A climate commitment signed by Binghamton University President Lois B. DeFleur last Friday will set a series of ongoing goals for campus, according to a BU administrator.

DeFleur signed the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment on Sept. 14, joining 391 other university presidents who have pledged to dedicate their campuses to mitigating climate change.

The first step in meeting the commitment’s goals is to study BU’s carbon emissions and assess what can be done to offset them, according to James VanVoorst, the University’s vice president for administration.

‘At this point, nothing is on the table or off the table,’ VanVoorst said.

In the next two months, he said, BU will ‘continue to put together where we are,’ and will use outside specialists to assess the University’s position and options for reducing its carbon footprint. Since the commitment is also a method of networking between colleges, BU will also be discussing techniques used at other participating universities.

DeFleur’s decision to sign the pact comes as part of a local trend in environmental awareness and commitment. Binghamton’s mayor, Matt Ryan, signed a similar document, the Mayor’s Climate Protection Agreement, in April of this year.

New York State Governor Eliot Spitzer signed environmental legislation last month requiring vehicles to display their greenhouse gas emission index starting in 2010.

But adapting campus to the parameters of the commitment will take more than simple assessment, VanVoorst said.

Projects to develop alternative energy sources like solar or wind power could cost millions of dollars and would require outside funding from federal or state grants, VanVoorst noted. Ideally, grants for the environmental initiative would be considered separately from funding for the University’s academic departments.

‘What we need to keep separate is the need for the campus to keep functioning as an educational institution,’ he said.