Decarbonising Academia’s Flyout Culture

Flight is technologically and culturally central to academic life. Academia’s flyout culture is built on a set of shared beliefs and values about the importance of flying to being an academic. But flight also generates a large proportion of academia’s carbon emissions, posing a cultural challenge to flight’s ongoing importance. In this chapter, we assess the underlying values animating flyout culture and examine how those values might change as universities respond to pressures to decarbonise operations. We approach this analysis in four parts. First, we identify six values that support flyout culture—values of ideas, efficiency, quality, evaluation, recreation and status. Second, we discuss how each value will be affected by four modes of decarbonisation: carbon offsets; shifting travel modes; centralised, infrequent or slow conferencing; and virtual communication. Third, we consider new values that may emerge as universities decarbonise: values of localism, climate concern, emissions transparency and verification. Finally, we discuss inertia that will resist change and optimism about how academia can realign its operations and culture with a liveable climate. As decarbonisation pressures grow, the interplay of cultural dimensions will determine if such efforts succeed or fail.

Remote sensing reveals multi-decadal losses of tree cover in California driven by increasing fire disturbance and climate stress

Forests provide natural climate solutions for sequestering carbon and mitigating climate change yet are threatened by increasing temperatures and disturbance. Accurate information on vegetation dynamics is lacking in some regions with forest carbon offset programs and dense forests like California. To address this, we combined remote sensing observations with geospatial databases to develop annual maps of vegetation cover (tree, shrub, herbaceous) and disturbance type (fires, harvest, and forest die-off) in California at 30 m resolution from 1985 to 2021. California lost 3783 km2 of its tree cover area (5.5% relative to initial cover). Early gains in tree cover area were more than offset by fire-driven declines, resulting in greater shrub and herbaceous cover area. Fires and tree cover area loss occurred where temperatures were high or increasing, whereas tree cover gain occurred in cooler areas. Disturbance and warming are threatening the integrity of California's forests and its carbon offsets program.

Guidelines to Make Victoria University School of Architecture and Design Carbon Neutral Through Minimising its Reliance on Carbon Offsets

<p>Universities have always had an important leadership role in society in demonstrating the types of changes that need to occur with respect to the prime issues of the time. All around the world, universities are lining up to declare themselves the next carbon neutral school as part of the global trend of becoming "sustainable." But what does it really mean to be carbon neutral? In 2007 Victoria University's School of Architecture and Design (SoAD) declared themselves the first carbon neutral campus in the world through the use of sponsored and purchased carbon credits. However 100% reliance on offset schemes is not the answer as it does not guarantee the capture of carbon forever. Also, the continuing purchase of carbon offsets could be costly and maintaining businessas- usual without any significant changes will result in continuing environmental degradation as a result of the SoAD's unsustainable activities. This research explores various solutions for reducing the three biggest factors that contribute towards the emissions, which are energy, transport and waste. It looks at the difference between behavioural changes (low cost) and technological investment (high cost) in order for SoAD to reduce its carbon footprint to meet three possible reduction targets, established by this research as 25%, 50% and 90%. The findings are that 25% could be saved through simple behavioural changes which cost very little, as they are mainly related to avoiding wastage, 50% could be saved through a combination of low and high cost measures, and 90% comes from considerable investment in new technologies or drastic reduction in use. A further aim of the research is to translate all possible savings into other means, such as knowing how much carbon or land is saved, using a measure such as the ecological footprint, and more importantly what these savings mean to the third world where resources are scarce and expensive. If SoAD's wasteful activities from neglect can be translated into saving people's lives in other nations, it might lead to more responsible energy use. What this research indicates is that for SoAD to be carbon neutral various factors need to be considered and user behaviour is paramount.</p>

Guidelines to Make Victoria University School of Architecture and Design Carbon Neutral Through Minimising its Reliance on Carbon Offsets

