As a student, you may not know how to implement the reduction of your carbon footprint. It is not easy to decide how to start, chose between the transport, the food or the digital consumption…
What about having a look at the main contribution to this student carbon footprint? This would help identifying the most significant contributors... a bit like targeting high carb and fat food when you start a low-calories diet for your summer body.
Step 1
What contributes to my personnal student carbon foorprint?
The individual carbon footprint is around 16 tons eqCO2. Among this, around 4-5 tons are linked to the water consumption and public services, which means the schools and colleges, health care, etc… Good news: our University puts strong efforts towards a global reduction of this specific contribution to your carbon footprint.
Now, let’s have alook at the remaining 11 tons, on which you can exert a influence by yourself.
We have commited and expert to model the average footprint of a student at ULiege. Those 11 tons are constituted by (model: Th. Wansart, Neo-Solutions):
- 0,6t for your accomodation (the building)
- 1,9t for heating and electricity
- 2,0t for your daily transportation
- 2,0t for unusual transportation (ex: one trip/year by plane)
- 2,9t for your food
- 1,9t for your shopping and goods: clothing, numerical equipments (computer, smartphone...)
Calculate your ecological footprint
By making the right choices on a daily basis, you can significantly reduce your carbon footprint and, therefore, your impact on the climate change.
Heating, food and transportation are the main contributors to your emissions.
In order to fulfill the climate commitments, the objective is to cut down by 50% our emissions by 2030. It’s challenging! The safest road to success is to go step by step, reducing by 5-10% every year. Once a new habit is implemented, you look for the next one... step by step.
Now it is your turn to cut one ton of carbon at a time! How to play? In the following, you will find some tips to halve your personnal carbon footprint, by progressively implementing all those new habits.
Discover all the challenges to reduce your footprint!
Step 2
What can I do to reduce each contributor?
It is generally out of your reach to modify the home where you live, wether you stay at your parent’s or rent a student room downtown. This is the footprint linked to its building. However, it is possible to modify your way of life! How?
- Turn down the heating by 2°C, wear a sweatshirt: - 220Kg
- Do not heat the unused rooms, clog the air leaks: -210Kg
- Reduce the electrical consumption by 20%*: -50Kg
TOTAL: - 480 Kg
* Need some tips? Shorten your shower, avoid electric thumble dryer, shut down electrical aplliance, defreeze the freezer…
Find more
Belgian electrical mix: data from Elia
Let’s sketch a student driving from home to the University everyday (15 km trip), sitting single in his car. Once a week, he also drives 50km for his hobbies/sports, and once a year, he goes on holiday with his familly (2000km by car) as well as a city-trip by plane . Every 2 years, he could even afford a transatlantic ticket for holiday or visiting friends/familly (kind of a lucky student, isn’t he?).
By the way…did you know that a return ticket to New York City consumes your "carbon budget" for a WHOLE YEAR?
In a way... transportation are the Big Mac Menu with unlimited french fries and chocolate sundae of your low-carb diet...
Ready to make it shrink? here you go:
- Replace half of the journeys to ULiege by public transportation (train, bus): -690 Kg
- Reorganize the work towards 50% teleworking/teleteaching: -200Kg
- All journeys by car are shared by two persons: -450 Kg
- Ecodriving: -50Kg
- Remplace one daily journey (2x10km) by bike (=2x15 min): -400Kg
- Chosing a holiday destination to reach by train instead of plane: - 2000 Kg
TOTAL: - 3800 Kg
The most contributing food are the following: beef meat, other meats and cheese. Why? Not only because cattle breeding relay on a lot of cereals, mostly imported from oversea, but also because cows emit methane during digestion, a greenhouse gas that is much more powerful than CO2 itself.
More about meat
You don’t feel like dropping meat? Make the right choice, taking into account that one kilo of beef has a carbon footprint 7 times larger than one kilo of chicken...
Pay attention as well to other products: imported by plane, grown off-season in heated greenhouses…they constitute a heavy toll in terms of carbon footprint.
More
So, ready to spare 1 ton of carbon? Here is the proposed menu:
- Reduce the meat by 3: -340Kg
- Replace bottled water by tap water: -250Kg
- Swap ready-to-eat dinner with fresh food, following seasons: -240Kg
- Eat local, avoid food imported by plane: -170 Kg
TOTAL: -1000 Kg
Leo is a student owning a laptop (used during 5 years), a smartphone (replaced after 2 years), a games console (kept for 3 years) and sharing other terminals with his parents (television, home cinema...). He spends 2h30/day on his smartphone and 2h30/day on his computer, looking at videos and chatting on social medias. He also possesses clothing and shoes that rea replaced on a two-years basis.
How can he cut his carbon footprint by 900 Kg?
Follow the guide!
- Purchasing half of his furniture from second hand: -160 Kg
- Keeping his clothes 4 years instead of 2 years: - 240Kg
- Buying half of his clothes second hand: -130 Kg
- Looking at videos in medium quality instead of HD*: -250Kg
- Increasing the lifetime of his screens: -50Kg
- Reducing the need for extra terminals ( digital tablet OR laptop, not both)= -90Kg
TOTAL= - 920Kg
*More about the impact of numerical consumption?
See the webpage of the shift Project