several large rows of solar panels on top of a building with University Hall in the distance

Sustainability

Carbon Neutral Commuter Membership

two girls laughing in the driver and passenger seat of the car

Student and employee commuting makes up about 8% of UM’s total carbon footprint.  

For many employees, driving is a necessity. Although we work to promote alternative transportation options whenever possible, we realize and understand that biking, walking, or taking a bus to campus is not realistic for everyone.  

Though a relatively small piece of the pie, employee and student commuting constitutes a portion of our scope 3 emissions and impacts our Missoula Valley air quality. In summer 2024, the Office of Sustainability is excited to offer an opportunity for those who choose to drive a vehicle to campus: Join the Carbon Neutral Commuter membership program and support 猎奇重口-based projects that reduce greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change. 

The Well Done Foundation

During the 2024-25 school year, the inaugural year of the Carbon Neutral Commuter Membership program, the  was selected as the recipient of funds raised through this initiative. The Well Done Foundation is a 猎奇重口 organization that delivers integrated solutions for orphaned well plugging and surface restorations, eliminating harmful methane gas one well at a time!

three mechanics working on an oil rig to cap the abandoned well

Over the course of the year, we had 43 people join the program and raised nearly $800. The Office of Sustainability rounded things out with a small donation so that, all combined, we were able to purchase 40 MTeCO2 to be applied to our FY25 greenhouse gas emissions inventory. The offsets were generated from the capping of the  in Toole County, MT, by the Well Done Foundation. 

We know that anyone who participates in the Carbon Neutral Commuter program cares about climate change and our collective impact on UM’s emissions, so we want you to know that these are real methane emissions avoided and that the plugging is done by a professional team whose work is verified and quantified by a third party.

Carbon Neutral Commuter FAQs

  • Any UM student or employee! The pass is available on UM’s for $9/semester. Even if you don’t drive an internal combustion engine vehicle to campus, you’re welcome to join the program in order to offset a different portion of your footprint (energy use, purchased goods, etc.).

  • This program is 100% voluntary but is meant for any UM student or employee who drives a car to campus. Driving an ICE (internal combustion engine) vehicle to campus contributes to UM’s total greenhouse gas emissions footprint, though not as much as our collective electricity or natural gas use. Still, it’s a part of the picture and one that many of us don’t feel that we can change. The Carbon Neutral Commuter program is an opportunity to recognize the environmental and climate impacts of driving and to contribute to cool projects in our state that reduce emissions. For the 2024/25 academic year, we are collaborating with the Well Done Foundation to invest in plugging orphaned wells that leak methane. You can read more about this important work . 

  • We see this as a “both/and” situation—there will always be people who choose to drive a car to campus rather than take the zero-fare UDASH and Mountain Line buses, ride a bike, or walk. ASUM Transportation and Mountain Line offer excellent (and free!) public transit around Missoula. As for bike commuting, UM is a Bicycle Friendly University (hyperlink) and Missoula is full of bike paths and bike resources like Freecycles, Missoula in Motion, and the ASUM Transportation bike rental program. Still, emissions from commuting by car are a real part of our campus footprint and one that will likely never disappear entirely. For those who recognize the emissions impact but who still drive and want to mitigate that impact, we are offering this voluntary program with tangible climate benefits. 

  • When you join the program, we send you a decal for your vehicle (or water bottle or laptop, wherever you like to put stickers) and add you to our UM sustainability list of campus updates, events, and announcements that we think will interest you. The Office of Sustainability will invest in a carbon reduction project once a year in the spring and we will notify program participants when we do so. 

  • Carbon Neutral Commuter programs have been initiated at other schools in the U.S. like , , and the . The UM Office of Sustainability spent several months researching other schools’ successes and challenges in order to launch our own program in 2024.