Air & Climate

Introduction

Global climate change is having myriad negative impacts throughout the world, including increased frequency and potency of extreme weather events, sea level rise, species extinction, water shortages, declining agricultural production, and spread of diseases. The impacts are particularly pronounced for low-income communities and countries. In addition, institutions that inventory and take steps to reduce their air pollutant emissions can positively impact the health of the campus community, as well as the health of their local communities and regions.

1187 resources

Cli Fi, Sci Fi, and the Culture of Sustainability

  • University of Hawaii Kapiolani Community College (HI)
  • AASHE (PA)

Climate fiction, or cli-fi, is a form of literature that features a changed/changing climate or global warming as part of the character, setting, or plot of a novel or ...

  • Posted June 28, 2023
  • Videos & Webinars
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Reducing students’ ecological footprints through self-developed interventions

  • Nelson Mandela University (Eastern Cape)
  • University of Pretoria

An increasing emphasis on taking personal responsibility for making changes to address climate change and support sustainable development is hindered by the limited tools and guidance available that enable the ...

  • Posted June 15, 2023
  • Publications
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Beyond the COVID-19 Pandemic: Can Online Teaching Reduce the Carbon Footprint of the Internationalisation of UK Higher Education?

  • University of Sussex (Sussex)

The COVID-19 pandemic has been a learning curve for Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in devising and delivering teaching online. This transition has enabled HEIs to continue teaching students, especially international ...

  • Posted June 15, 2023
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Low carbon futures: assessing the status of decarbonisation efforts at universities within a 2050 perspective

  • Nottingham Trent University
  • University of Coimbra
  • Hamburg University of Applied Sciences
  • Open University of the Netherlands
  • Universidade Fernando Pessoa
  • Universidade Federal da Paraíba

Background: The implementation of sustainability at universities means that they can also play a key role in the transition to a low carbon economy, and in assisting global efforts towards ...

  • Posted June 15, 2023
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Reducing air travel emissions in academia: an exploration of universities’ manoeuvring room

  • University of Graz

Purpose: This paper aims to explore the manoeuvring room of higher education institutions to take action to reduce emissions from academic flying. In particular, this study investigates how university staff ...

  • Posted June 15, 2023
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An assessment of attitudes and perceptions of international university students on climate change

  • University of Malta (Northern Harbor District)
  • Bournemouth University (Dorset)
  • Hamburg University of Applied Sciences
  • University of Beira Interior
  • Liverpool John Moores University
  • Addis Ababa University

Universities have an unrivaled potential to educate students on climate change issues and to actively engage them in climate affairs, both as citizens and influencers of future professions. Despite this ...

  • Posted June 15, 2023
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Sustainable Academia: The Responsibilities of Academic Historians in a Climate-Impacted World

  • University of Western Australia
  • La Trobe University (Victoria)
  • University College London (London)
  • University of Tasmania (TAS)
  • King's College London

Environmental degradation is the most serious challenge of the twenty-first century. To date, academic historians, among many others, have failed to fully confront the climate and biodiversity crises, often engaging ...

  • Posted June 15, 2023
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Internationalisation, sustainability and the contested environmental impacts of international student mobility

  • University of St Andrews (Scotland)
  • The James Hutton Institute

Purpose: This paper aims to stimulate the nascent research agenda on the environmental sustainability of the ongoing mushrooming of international student mobility (ISM). The higher education (HE) system in the ...

  • Posted June 15, 2023
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Internationalisation and Climate Impacts of Higher Education: Towards an Analytical Framework

  • University College London (London)

Internationalisation of higher education has diverging implications for climate change, on the one hand entailing greenhouse gas emissions through mobility, but also contributing to climate action through international collaboration. These ...

  • Posted June 15, 2023
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Footprints in Action: How UVA Is Managing Its Sustainability Stewardship

  • University of New Hampshire (NH)
  • University of Virginia (VA)
  • U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (DC)

Evaluating sustainability stewardship at higher educational institutions is essential to working towards improving our environment. Many institutions have used environmental footprint indicators as a way to evaluate, track, and improve ...

  • Posted June 15, 2023
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Uncertain futures: climate change and international student mobility in Europe

  • University of Bristol
  • University of Bath

The rapid growth of international student mobility has attracted much research on the many benefits it offers to students, higher education institutions, and societies in general. However, studies on the ...