<p>Universities have always had an important leadership role in society in demonstrating the types of changes that need to occur with respect to the prime issues of the time. All around the world, universities are lining up to declare themselves the next carbon neutral school as part of the global trend of becoming "sustainable." But what does it really mean to be carbon neutral? In 2007 Victoria University's School of Architecture and Design (SoAD) declared themselves the first carbon neutral campus in the world through the use of sponsored and purchased carbon credits. However 100% reliance on offset schemes is not the answer as it does not guarantee the capture of carbon forever. Also, the continuing purchase of carbon offsets could be costly and maintaining businessas- usual without any significant changes will result in continuing environmental degradation as a result of the SoAD's unsustainable activities. This research explores various solutions for reducing the three biggest factors that contribute towards the emissions, which are energy, transport and waste. It looks at the difference between behavioural changes (low cost) and technological investment (high cost) in order for SoAD to reduce its carbon footprint to meet three possible reduction targets, established by this research as 25%, 50% and 90%. The findings are that 25% could be saved through simple behavioural changes which cost very little, as they are mainly related to avoiding wastage, 50% could be saved through a combination of low and high cost measures, and 90% comes from considerable investment in new technologies or drastic reduction in use. A further aim of the research is to translate all possible savings into other means, such as knowing how much carbon or land is saved, using a measure such as the ecological footprint, and more importantly what these savings mean to the third world where resources are scarce and expensive. If SoAD's wasteful activities from neglect can be translated into saving people's lives in other nations, it might lead to more responsible energy use. What this research indicates is that for SoAD to be carbon neutral various factors need to be considered and user behaviour is paramount.</p>

Forest carbon offsets over a smart ledger

2021 has seen increasing climate policy action and net-zero commitments by individuals, companies and governments. A crucial aspect for the transition to net-zero is the voluntary offset market, with projects relating to REDD+ amongst the most popular. Policy-makers are grappling to make such markets efficient and scalable, however, many issues undermine these efforts pertaining to additionality, permanence, leakage and property and community rights. Digitisation has also accelerated, with technologies, notably blockchain, starting to enter the climate change space. Its use is becoming increasingly common within the voluntary market and, in particular, REDD+, although such projects, are generally in proposal or pilot stages. Given the emergence of other technologies such as AI and machine learning, the technologisation of REDD+ is only likely to increase. Thus modern technologies are being seen by developers as a potential solution to issues hindering REDD+. Potential benefits arising from technology use are unlikely to fully accrue without a wider focus on what has undermined REDD+ to date. As such, there is an urgency to establish an understanding of how projects can utilise these technologies to reduce long-standing issues. To do this, we discuss these issues together with technologies’ capacity to address drawbacks of REDD+ projects.

Forest carbon offsets over a smart ledger

2021 has seen increasing climate policy action and net-zero commitments by individuals, companies and governments. A crucial aspect for the transition to net-zero is the voluntary offset market, with projects relating to REDD+ amongst the most popular. Policy-makers are grappling to make such markets efficient and scalable, however, many issues undermine these efforts pertaining to additionality, permanence, leakage and property and community rights. Digitisation has also accelerated, with technologies, notably blockchain, starting to enter the climate change space. Its use is becoming increasingly common within the voluntary market and, in particular, REDD+, although such projects, are generally in proposal or pilot stages. Given the emergence of other technologies such as AI and machine learning, the technologisation of REDD+ is only likely to increase. Thus modern technologies are being seen by developers as a potential solution to issues hindering REDD+. Potential benefits arising from technology use are unlikely to fully accrue without a wider focus on what has undermined REDD+ to date. As such, there is an urgency to establish an understanding of how projects can utilise these technologies to reduce long-standing issues. To do this, we discuss these issues together with technologies’ capacity to address drawbacks of REDD+ projects

Nudging Consumers Toward Greener Air Travel by Adding Carbon to the Equation in Online Flight Search

This study explores the potential to promote lower-emissions air travel by providing consumers with information about the carbon emissions of alternative flight choices in the context of online flight search and booking. We surveyed over 450 employees of the University of California, Davis, asking them to choose among hypothetical flight options for university-related business trips. Emissions estimates for flight alternatives were prominently displayed alongside cost, layovers, and airport, and the lowest-emissions flight was labeled “Greenest Flight.” We found an impressive rate of willingness to pay for lower-emissions flights: around $200/ton of CO2e saved, a magnitude higher than that seen in carbon offsets programs, and consistent with findings from a prior study with a non-university-based sample. In a second step of analysis, we estimated the carbon and cost impacts if the university were to adopt a flight-search interface that prioritizes carbon emissions information and displays alternatives from multiple regional airports in their employee travel-booking portal. We estimated potential annual savings of 79 tons of CO2e, while reducing airfare costs by $56,000, mainly through an increased willingness of travelers to take advantage of cheaper nonstop (lower-emissions) flights from a more distant airport in the region over indirect flights from their preferred airport for medium-distance flights. Institutionalizing this strategy within organizations with large travel budgets could reduce personal and organizational carbon footprints. If implemented across major flight-search engines, it could potentially reduce the demand for higher-emissions flights, leading to an industry-wide impact on aviation emissions.