Carbon Countdown: Are Waste Management and Travel Emissions Keeping the College from Carbon Neutrality?

Two of the areas targeted by the 2008 Climate Action Plan (CAP) to help the College reach carbon neutrality were waste management and travel emissions. At the time of the plan, travel and waste accounted for 10% of the College’s greenhouse gas emissions. The CAP laid out a variety of recommendations for how the College could reduce emissions from these sources, including increasing public awareness and promoting conservation.

Since the CAP was adopted in 2008, the College has made progress in some aspects. How has the College progressed in waste management and travel? How it can still improve? Carbon Countdown examines.

The least significant contribution to greenhouse gas emissions comes from waste. Waste from the College decomposes in landfills or is burned, which releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. This source of emissions is responsible for only 1% of the College’s emissions. The College already sends all of its waste to the recycling center, where it is sorted and, if possible, recycled. In addition to these efforts, MiddShift — a College group advocating carbon neutrality — suggested, among other things, that the College integrate waste minimization and sustainable practices into the residential life system, and create a service requirement for first-years in the dining halls or recycling center to develop an understanding of the waste that is generated by the College.

While there have been campaigns to raise student awareness about food waste at the College, such as Weigh the Waste, during which volunteers collected and measured dining hall food waste before students cleared their plates on the carousel, sustainability is certainly not stressed in the residential life system. Overall campus awareness about waste management is minimal. How the College deals with waste is far removed from the student body; this does not encourage students to think about the waste they generate. Students may be aware of recycling and composting, but rarely go out of their way to help recycle or compost waste. The College manages its waste well, but still needs to increase awareness about waste and sustainability, and encourage the student body to think more about its impact.

Vehicles and emissions from travel account for another 9% of the College’s greenhouse gas emissions. As the CAP makes abundantly clear, these emissions cannot be fully eliminated within the confines of current technologies. Travel for academic, administrative, athletic, advancement, admissions, student services and visitor purposes will still be required, and will necessarily result in greenhouse gas emissions.

However, emissions from travel can be reduced, if not eliminated. The CAP details several strategies by which this can be achieved, including increasing education about the impacts of travel, stressing videoconferencing as an alternative to traveling and upgrading the vehicle fleet to more energy efficient vehicles, such as hybrid cars. It is important to note, however, that the College does not include travel of students studying abroad or faculty and staff commuting to work in its calculations of emissions due to these sources. Including these sources could dramatically change the assessment of greenhouse gas emissions due to travel.

Since the CAP was adopted in 2008, the College’s greenhouse gas emissions from waste and air travel have increased, but emissions from mobile combustion have decreased. In 2007, the College estimated that it generated the equivalent of 137 metric tons of carbon dioxide due to solid waste. By 2014, that number had increased slightly to 153 metric tons. Emissions from air travel increased more dramatically over this same period, from 1381 metric tons in 2007 to 2346 metric tons in 2014. Emissions from mobile combustion (which include road vehicles, as well as construction equipment) have decreased from 408 metric tons to 370 metric tons.

In light of the increasing size of the student body, it is admirable that emissions from waste and mobile combustion have held even or declined. Air travel is a much larger contributor to the College’s emissions, though, and yearly emissions have increased by almost 1000 metric tons since 2007. According to data from the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment (ACUPCC), this increase in emissions is offset by sequestration from college-owned land. While the College has made progress since 2007, student awareness about emissions is still lacking and emissions from air travel have increased dramatically. As the College approaches carbon neutrality in 2016, there is still much room for improvement in these areas.