Decarbonization in Higher Education Institutions for Green Campus: Comparison
View Latest Version
Please note this is a comparison between Version 2 by Jason Zhu and Version 1 by José Baltazar Salgueirinho Osório de Andrade Guerra.

Reducing the carbon footprint (CF) helps to meet the targets of the sustainable development goals (SDGs), with emphasis on SDG 13, which seeks urgent measures to combat climate change and its impacts. Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) or universities, as organizations engaged in education, research, and community service, play an important role in promoting sustainable development. Thus, HEIs are increasingly interested in practices to reduce their CF, in addition to training professionals for this worldwide need. CF reduction is a tool to assess the sustainability and decarbonization of a campus that aligns with Green Campus (GC) initiatives. 

  • carbon footprint
  • universities
  • green campus

1. Introduction

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted in September 2015 by 193 UN Member States, comprises 17 goals and 169 global action targets, mostly covering the environmental, economic, and social dimensions of sustainable development, in an integrated and interrelated way. Among SDGs is goal 13, which brings the need for urgent action to fight climate change and its impact on life on Earth. Much has been said and written about this harsh reality and its effects, and also about the need for a switch in the way climate change is perceived, mitigated, and adapted [1]. However, the concern regards the immediate symptoms of a deeper problem, rather than the fundamentals that provide solutions to that problem.
Thus, the fact that the global community is engaged in achieving SDGs means that there is an unparalleled opportunity for universities regarding teaching and research, and the execution of activities linked to external stakeholders and society [5][2]. Universities, regardless of an existing formal sustainable development policy, show engagement with environmental sustainability policies or procedures in one way or another [5,6][2][3]. Understanding the environment and sustainability practices at universities is of great relevance, as students are powerful agents of change in their communities [7][4]. Hence, universities or Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) play an important role in promoting sustainability and should strive to be an example of a sustainable organization [8][5]. An HEI is a social institution that has society as its principle and its reference for norms and values. HEIs, besides reflecting the knowledge and social relations, also enable changing the ways of seeing, understanding, and producing beyond the present, with future visions and new actions [9][6].
The main factor that contributes to climate change is global warming, which is measured by the concentration of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions released into the atmosphere; thus, to achieve the goals of SDG 13, researchers need urgent measures, such as removing these gases from the atmosphere. GHG emissions are an alarming problem, causing not only rising temperatures but also dramatic natural disasters like floods, hurricanes, droughts, and many more. For organizations that want to contribute to achieving the goal of climate neutrality, the first step is to determine their current environmental performance in terms of carbon footprint (CF). Then, based on an updated analysis of the situation—that is, calculations of the generated environmental impact—they can propose action plans to reduce or even offset their GHG emissions. Therefore, calculating, tracking, and reporting CFs in HEIs is the starting point for achieving more sustainable educational institutions [10][7]. There are examples in the literature where different HEIs calculated their carbon emissions or attempted to contribute to climate change [11][8]. Accounting for carbon emissions and reporting them reflects due diligence and can serve several purposes, including making efforts to increasingly reduce these emissions [12][9].