  • Posted June 15, 2023
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Key insights from climate communication – and how they can inspire sustainability in higher education

  • Hochschule Konstanz für Technik, Wirtschaft und Gestaltung

Purpose: To combat climate change and safeguard a liveable future, humanity needs fundamental and rapid social change. The purpose of this paper is to show, why and how climate communication ...

  • Posted June 15, 2023
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Grappling with Climate Change and the Internationalization of the Higher Education: An Eco-Socialist Perspective

  • University of Melbourne (Victoria)

Universities worldwide have come to embrace the rhetoric of environmental sustainability and a commitment to climate action while simultaneously seeking to internationalize themselves within the context of the global economy ...

  • Posted June 15, 2023
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Air travel and academia : understanding the perceived benefits and barriers to reducing air miles

  • University of Canterbury

Air travel is hugely damaging to the environment. It is also a common practice in the academic community. This study contributes an understanding of what drives air travel amongst academics ...

  • Posted June 15, 2023
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How to Assess the Carbon Footprint of a Large University? The Case Study of University of Bologna’s Multicampus Organization

  • Università di Bologna

University campuses represent a heterogeneous ecosystem as to social, economic, energetic, and personal travel planning with a huge impact on hosting cities and territories. Sustainable policies are thus fundamental to ...

  • Posted June 15, 2023
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Quantifying universities’ direct and indirect carbon emissions – the case of Delft University of Technology

  • Technische Universiteit Delft

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present a comprehensive analysis of the carbon footprint of the Delft University of Technology (TU Delft), including direct and indirect emissions from ...

  • Posted June 15, 2023
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What is Ecological Economics?

  • United States Society for Ecological Economics (PA)

This document is a very brief description of the field of ecological economics, which purports to be more trans-disciplinary than environmental economics. The former also claims to have closer ties ...

  • Posted June 8, 2023
  • Course Materials
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Resilience Cohort, Indiana University Environmental Resilience Institute

  • Indiana University Bloomington (IN)

The Resilience Cohort (RC) is a program of the Environmental Resilience Institute (ERI) at Indiana University (IU) that helps Indiana city, town, and county governments to measure and reduce local ...


Boston University Center for Computing & Data Sciences

  • Boston University (MA)

Boston University’s Center for Computing & Data Sciences is the University’s largest [academic building] addition to the Charles River Campus in 50 years and its most sustainable building ...


OwlSwap– A Social Equity and Environmental Sustainability Textiles and Apparel Initiative at Kennesaw State University

  • Kennesaw State University (GA)

Clothing production is one of the most polluting, resource-intensive industrial processes on the planet. On average, over 80 lbs of textile waste per person ends up in landfills every year ...


Duke University Climate Commitment

  • Duke University (NC)

As Duke University enters its second century, President Vincent Price has directed the University to marshal its collective resources and capabilities to address the climate crisis. Stemming from President Price ...


University of Cincinnati Utilities Water Reclamation Project

  • University of Cincinnati (OH)

This is a water reclamation project from the on campus utility plant. Wastewater collection piping was installed running through the power plant, a catch basin for the collected water including ...


Yale Undergrad Confronts the Emanating Climate Threat of Refrigerant Leaks through the Yale Refrigerants Initiative (YRI)

  • Yale University (CT)

At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, many (if not all) universities’ sustainability offices had to reimagine what engaging with their communities looked like and how they’d meet campus ...


Cities Need Trees

  • Boston University (MA)

Over the past year, I have dedicated myself to promoting sustainability in Boston, Massachusetts by advocating for an increased urban forest to combat climate change and rising summer temperatures. The ...


Student-Led Organic Pilot Project at Emory University

  • Emory University (GA)
  • Re:wild Your Campus (TX)

Emory University, in partnership with Re:wild Your Campus, launched an organic pilot program to transition the campus away from synthetic weed-killers and towards organic land management. The Emory student ...


USC Urban Trees Initiative

  • University of Southern California (CA)

The USC Urban Trees Initiative (USC Trees) brings together faculty, staff, and student researchers at the University of Southern California to help the City of Los Angeles and local nonprofits ...


