This Earth Month, two sustainability activists spoke about the efforts the University of New Mexico has been taking to address the climate crisis and its role in environmental issues. While the University’s efforts have been a good start, there is still more work to do, they said.
The clearest example of action taken by UNM on environmental matters is the University’s strategic sustainability plan, released in October 2025, with goals set to be accomplished by 2030. The plan outlines multiple objectives for both transforming campus operations and building sustainability engagement and culture on campus. The goals tackle energy usage and greenhouse gas emissions, land and water use, waste management, transportation and limiting waste in food and dining.
Feleecia Guillen, a fellow with the Institute for Policy Studies and an organizer with New Mexico No False Solutions, called the release of the plan a “step in the right direction,” and disclosed that she was part of the data collection process for the plan as well.
“From that vantage point, it was clear that while there was real effort, the process was also somewhat rushed,” Guillen said. “For an institution with as much influence as UNM in New Mexico, there should have been deeper, more meaningful consultation with communities across the state, especially those on the frontlines of extraction and environmental harm. Community input cannot just be a checkbox, it has to shape the direction and substance of the plan itself.”
Caitlyn Bizzel, the director of projects for UNM Leaders for Environmental Action and Foresight and director of Environmental Affairs for the Associated Students at the University of New Mexico, said UNM LEAF was happy with the release of the plan, and is now watching to see how the plan is implemented and if the right initiative will be taken by the University to make the changes the plan claims.
“We want them to know that we are watching and waiting, expecting them to follow through,” Bizzell said.
According to the UNM Sustainability Greenhouse Gas Inventory, in 2024 the campus emitted 73,292 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent MTCO2e from boilers and cogeneration units, as well as mobile combustion. 16,011 MTCO2e was emitted from electricity used on campus, totaling 89,302 MTCO2e emitted in 2024. Using the Environmental Protection Agency’s greenhouse gas equivalencies calculator, that amount of CO2 emissions is equivalent to nearly 12,000 homes’ energy use for a single year, or almost 100 million pounds of coal burned.
“We must keep learning from our mistakes, efforts and experiences,” Bizzell said.
Bizzell said the plan is a good start to create a more sustainable campus, but that sustainability should always remain a part of the conversation.
“I’m very happy and I expect more,” Bizzell said of the plan. “We have to keep going. It’s called the climate crisis for a reason.”
So far, in accordance with a goal that mandates all newly constructed buildings be fully electric, the new police building will be UNM’s first fully electric building, and the Center for Collaborative Arts and Technology building will follow second, according to KRQE.
“We are no longer in a moment where incremental sustainability plans or techno-fixes can meet the scale of the crisis. The 1.5 Celsius threshold is not some distant guardrail, it has effectively already been crossed in lived reality across frontline communities. That means the baseline for what counts as a ‘solution’ has fundamentally changed,” Guillen said.
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The 1.5 Celsius threshold is a part of the Paris Agreement, an international climate treaty signed in 2015, that mandates that member countries “hold the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2° Celcius above pre-industrial levels and pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5° Celcius above pre-industrial levels,” in order to reduce the risks and impacts of climate change, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
“If fossil fuel ties — financial, infrastructural, or energy-based — remain intact, then even well-intentioned sustainability plans risk reinforcing the status quo,” Guillen said. “The only path forward is a full phaseout of fossil fuels.”
Penelope Loyd Sment is a freelance reporter for the Daily Lobo. She can be reached at news@dailylobo.com or on X @DailyLobo