Carbon Footprint (CF) is a very useful decision-making tool that allows organizations to measure and communicate the effect of their activities on the environment [13][10]. Also, it is an effective tool for exercising a higher degree of control over activities that affect the environment. In addition, this tool provides a baseline for assessing the effect of future mitigation efforts [14][11]. Therefore, reducing the CFs of HEIs and training professionals along this path is an extremely important process for committing to achieve the reduction of GHG emissions into the atmosphere, according to the 2030 agenda goals. There are different international standards for calculating organizations’ CF. Among them, the most outstanding regulatory frameworks mentioned in the literature are the GHG Protocol (2004), ISO 14064-1 (2006) and ISO/TR 14069 (2013), PAS 2050 (2011), and PAS 2060 (2014). Although they were initially applied to check the requirements for quantifying GHG emissions within organizations under the Kyoto Protocol (2008), their use is currently spreading to other types of organizations that are voluntarily interested in calculating and reporting their CF, as is the case of HEIs [10][7].
HEIs are usually made up of several buildings intended for classrooms, laboratories, offices, cafeterias, and residences, among others. Some have power plants, transportation circuits, water systems, or health services, depending on the number of students. Any of these activities has emission sources that contribute to a CF and need to be identified and quantified. This task can become very complicated, depending on the type and size of the HEI [10][7] (Valls-Val & Bovea, 2021). Considering the heterogeneous structure of most HEIs, it is important to develop a campus sustainability approach applicable to institutions of all types, sizes, and different structures [1,15][1][12]. Therefore, as a preliminary step for calculating the CFs of HEIs, it is necessary to understand the activities that contribute to climate change by creating a GHG emissions inventory [16][13].
Santovito and Abiko (2018) suggest how to prepare the GHG inventory; they have identified some relevant emission sources, which lead to a better vision of opportunities for GHG mitigation. However, after reading the selected articles, there is still no specific standard methodology for preparing the inventory and calculating HEIs’ GHG emissions because each institution has its peculiarities. [17][14] This same literature shows examples of HEIs’ efforts to make their campuses a greener space by developing several actions towards decarbonization. The so-called Green Campus Initiatives (GCIs) are being established at HEIs as a strategy to promote sustainable development (SD). They are focused on implementing a sustainable infrastructure, reducing environmental impacts and economic costs, and raising students’ awareness of the SD concept itself. GCI models cover HEIs’ sustainability initiatives, which focus on meeting the goals set by the Talloires Declaration and SDGs [18][15].
For Pereira Ribeiro et al. (2021), the Green Campus (GC) concept is holistic, where mental awareness and action become an integral part of HEIs’ daily activities. A GC can be achieved by implementing GCIs, which focus on HEIs’ environmental, economic, and social issues. Much more than a portfolio of projects and programs related to environmental issues, GCIs should be at the core of all campus activities [19][16]. Although there is no single model for operating a GC, in this context the term “greening” refers to actions intended to minimize adverse socio-environmental impacts [2,18,20][15][17][18]. The actions resulting from GCIs can be divided into different categories depending on the expected outcome. These categories are mainly related to keeping university resources and minimizing negative impacts at the socio-environmental and economic levels [18][15].
Campus “greening”, or a sustainability campus, considers the operational aspects, based on environmental impacts, and the educational aspect, based on society education [22][19]. Currently, GC gives more emphasis to the dissemination of sustainable ideas and education due to their high social impact [23,24][20][21]. However, the environmental impacts and resource efficiency of universities themselves cannot be ignored, as there are more than 13,000 universities worldwide and the number is still growing, especially in developing countries with greater environmental problems [25][22]. Due to their high complexity and strong interdependencies, a GC that focuses on a single system usually does not work well. However, most efforts toward GC have sometimes been fragmented, focusing on a single area such as waste management. This lack of integrated efforts can lead to the inefficient implementation of a program’s goals.

