Evaluation of greenhouse gas emissions and proposals for their reduction at a university campus in Chile

Progressively, higher education institutions have been incorporating sustainable development strategies and actions into teaching, research, infrastructure and campus operations. Recent years have witnessed a resurgence in environmental sustainability networks in universities in Latin America. A group of Chilean universities, including the Universidad de Talca, signed a Cleaner Production Agreement with the National Agency for Cleaner production in Chile. The measurement of corporate greenhouse gas emissions is included among the objectives of this agreement. For developing countries there are few peer-reviewed studies that analyze greenhouse gas emissions generated by universities. The scarcity is most evident in Latin American universities. In this context, this study presents the evaluation of greenhouse gas emissions for the Curico campus of the Universidad de Talca. The emissions are classified according to the Greenhouse Gas Protocol standard into scopes 1, 2 and 3. The total emissions for the campus in 2012 was 1.0 tCO2e/student, of which 68% correspond to scope 3, 16% correspond to scope 1 and 16% to scope 2. The principal contributors to the greenhouse gas emissions are student commuting, staff commuting and electricity consumption. The comparison with other higher education institutions worldwide, mostly situated in developed countries, indicates that for the Curico campus the greenhouse gas emissions value is below average. Moreover, an analysis was carried out for four scenarios with emissions reduction proposals. The most effective scenario is related to students using bicycles rather than motor vehicles. This study may be a useful guide for the application of emission reduction options in other countries, particularly in Latin America, where there are universities that have similar characteristics and lack environmental information.