HOW UMASS BOSTON
USES ITS WATERFRONT LOCATION AS A SUSTAINABILITY ASSET
By Sophia Bacanurschi
For many coastal institutions, climate change presents a growing list of challenges. The University of Massachusetts Boston, located on the Columbia Point peninsula, faces a unique set of problems. Namely, that the campus will be an island within the next fifty to one hundred years. However, campus leaders are also finding opportunities in the university’ s waterfront location.
As UMass Boston works toward the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ s requirement that state entities eliminate fossil fuel use by 2050, the university is advancing a series of projects focused on energy efficiency, renewable energy, and climate resilience. Central to that effort is an innovative plan to transform a decades-old seawater cooling system into a source of low-carbon heating.
According to Janna Cohen Rosenthal, sustainability and resiliency planner at UMass Boston, sustainability planning has evolved significantly over the past decade. While many organizations once focused predominantly on setting climate goals and adapting facilities, today’ s efforts increasingly center on implementation and resilience.“ Adaptation is when you’ re saying,‘ I’ m going to adapt our property, our land, to be able to withstand climate pressure,’” Rosenthal explained.“ Resilience is when you plan beyond recovery, in a way that the future will be even better, to have higher capacity in terms of people, transportation, education, and health. And that requires a lot of collaboration.”
One of the university’ s most ambitious initiatives builds on infrastructure that has been operating with little fanfare since 1974. UMass Boston’ s saltwater pump house draws water from Boston Harbor to provide campus cooling. The university is now preparing to install heat-shift chillers that will capture thermal energy from the cooling system and use it for heating.
In simple terms, the process functions similarly to a heat pump. The relatively stable temperature of Boston Harbor cools their campus via a geothermal system using seawater. Once completed, the project is expected to meet approximately 80 % of the campus’ s heating demand, significantly reducing reliance on natural gas.
4 GREEN STUDENT EDITION 2026 Photo courtesy of Kaitlin Prince