As COA began planning on becoming carbon neutral, the newly inaugurated President, David Hales, along with Sustainability Director Craig Ten Broeck, decided that they would need help in the process. The following "carbon emission" groups were established:  Avoid-Reduce, Calculator, Offset Investments, and Public Relations. Students, staff and faculty participated

Recommendations from the Avoid-Reduce group include looking at the following sources of emissions: heating buildings, electricity use, commuting and COA travel. Calculating COA's emissions was done by the Calculator group using Clean Air Cool Planet's Campus Carbon Calculator, along with the director of sustainability. There was also an inclination to conduct an energy audit (completed in early 2008) and to revitalize COA's bike program. The Public Relations committee had a booth at COA's Earth Day Celebration where carbon and environmental footprints could be calculated, and gave away free CFL (compact fluorescent) light bulbs. Public Relations also worked with Donna Gold, public relations direction, in editing a NetZero brochure for local distribution. The offset investments group found many faults with carbon offsets, and believed that there were many other options for reducing COA's footprint before investing in offsets. The faults that the group cited for offsets involve the validity of recapturing or eliminating carbon from the atmosphere. These issues were discussed in the November of 2007 meeting with the student working group and COA's president, director of sustainability, administrative dean and director of public relations.