Differential Vulnerability to Extreme Heat Events Among the UC Campuses: A quantitative analysis of social vulnerability to extreme heat in communities surrounding UC Campuses

  • University of California, Office of the President (CA)
  • University of California, Davis (CA)

Extreme heat events are becoming more frequent, intense, and longer as a result of global climate change. Individual characteristics and conditions amplify exposure and impact of extreme heat events. I ...


Air Travel Offset Program

  • University of Pennsylvania (PA)

In July 2021, the University of Pennsylvania enacted a University-wide travel sustainability policy that created the Climate Impact Offset (CLIO) charge to pay for projects that offset the carbon impacts ...


Reducing Energy in the Campus Theatre Complex

  • Texas A&M University (TX)

Rudder Theatre Complex (RTC) supports a large variety of campus events. Whether it is a Broadway show or new student and family orientation session, the RTC experiences high usage year-round ...


Regional Decarbonization Framework (RDF) - Integrated Long-Term Planning from San Diego County

  • San Diego County (CA)

The global scientific consensus is unequivocal: the world is in the midst of a climate crisis and our window to meaningfully reduce greenhouse gas emissions is closing. In order to ...

  • Posted May 17, 2023
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Co-Learning Partnerships & Carbon Management in Denmark & Canada

  • University of Northern British Columbia (BC)
  • Aarhus University

Businesses are increasingly interested in carbon management as a climate change mitigation tool. They want to respond to climate policy targets aimed at keeping global warming within a two-degree centigrade ...

  • Posted May 17, 2023
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Keynote: Peter Kalmus

  • University of British Columbia (BC)
  • National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) (MD)

"I’ve realized that the main impact of reducing our emissions isn’t the emissions reduction itself: by modeling change, we tell a new story of what’s possible, shifting ...

  • Posted May 17, 2023
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Carbon Offsetting: Using high-impact carbon credits to further your sustainability goals

  • Patch (CA)

The latest IPCC report recognizes carbon removal as critical to addressing climate change, but the voluntary carbon market today often leaves institutions of higher education out of the picture as ...

  • Posted May 17, 2023
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Implementing a Proxy Carbon Price (Carbon Pricing 201)

  • Cornell University (NY)
  • Princeton University (NJ)
  • Smith College (MA)
  • University of California, Davis (CA)
  • University of California, Santa Cruz (CA)

This live session builds upon the on-demand session "Determining a Proxy Carbon Price (Carbon Pricing 101)" which is in an introduction to carbon pricing and will help you decide how ...

  • Posted May 17, 2023
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Understanding your University's Emissions from Purchasing and Investments (Scope 3)

  • Arizona State University (AZ)
  • Sustainable Purchasing Leadership Council (MA)
  • Persefoni (AZ)

This session will focus on providing universities information on understanding their own Scope 3 as it relates to their purchasing practices and supply chains. The panel will feature ASU to ...

  • Posted May 17, 2023
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Is the Word “Net” Compromising True De-Carbonization?

  • University of California, Irvine (CA)
  • M-RETS (MN)

Colleges and universities are relying upon “carbon accounting” that needs to be improved in order to meet our cardinal principle of evidence-based physical measurement. The physics of the grid—unless ...

  • Posted May 17, 2023
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From the Amazon to Florida: Climate Change Education at Miami Dade College

  • Miami Dade College (FL)

This educational session will showcase how the high-impact teaching approaches used in Miami Dade College’s Global Sustainability and Earth Literacy Studies (GSELS) learning network are also efficacious climate change ...

  • Posted May 17, 2023
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Determining a Proxy Carbon Price (Carbon Pricing 101)

  • Cornell University (NY)
  • Princeton University (NJ)
  • Smith College (MA)
  • University of California, Santa Cruz (CA)

This session in an introduction to carbon pricing and choosing a carbon price. For additional information on implementing a carbon price on your campus, please also attend the "Implementing a ...

  • Posted May 17, 2023
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The UBC Climate Studies and Action Certificate as a Response to the Climate Emergency Declaration

  • University of British Columbia (BC)

This certificate is a response to the climate emergency 1. Creating justice centered, action oriented, accessible, interdisciplinary and hopeful climate education opportunities was one of six strategic priorities in the ...

