HAMILTON — Colgate University announced on Earth Day (April 22) that it has achieved carbon neutrality after a 10-year initiative in which the private university cut its emissions by 46 percent. 

Colgate contends it is the first university in New York state to reduce its net carbon emissions to zero, according to a release posted to its website.

The steps Colgate took over the last decade to reach this milestone included building several Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED)-certified buildings on campus, installing solar arrays and a geothermal heating and cooling system, establishing a $1.25 million self-sustaining fund for energy and carbon-reduction projects, updating the university’s heating facility biomass boiler, and investing in several carbon offset-projects to mitigate remaining university emissions from employee travel, heating, and cooling.

Colgate is a 200-year-old liberal-arts college located in Hamilton, with about 3,000 undergraduate students.   

MANLIUS — David’s Refuge, a Manlius–based nonprofit organization providing care and support to parents of children with special needs, recently announced it has added two new board members

Wills Mahoney is co-founder of Plowz & Mowz, a Syracuse–based technology company, allowing consumers to book snow plowing, lawn mowing, and other outdoor service providers online and through an app. His love for computers and technology developed when he was younger and led him to start his first company in 2005 called Express Computer Service, a local computer sales and IT services company in his hometown of Manlius. His entrepreneurial spirit led him to start Plowz & Mowz in the winter of 2014. His company has seen rapid growth and now has more than 45 employees, 5,000-plus landscape companies on the platform, and is available in more than 40 markets across the country. 

Craig Zinserling has been in the environmental contracting business for almost 30 years and has been a resident of Central New York his whole life. He was a VP with a national environmental contracting company prior to starting his own local company, CRAL Contracting, Inc. The business offers mold remediation, asbestos abatement, industrial cleaning, and other services. CRAL has grown over the past 15 years into a corporation, employing 35 people with offices in Rochester and Syracuse. 

David’s Refuge says its mission is to provide respite, resources, and support to parents and guardians of children with special needs or life-threatening medical conditions where they will be “refreshed, restored, and renewed in their role as caregivers.”

The organization says it is seeing “tremendous growth and development.” Kate Houck is executive director of David’s Refuge.