Universities, it’s time to step it up when it comes to Sustainability.
Higher Education accounts for 2% of our global emissions.
Universities are being challenged to take a “U-turn” in plenty of ways right now. With COVID-19’s risks, and in-person universities rapidly reorganizing to hybrid, socially distanced, in-person & virtual models, Universities already seem to have their hands full. Simultaneously, these higher ed institutions are further challenged to address the ongoing racial inequalities existing in their systems, which have been highlighted by student protests and the ongoing Black Lives Matter Movement. But there is a third threat to Universities, that has not yet been properly addressed as well — their accountability for 2% of global greenhouse emissions, which cannot possibly continue at the same rate if our planet is to remain habitable for humankind within this decade.
We are in danger of surpassing a carbon budget that would fix us to a pathway of 1.5˚C as soon as 2050 within the next 3 years. This would trigger positive feedback loops of warming, exponentially increasing the rate of warming and the effects that come with it.
Universities who are measuring their impact are often self-reporting this data using STARS, a self-reporting tool developed by AASHE. However, this system is not fully effective, in that it fails to contextualize Universities in the larger carbon budget. Universities report their sometimes partially inaccurate or incomplete data and are not necessarily mobilized into a plan of action.
Map-Collective.com has a plan of action for universities. We want to map them against the individuals, businesses, and governments on our global carbon map. But to do so, we need Universities to realize that it is high time to start setting a more ambitious plan of action.
Here are 5 of the main reasons why we strongly encourage Universities to deemphasize STARS, and begin utilizing a more global, contextual system:
1) STARS lacks a holistic frame of reference and toolsets. STARS is a system for rating only universities and does not compare universities to other organizations, businesses, and individuals. Furthermore, AASHE is mainly a conference business and ends up with a niche impact, catered to sustainability offices and a handful of dedicated kids who can take time out of school and get funded to go, or not.
At Map-Collective.com, we measure the carbon footprints of individuals, businesses, governments, and more, all parts of the carbon system and all emitters. We are setting a global carbon budget for the next four years, and are working with companies of all sizes and industries to create a collaborative movement.
2) Greenwashing Dangers! STARS is labor-intensive because it is so thorough, but doesn’t necessarily give you your full carbon footprint. It takes months for a STARS Report to compile. STARS analyzes categories such as diversity, coursework, sustainable research opportunities, waste, water, etc. These categories are then weighted into a scorecard that doesn’t reflect carbon emissions, which is of major urgency right now. If a university scores well across the board, it can get a gold rating but doesn’t necessarily translate to a university being “sustainable.”
For instance, an institution could have terrible emissions when compared to a similar institution but can still have a Gold rating because they pursue “sustainable research” and “sustainable coursework.” This can be quite flexible and does not create accountability.
STARS also encourages “point hunting” and check-boxing as a form of sustainability — which is a form of greenwashing.
3) Comparison and Contextualization against other Universities. Map-Collective.com is fully focused on contextualizing the data we produce. Data means nothing without context. AASHE does thoroughly compare universities to each other, but you have to be a member to access that data, which keeps the information to a very limited number of people. Only a handful of people per university can easily know where they’re at or how they compare. Comparing institutional data is possible, but it must be done on a case-by-case subject on different web pages.
4) Support and consulting. STARS/AASHE have very limited support services. They focus on self-reporting, which enables Universities to get started, but can leave them without essential guidance and normalization of their data.
At Map-Collective.com, we offer ongoing consulting in order to try to combat the lack of congruency in data, and specific needs, and this human labor is wrapped into our GREEN LEAF program, as part of our third-party audit.
5) Incorrect reporting.
STARS “institutional boundaries” are self-determined, often leaving out tons of carbon in the measurement of Scope 3, emissions. Universities can decide what is worth including in their report and choose to leave out subjects such as medical campuses and food from dining halls. This can create errors of up to 50% of carbon emissions being missed. Our full program, the GREEN LEAF program, actively calculates Scope 3 through third party audit.
At Map-Collective.com, we pride ourselves on a global reach. We want universities to stay relevant in a changing era, and engage students through meaningful tech and design around sustainability. Conservative reports tell us that we only have 118 Gigatons of CO2e tons capacity left in our atmosphere before we reach 1.5˚ of warming, and essential feedback loops are past their thresholds, and cannot be restored. At our current rate of 37 gigatons of emissions per year, that leaves us 3 years for a plan of action to get to zero, and start removing atmospheric carbon from the system. Universities are quite a large part of this, as one can see from some of the dashboards on our global carbon map.