  • Posted May 17, 2023
  • Conference Presentations
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Building Decarbonization Education for the Next Generation

  • Howard University (DC)
  • Stanford University (CA)

In order to prepare the next generation of building professionals, engineering education must adapt. The Stanford Building Decarbonization Learning Accelerator (BDLA) provides free teaching resources to professors so they can ...

  • Posted May 17, 2023
  • Conference Presentations
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Fossil Fuel Divestment in US Schools: Lessons From Analysis

  • Smith College (MA)

The fossil fuel divestment movement was started in 2011 as a response to the climate crisis. Since the first divestment announcement from a U.S. higher education institution (HEI) in ...

  • Posted May 17, 2023
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Lightning Talks: Governance & Administration

  • Austin College (TX)
  • Ball State University (IN)
  • Southern New Hampshire University (NH)

This session consists of 3 15-minute Lightning Talk sessions related to governance and administration. The Lightning Talks are: Harvesting Carbon Capital: Using the Carbon Credit Purchasing Program (C2P2) - This session ...

  • Posted May 17, 2023
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Lightning Talks: Campus Operations (Group 2)

  • Stanford University (CA)
  • Center for Resource Solutions | Green-e (CA)
  • Timber Framers Guild (NH)

This session consists of 3 15-minute Lightning Talk sessions related to campus operations. The Lightning Talks are: Stanford Shines: A Decade-Long Decarbonization Journey .. and We've Just Gotten Started - The ...

  • Posted May 17, 2023
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GHG Solutions Lab: Developing a Peer Review Process for Higher Education Institutions

  • Dallas College (TX)

STARS does not currently specify a peer review methodology for the greenhouse gas emissions inventory (GHG) in OP-1 and OP-2. Dr. Kathleen Klaniecki at Central Washington University and Mr. Brandon ...

  • Posted May 17, 2023
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Making Study Away Programs More Climate Conscious

  • Williams College (MA)

The presentation will illustrate opportunities and challenges in measuring and reducing the carbon footprint of study away programs using data from Williams College. A growing number of students opt to ...

  • Posted May 17, 2023
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Lightning Talks: Campus Operations (Group 3)

  • University of Pittsburgh (PA)
  • Polytechnique Montréal (QC)

This session consists of 2 15-minute Lightning Talk sessions related to campus operations. The Lightning Talks are: Reducing Faculty Travel GHG Emissions: An Acceptability Survey - This session presents the results ...

  • Posted May 17, 2023
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Measuring Emissions From Student Travel

  • Stanford University (CA)

While organizations, institutions, and companies routinely report emissions from Business Travel and Employee commuting, emissions from student travel are another source of air travel emissions that higher education institutions may ...

  • Posted May 17, 2023
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University Power Grid Resilience Teaches Steps to Carbon Neutrality

  • Chatham University (PA)
  • Green Business Certification Inc (DC)

Chatham’s Eden Hall Campus is designed to be a living lab for sustainability and resiliency where students can drive progress while developing their skills. Advancing progress towards carbon neutrality ...

  • Posted May 17, 2023
  • Conference Presentations
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Building Carbon Offset Projects: Two Case Studies from Quebec Universities

  • McGill University (QC)
  • Université de Sherbrooke (QC)

As universities around the world set and tackle institutional carbon neutrality targets in response to climate change, debates are ongoing about the importance of and approaches to carbon offsetting to ...

  • Posted May 17, 2023
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From Planning to Implementation: Swarthmore College's Roadmap to Zero Carbon

  • Swarthmore College (PA)

In February 2021, Swarthmore College’s Board of Managers approved the College’s Energy Plan, a comprehensive energy and utility plan that charts the path to decarbonizing campus infrastructure in ...

  • Posted May 17, 2023
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This tab provides access to data collected through AASHE’s Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System™ (STARS). STARS is a transparent, self-reporting framework for colleges and universities to measure their sustainability performance. STARS enables meaningful comparisons over time and across institutions using a common set of measurements developed with broad participation from the campus sustainability community.

All responses reference content from reports under the latest version of STARS, version 2.2. AASHE membership and log-in is required.

OP 1: Emissions Inventory & Disclosure

OP 2: Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Additional analysis on scores and quantitative fields can be conducted using the STARS Benchmarking Tool.

Air & Climate Partners