It’s a good question! Robust data is key for organisations and governments to properly understand the negative and positive impacts that we make. To determine the Students’ Union’s carbon footprint, we have used government conversion factors – these are used by all organisations for determining the carbon footprint of a range of emission sources. The conversion factors for 2018 can be found here.
Overall, the Students’ Union is confident that we have accurately mapped the majority of our carbon footprint. We are also confident that, as a minimum, we have offset at least all scope 2 emission sources and our largest scope 3 emission source (Sports Union Travel). This goes beyond the government standard for being ‘carbon neutral’. The confidence of emissions from each source is listed in the following table:
Emission / Offsetting Source
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Confidence of data
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Comments
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Electricity use
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very high
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Students’ Union’s electricity use is metered.
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Sports Union Travel
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high
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Database compiled using booking requests and expenses claims e.g. for train travel, car use.
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Staff commuting
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medium
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So far we have only mapped permanent staff commuting emissions (30 staff; very high confidence).
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Staff business travel
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very high
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All staff log business travel in to a carbon footprint database.
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Heating use
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high
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Heating is not metered but we have used the University’s average heating requirement per square meter of floor space and applied this to the Students’ Union’s building.
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Waste management
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very high
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Veolia (waste contractor) weighs each bin when uplifting waste. Database compiled based on uplift data for Students’ Union bins.
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Water use
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very high
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Students’ Union’s water use is metered.
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Green and Blue Space
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medium
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The Students’ Union’s Fairshare project reuses or recycles over 6 tonnes of donations each year. The largest contribution of offsetting comes from donated textiles which, when re-used, have a significant carbon saving vs buying virgin textiles. We are currently unable to quantify the percentage of clothing reused vs recycled – the graph above assumes 100% reuse. However, we have high confidence that, as a minimum, all Scope 2 emission sources have been offset and our largest Source 3 emission (Sports Union travel) have been offset, therefore going beyond the minimum guidelines for being ‘carbon neutral’.
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Carbon Credits
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high
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The Students’ Union has purchased carbon credits through ClimateCare’s Climate + Care Portfolio. ClimateCare was the UK’s highest scoring B-corp in 2018 and the portfolio only uses Gold Standard carbon credit projects. As a result, the Students’ Union is confident of the positive impact the carbon credits will make.
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