2. Green Campus Initiatives versus CF Reduction in HEIs

One of the main paths for the construction of a GC has been the CF reduction practices in the HEIs, which also characterize the GCIs, with improvements in lighting, temperature control, better ventilation, and indoor air quality, as well as the practices that contribute for healthy and sustainable environments. It is also necessary to change the mindset on the part of the HEI management to ensure the effectiveness of green practices. Awareness practices in the academic community also play an important and transforming role in this journey. In the study by Artun (2021), like other universities, GCIs was established at the North Cyprus Campus of the Middle East Technical University (METU) in Ankara, Turkey, and various actions were implemented over the period of its research to make the campus greener. This same author brought important examples of green initiatives implemented in that institution: tree planting, a shuttle bus for staff/students to travel around the campus, promoting bicycles as a means of transport (e.g., bicycle rental, road signs to share the road between pedestrians, bicycles and cars), solid waste reduction and garbage recycling, flea markets to promote the purchase of used goods, the reuse of waste through artistic activities, and efficient practices in the uses of water and electricity [11][8].

3. Main Examples of the Literature Studied

There is a balance in the literature regarding the achievement of classification by scopes, where researcher identified each type of scope in each study. Some studies evaluated CF by combining more than one type of scope, or by analysis and attainment of all three scopes. The range of treatment by HEIs, individually or combined, reached: scope 1, 26 articles; scope 2, 23 articles; and scope 3, 24 articles. Despite observing a balance of scope treatment in the literature, this does not mean that scope 3 was treated uniformly, as scopes 1 and 2 were. As already mentioned, because it is broader and has its indicators defined by the HEI itself, scope 3 does not show balance in the comparisons between HEIs since it is very difficult to standardize indicators for this scope. For Idundun et al. (2021), HEIs can do more to improve CF estimates, particularly those associated with scope 3 emissions, and establish standardized models to account for, measure, monitor, and report fossil fuel emissions in collaboration with other stakeholders [31][23]. According to Redfern and Zhong (2017), policymakers are often reluctant to include scope 3 emissions as part of emission reduction goals due to the difficulty of accurately monitoring the emission flow embedded in traded goods and services, but their importance should not be ignored. The contribution of scope 3 emissions to the overall carbon footprint is significant. In 2012, the first comprehensive CF of the higher education sector was published; using 2005 baseline data, it estimated that combined scope 3 carbon emissions accounted for over 60% of all sector emissions, with construction accounting for nearly 30% [32,33][24][25]. There is a strong correlation between the environmental performance of a Higher Education Campus (HEC) and its characteristics, namely climate zone and type of institution. Climatic conditions derived from the location are useful for estimating HEC resource use, especially energy use due to heating and cooling needs. Climatic conditions are also useful for estimating the potential for renewable technologies in HECs since they vary with local weather and geographic conditions. Another important indicator for HEC categorization was the type of institution, particularly its research intensity [34,35][26][27]. Another identified fact was that electricity was the highest indicator of impact and generation of GHG emissions in the atmosphere. Therefore, renewable energy was considered an option for GHG reduction. Strathmore University, in Kenya, installed a grid-connected rooftop solar photovoltaic (PV) system designed to provide electricity to the entire University campus for a period of 25 years. The project should increase sustainability efforts through partnerships with global institutions to answer to climate change and carbon emissions, although Africa has the lowest rates of contribution to global warming [36][28]. Helmers et al. (2021) mentioned that the largest part of a university’s GHG emissions impact also refers to energy consumption, in terms of electricity and heat production. The second set of impacts of relatively high relevance is in the area of mobility. This finding was taken from Helmers’ survey of 18 different universities around the world, where energy consumption also created the highest impact [29]. According to Helmes et al. (2021) and the Corporate Value Chain report (scope 3), which is on the GHG protocol website, almost all universities that report CO2 emissions follow a scheme given by the “GHG Protocol Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard”. Although allocating impacts due to this scheme by types of scopes is simple, as already mentioned in a previous topic many universities partially deviate from the scheme and apply individual allocations. The most relevant impact (energy consumption) generally belongs to scope 2; however, large universities are establishing their power plants, such as University College Cork, the University of Cape Town, and Yale University, shifting the impacts from energy production to scope 1 [29]. Today, many universities already have photovoltaic (PV) systems, among them the Nanyang Technological University (NTU), the Environmental Campus (Umwelt-Campus) Birkenfeld of the University of Trier, and the Leuphana University of Lüneburg, who are reallocating part of their impact from energy production from scope 2 to scope 1. In addition, if the university operates its fleet of vehicles, these impacts belong to scope 1, but when using external vehicles for business trips it will be a scope 3 impact. Therefore, as a whole, it is still a challenge to compare the university’s CF impacts based on the separation by scopes 1, 2, and 3 due to the GHG Protocol’s Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard [29]. To make carbon management in HEIs worthwhile, it is essential to overcome the barriers of time, cost, and data reliability in assessing GHG emissions by scope. Even with so many challenges, HEIs can achieve carbon neutrality, as evidenced by the case of Leuphana University Lüneburg in Germany, which reached this goal through the maximum use of modern building technology and the highly sophisticated management of green energy. In this case, the University produces an energy surplus and can almost completely offset its GHG emissions. However, maximum use of technology means a high upstream carbon impact due to the materials used, which can lead to a longer payback time and change carbon performance, an effect that has not been quantified for universities yet. Low or even zero carbon emissions can also be achieved by purchasing carbon certificates, and combining these two forms for reducing or neutralizing the CFs of HEIs: technology and market [29].

