green labs” processes and procedures.
  • VCU Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) launched the Green Labs program in fall 2024 to reduce the environmental impact of VCU’s labs by raising ultra-low freezer temperatures, closing fume hoods when not in use, minimizing chemical inventory and waste generation. As of April 2026, over 600 fume hoods were tested to optimize airflow for safety and energy reduction and an estimated 28,500 kWH a year (enough to power about two homes) and over, a decade, savings of about 77 metric tons of CO2 emissions. 
• In-progress: Increase the biodiversity of our campus footprint by expanding usage of native plantings in landscape design.
  • Transformed 4,000 square feet of steep turfgrass hillside south of the Cary Street Field into a biodiverse native plant meadow. The site requires less mowing, invites beneficial native insect species and supports independent student research projects. 

Completed: Strategy: Establish a standing One VCU sustainability advisory committee

• The committee -- consisting of representatives from VCU and VCU Health and includes employees, students and community members -- is charged with setting strategic priorities for plan implementation, monitoring progress and regularly communicating updates to the VCU community. 

Our community: Enhance student, patient, workforce and community health and well-being by restoring the natural environment and minimizing VCU's environmental impact

Strategy: Reduce greenhouse gas emissions and work to achieve carbon neutrality.

• In-progress: Establish a project team with representatives from VCU and VCU Health charged with identifying and modeling viable options, including interim targets, to achieve carbon neutrality in line with the university's 2050 goal.
  • Building a team consisting of representatives from VCU and VCU Health operations, engineering and utilities, supply chain management, and procurement.
  • Greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) total 152,596.51 metric tons carbon dioxide equivalent (MTCDE) (reporting period fiscal year (FY) 2025), up 4.18% from FY 2024 emissions of 146,473.36 MTCDE. The MTCDE by square footage has remained stable -- 17.67 MTCDE per 1,000 square feet for FY 2025 and 17.39 MTCDE per 1,000 square feet for FY 2024, a 1.27% increase. The increase is in part attributed to increased square footage compared to the 2008 baseline.
    • Note: VCU GHG reporting currently encompasses only buildings operating on the Monroe Park Campus.

Strategy: Transform VCU into a zero-waste campus.

• In-progress: Improve campus recycling infrastructure and procedures.
  • Added 60 new trash and recycling bins to outdoor spaces on campus. 
  • In 2025, VCU and VCU Health diverted 1,627.31 tons of recycling from the landfill, including specialty recycling streams (e.g., metal, lighting, electronics and batteries). The Monroe Park Campus diversion rate increased 33.14%, up from 30.34% in 2024. VCU Health's diversion rate was 9.97%, a change from 10.37% in 2024.
• In-progress: Establish waste reduction and diversion targets, focusing on single-use plastics and other disposables in athletics, dining, housing and laboratories. 
  
  • Hired a zero waste program manager to address institutional waste challenges, including those related to single-use plastic.
  • In 2026, a project team will be established to create diversion strategies and targets.
• Completed: Increase diversion of food waste through composting and food recovery.
  • Established the VCU compositing program in October 2024 in five dining facilities on the Monroe Park and MCV campuses, including: Shafer Court Dining Center, Laurel & Grace Place, University Student Commons, Children's Hospital of Richmond and the Adult Outpatient Pavilion. As of April 2026, more than 124,700 pounds of food waste have been diverted from landfill. Since adding The Student Commons in August of 2025, the average monthly compost diversion increased by 36.97%.
  • Dr. John Jones, a VCU faculty member, is spearheading an effort to increase the recovery and distribution of unserved food from Shafer Dining Hall. As of April 2026, the pilot program has distributed over 1,000 pounds of food to the VCU community and the program’s community partner, RVA Community Fridges.

Strategy: Reduce stormwater runoff and potable water consumption to protect the James River

• In-progress: Employ stormwater strategies to reduce runoff from buildings and grounds.
  • Identified a pilot project to understand potential strategies and their impacts. This includes landscape and stormwater improvements for the Monroe Park Campus Child Development Center, where pooling and stagnant water has been an issue. The improvements would provide programming opportunities for the center's staff and educational benefits for students, as well as aesthetics and functional improvements.
  • Engineering faculty are identifying opportunities for students to fabricate infrastructure prototypes, including raised garden beds designed to capture stormwater.

Strategy: Enhance biophilic connection

• In-progress: Utilize signage and outreach campaigns to educate the public on campus ecology.
  • Installed informational signage in two outdoor garden spaces.
  • Identifying outdated outdoor signage and new areas that would benefit from educational signage.
• In-progress: Reestablish Tree Campus Higher Education recognition through the Arbor Day Foundation.
  • VCU students completed a comprehensive inventory of more than 2,300 campus trees by collecting tree characteristics and locations data. Data will be used to create a priority tree replacement map and an interactive campus tree walk. The inventory will also serve as the foundation for a broader tree canopy management plan, which is a key component of the Tree Campus recognition.

Strategy: Expand engagement with local communities to address economic, environmental and social sustainability challenges.

• In-progress: Initiate partnerships with external institutions to build a network of collaboration and information sharing.
  • VCU Sustainability served as chair for the Virginia Sustainability in Higher Education (VASHE) in 2025 and remains an active participant, which shares information and creates collaborative opportunities across institutions. 
  • VCU Sustainability brought together and led a new VASHE working group to discuss and establish best practices for sustainability reporting. 

Our world: Inspire innovation in research, education and healthcare to advance environmental health, human health, health equity and economic vitality

Strategy: Increase cross-disciplinary sustainability research

• In-progress: In alignment with the One VCU Research Strategic Priorities Plan, strengthen research infrastructure to support cooperation and encourage researchers to develop joint sustainability projects.
  • VCU hosted its annual Institute for Sustainable Energy and Environment symposium in April 2026. The symposium showcases research and work across the country – with guest speakers from Duke, Notre Dame, George Washington University, University of Delaware and University of Maryland; VCU's in-state peers and colleagues including George Mason and Christopher Newport; state government and industry partners including the Virginia Department of Energy and Dupont; and VCU’s subject-matter experts from science, engineering, technology, business, public health, and medicine.

Strategy: Foster sustainability-focused partnerships at VCU, in our community and around the world

• In-progress: Support research that directly contributes to positive economic, environmental and health outcomes in local communities.
  • Launched the Convergence Lab initiative in Fall 2025, identifying five overarching research themes, including health outcomes and sustainability. The Enterprise Health Outcomes lab and future sustainability lab pave the way for research that contributes to both environmental health and community health outcomes.

Strategy: Broadly share VCU’s sustainability impact

• Completed: Develop and execute a strategic communications plan.
  • Created a strategic communications plan with tactics and an editorial calendar to maintain regular communications about the plan implementation.