Despite Setbacks, Princeton Continues Their Decarbonization Fight
PRINCETON, N.J. — In October 2022, following a series of nationwide student protests at peer universities and affiliate criticisms, Princeton University announced its initial commitment to divest its endowment from fossil fuel industries. At the time, Princeton’s investments in fossil fuels totalled around $1.7 billion. According to DivestPrinceton, the student organization that led on-campus divestment protests, the move symbolized the disintegration of “the social license” of the fossil fuel industry to continue “business as usual.”
In June 2026, Princeton University Investment Company President Vincent Tuohey released a community-wide statement: “I am discontinuing [Princeton’s] voluntary divestment from all publicly traded oil and gas companies.” Tuohey’s decision also paralleled Princeton’s history of fraternizing with oil corporations, namely, BP. However, climate leaders in Princeton, New Jersey remain committed to earnest decarbonization efforts, free from fossil fuel corporations’ influence.
In an emailed statement, Municipality of Princeton’s City Councilor Brian McDonald highlighted how reducing greenhouse gas emissions is an ongoing priority of city government — something outlined in the town’s official climate action plan. As of January 2026, the plan outlines a path to “reduce emissions 50 percent (from 2010 levels) by 2030, 65 percent by 2040, and 80 percent by 2050.” Primary strategies to achieve these goals include updates to residential and commercial building infrastructure, the municipality’s transportation systems, and the surrounding energy grid.
David E. Cohen, Run on Climate’s Local Climate Policy Network affiliate, Princeton climate action plan steering committee member, and town council member, has specialized in building sustainable infrastructure. Before his role in local government, he was a career architect designing sustainable religious, residential, and commercial buildings — an important technical background, considering that between 2010 - 2018 the majority of Princeton’s carbon emissions originated from commercial and residential buildings. In a 2025 council statement, he described Princeton city council’s ongoing decarbonization work as “meet[ing] the challenge of this moment in America through local and regional action” on climate.
As of 2026, Princeton has already piloted two key grid decarbonization efforts: an energy aggregation and community solar program. From June 2020 to December 2021, Sustainable Princeton supported a partnership between the Municipality of Princeton with Constellation NewEnergy Inc., an energy supplier, to offer the town’s residents cleaner power through a community choice aggregation program titled Princeton Renewable Community Energy (PRCE).
PCRE functioned through a contract with Constellation Energy which offered 50% clean power — or 100% clean power for residents who opted in — by buying renewable energy credits (RECs) from “solar, wind, hydroelectric and landfill gas-to-energy projects” to cover the amount of energy consumed by the municipality coming from non-clean sources. The end result was 1 to 2 percent lower energy costs for participating residents in contrast to the standard generation service.
PCRE ultimately was not renewed due to a leveling out of price between the energy aggregation program and the standard generation option heading into 2022, according to Christine Symington, executive director of Sustainable Princeton. As of 2026, the municipality has re-directed its attention towards a community solar program for low-and-middle income residents which is partially modeled off of the lessons Princeton learned from the PCRE program. Since its launch in June 2025, “about 900 low-and-middle income families” have automatically enrolled in the program per Symington. The community solar program spawned from a statewide community solar initiative focused on decarbonization and lowering energy costs for New Jersey residents simultaneously.
Beyond Sustainable Princeton, Symington noted that many University and municipal climate organizations will still continue their work “together towards a common goal” of municipality-wide decarbonization. Her sentiment was shared by Princeton resident and advocate Logan Yorke, who highlighted how Mercer County Executive and former State Assemblymember Dan Benson “is very much for sustainability” and decarbonization, with a continued focus on electric vehicles.
All in all, despite University rollbacks, the Municipality of Princeton’s members will still “do what we’re going to do” to meet its climate goals — a principle asserted by Symington.
*Cover Image Courtesy of Jasmine Wynn
Correction: A previous version of this article spelled Logan Yorke’s last name as “York.”