Environmental News Network - To Reduce Carbon, Colleges Should Target Purchasing, Travel

Details: By Cornell University; 06.Jul

Activities beyond campus – such as business air travel, student commutes and purchases of goods like lab equipment – account for more than 60% of Cornell’s carbon emissions, according to new research that analyzed the university’s greenhouse gas consumption through the lens of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Julie Swatson

Activities beyond campus – such as business air travel, student commutes and purchases of goods like lab equipment – account for more than 60% of Cornell’s carbon emissions, according to new research that analyzed the university’s greenhouse gas consumption through the lens of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We used the COVID pandemic opportunity to figure out hotspots of our campus carbon emissions, to identify opportunities for making Cornell greener and carbon-neutral,” said Fengqi You, the Roxanne E. and Michael J. Zak Professor in Energy Systems Engineering at the College of Engineering “We sought opportunities for improvements.”

You is a senior author of “COVID-19 Impact on an Academic Institution’s Greenhouse Gas Inventory: The Case of Cornell University,” which appears in the forthcoming Journal of Cleaner Production, Aug. 20.

As Cornell has taken steps to reduce carbon dioxide emissions over the past two decades, addressing campus consumption may be the next green frontier. Using Cornell as a case study, the researchers created a framework aimed at helping universities reach their climate goals in the coming years; Cornell seeks to achieve carbon neutrality by 2035.

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To Reduce Carbon, Colleges Should Target Purchasing, Travel