References

  1. Jain, S.; Agarwal, A.; Jani, V.; Singhal, S.; Sharma, P.; Jalan, R. Assessment of carbon neutrality and sustainability in educational campuses (CaNSEC): A general framework. Ecol. Indic. 2017, 76, 131–143.
  2. Leal Filho, W.; Shiel, C.; Paço, A.; Mifsud, M.; Ávila, L.V.; Brandli, L.L.; Molthan-Hill, P.; Pace, P.; Azeiteiro, U.M.; Vargas, V.R.; et al. Sustainable Development Goals and sustainability teaching at universities: Falling behind or getting ahead of the pack? J. Clean. Prod. 2019, 232, 285–294.
  3. Jones, N.; Roumeliotis, S.; Iosifides, T.; Hatziantoniou, M.; Sfakianaki, E.; Tsigianni, E.; Thivaiou, K.; Biliraki, A.; Evaggelinos, K. Sustainable Development Policies as Indicators and Pre-Conditions for Sustainability Efforts at Universities: Fact or fiction? Int. J. Sustain. High. Educ. 2018, 19, 85–113.
  4. Adjei, R.; Addaney, M.; Danquah, L. The ecological footprint and environmental sustainability of students of a public university in Ghana: Developing ecologically sustainable practices. Int. J. Sustain. High. Educ. 2021, 22, 1552–1572.
  5. Cordero, E.C.; Centeno, D.; Todd, A.M. The role of climate change education on individual lifetime carbon emissions. PLoS ONE 2020, 15, e0206266.
  6. Morés, A. A universidade e sua função social: Os avanços da ead e suas contribuições nos processos de ensino e aprendizagem. Reflexão e Ação 2017, 25, 141.
  7. Valls-Val, K.; Bovea, M.D. Carbon footprint in Higher Education Institutions: A literature review and prospects for future research. Clean Technol. Environ. Policy 2021, 23, 2523–2542.
  8. Artun, E. Assessment of Carbon Footprint of a Campus with Sustainability Initiatives. Gazi Univ. J. Sci. 2021, 34, 652–663.
  9. Yañez, P.; Sinha, A.; Vásquez, M. Carbon footprint estimation in a university campus: Evaluation and insights. Sustainability 2020, 12, 181.
  10. Valls-Val, K.; Bovea, M.D. Carbon footprint assessment tool for universities: CO2UNV. Sustain. Prod. Consum. 2022, 29, 791–804.
  11. Letete, T.C.M.; Mungwe, N.W.; Guma, M.; Marquard, A. The carbon footprint of the University of Cape Town. J. Energy S. Afr. 2011, 22, 2–12.
  12. Hahn, R.; Kühnen, M. Determinants of sustainability reporting: A review of results, trends, theory, and opportunities in an expanding field of research. J. Clean. Prod. 2013, 59, 5–21.
  13. Bailey, G.; LaPoint, T. Comparing greenhouse gas emissions across Texas universities. Sustainability 2016, 8, 80.
  14. Santovito, R.F.; Abiko, A.K. Recommendations for Preparation of Anthropogenic Greenhouse Gases Emission Inventory for University Campuses. In Towards Green Campus Operations; World Sustainability Series; Springer: Cham, Switzerland, 2018; pp. 297–313.
  15. Pereira Ribeiro, J.M.; Hoeckesfeld, L.; Dal Magro, C.B.; Favretto, J.; Barichello, R.; Lenzi, F.C.; Secchi, L.; Montenegro de Lima, C.R.; Salgueirinho Osório de Andrade Guerra, J.B. Green Campus Initiatives as sustainable development dissemination at higher education institutions: Students’ perceptions. J. Clean. Prod. 2021, 312.
  16. An Taisce, Environmental Education Unit. The Green-Campus Programme Smarter Sustainable Campus Communities A Guide for Campuses Embarking on the Green-Campus Programme; Green-Campus Office: Dublin, Ireland, 2013.
  17. Alshuwaikhat, H.M.; Abubakar, I. An integrated approach to achieving campus sustainability: Assessment of the current campus environmental management practices. J. Clean. Prod. 2008, 16, 1777–1785.
  18. Huang, K.T.; Huang, W.P.; Lin, T.P.; Hwang, R.L. Implementation of green building specification credits for better thermal conditions in naturally ventilated school buildings. Build. Environ. 2015, 86, 141–150.
  19. Disterheft, A.; Ferreira Da Silva Caeiro, S.S.; Ramos, M.R.; De Miranda Azeiteiro, U.M. Environmental Management Systems (EMS) implementation processes and practices in European higher education institutions—Top-down versus participatory approaches. J. Clean. Prod. 2012, 31, 80–90.
  20. Tan, H.; Chen, S.; Shi, Q.; Wang, L. Development of green campus in China. J. Clean. Prod. 2014, 64, 646–653.
  21. Velazquez, L.; Munguia, N.; Platt, A.; Taddei, J. Sustainable university: What can be the matter? J. Clean. Prod. 2006, 14, 810–819.
  22. Geng, Y.; Liu, K.; Xue, B.; Fujita, T. Creating a “green university” in China: A case of Shenyang University. J. Clean. Prod. 2013, 61, 13–19.
  23. Idundun, E.; Hursthouse, A.S.; McLellan, I. Carbon Management in UK Higher Education Institutions: An Overview. Sustainability 2021, 13, 10896.
  24. HEFCE. 2012. Available online: https://dera.ioe.ac.uk/13478/1/supplysectoremissions.pdf (accessed on 20 September 2022).
  25. Redfern, P.; Zhong, H. The role of EcoCampus in addressing sustainability in UK universities. Front. Eng. Manag. 2017, 4, 193.
  26. Larsen, H.N.; Pettersen, J.; Solli, C.; Hertwich, E.G. Investigating the Carbon Footprint of a University—The case of NTNU. J. Clean. Prod. 2013, 48, 39–47.
  27. Horan, W.; Shawe, R.; Moles, R.; O’Regan, B. Development and evaluation of a method to estimate the potential of decarbonization technologies deployment at higher education campuses. Sustain. Cities Soc. 2019, 47, 101464.
  28. Munene, L.N. Reducing Carbon Emissions: Strathmore University Contributions Towards Sustainable Development in Kenya. Afr. J. Bus. Ethics 2019, 13, 1–11.
  29. Helmers, E.; Chang, C.C.; Dauwels, J. Carbon footprinting of universities worldwide: Part I—objective comparison by standardized metrics. Environ. Sci. Eur. 2021, 33, 30.
More
© Text is available under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Video Production Service
Feedback