Sustainability Tip of the Week - 26th August 2011: Carbon offsets for Air Travel

Idea go / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

In the School of Veterinary Nursing we have been talking about Carbon offsets for the airline travel we do as part of our jobs.  Running a number of distance programmes we travel to venues around the country to run block courses.  We also have staff offsite, whoa re required to travel to Dunedin from time to time for work purposes. 

Firstly we have reduced our airline travel as much as possible by optimising our number of venues from 3-9, to up depending on the programme to 1-4 depending on the programme  - which ensures good class size for quality interactions, without being too big.  We have also optimised the block courses, to enable use to cover the material in 2 block courses instead of 3.  In addition we have introduced a number of web conferences throughout the year to supplement learning without travel.  Offsite staff do have to travel to Dunedin, but on the plus side they work from home to do not incur carbon costs in travel to work each day and are based closed to our offsite block courses venues so often we do not need to fly anyone to some venues.

Presently, we cannot reduce air travel any more, so we now need to offset the costs.  The resources I checked varied in terms of how many trees are required per trip.  Sources suggesting anywhere between 1 and 8 trees per 2000km by plane so the jury is obviously out there but I decided to reference the website below becasue I thought it spoke good plain English on the subject and gave realistic advice on what can be achieved. 

From the Carbon Catchers website:

"Put simply, planting one tree and growing it for 30 years will offset a drive of about 500 kms, or a flight of about 2000 kms. Planting 16 trees and growing them for 30 years will offset the energy used in a typical house over one year.

Carboncatchers recognise that planting trees is only an interim step to assist with CO² reduction while technology solutions to global warming are found.

Reduction in energy consumption at home, in transport and through your consumption of goods and services is critically important in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and we do not promote tree planting as an alternative to reducing your energy consumption.

We actively promote reduction in your carbon footprint as the primary action for everyone to take to reduce future CO² emissions, but Carboncatchers also recognise that not all emissions can be avoided and that there is a need to address the existing CO² levels in the atmosphere.

The natural carbon cycle, including the conversion of CO² into carbon in trees through photosynthesis, is currently the best answer we have for reducing existing greenhouse gas levels."

Visit the Carbon Catchers website to read more

In October, as part of our committment to sustainability, the School of Veterinary Nursing, will as part of 3 days of planning for 2012, will take time out to plant native trees to offset the Carbon used by the school for air travel. 

Have you considered doing this at home or in your community to offset the air or road travel you do each year.  Many local communitys have planting days, where trees are planted in local reserves.  So if you property is too small, contact your local council to donate trees for planting in local parks and reserves. 

If we all take steps to reduce our carbon foot print as much as possible and plant 16 trees annually, this would be a great step towards improving our carbon footprints. 

Have a great and sustainable weekend

Francesca Matthews
Programme Manager

and

School of Veterinary Nursing at Otago Polytechnic Sustainability Champion

Personal Sustainability and Standing Desks

This week we are talking personal sustainability!  Investigation into this idea begun after some feedback from staff in our school regarding how bad it is to sit all day. 

I found some startling, but perhaps not surprising facts. People who spend more hours in each day: 

• are 54% more likely to die of a heart attack  
• have increased risk of obesity  
• have poorer posture  
• have increased risk of lower back problems  
• need to know that offsetting hours of sitting with a trip to the gym before and/or after sitting does not offset the risks of too much sitting  
• need to know that research shows that sitting is bad for you whether you are fat or lean  
• have increased risk Type 2 diabetes  
• have increased risk of a variety of cancers,including bowel cancer 

Click here to read more and here and here and there are plenty more that you can find by googling the negative effects of standing or standing desks if you aren't happy with the articles linked here.  

So what should you do - simple, reduce the number of sedentary sitting hours. There are lots of suggestions in these articles and the many more that you can find that propose different options, but one that is simple to achieve and actually isn't that bad for someone who has a desk bound job - now that I have done it - is to create a standing desk. At least 2 others in the School of Veterinary Nursing have done the same. I find I am not all seized up and stiff at the end of my work day and I have more energy in the afternoons and evenings with the kids so it seems to be win:win at this stage!! 

There are some nice pictures on this blog of ways to create a standing desk with what you have! I have set one up using a modular box on top of my desk for the computer and my keyboard is up on a pile of textbooks.  

So take the advice or leave it, its up to you!! I am grateful to the colleagues that raised the discussion.  I feel so much better at the end of each days work and have more energy to play with my kids and do other things. 

To quote one of the articles I read "Beware the Chair".

Have a great and sustainable weekend!

Welcome!!

My name is Francesca Matthews. I am the "Sustainability Champion" for the Otago Polytechnic School of Veterinary Nursing. Otago Polytechnic, the School of Veterinary Nursing and all our staff are committed to embedding sustainable practices into our lives and the education that we give our students. Since we began our journey we have made significant changes to our we operate in our department and for everything we do we are asking questions about its sustainability. For the past few months I have been posting "Tip of the Week" for all our staff and students on our learning management system. To try and increase my sustainability and also to enable our progress to be followed more widely and centralise feedback and comments we will now begin posting on this blog.

When I get the opportunity I will post all the tips that came before the blog.  As you can pre-date on this blog, they will fall before this post.

Reducing wastage

My husband is currently on a work trip to the USA and he keeps commenting on just how excessive everything is there – bigger, faster, more of it……..so that, in addition to a couple of emails from other staff regarding wastage and excess this week, got me onto this weeks topic for our  tip of the week.

Reducing Wastage! 

Firstly you need to get your head around this: Rubbish doesn’t go away, it just becomes someone else’s problem!  Everything is cyclic in this world.  If we create a dead end with rubbish, there is a net loss of resources and also space because the rubbish has to go somewhere. 

So if every time you make a purchase you think about what happens to the rubbish – it will help you make changes to your purchasing habits. 

You should also look at this link found by Jennifer Hamlin - look at the volume and the packaging differences, not to mention costs!!   Our head of school, Jeanette O’Fee also commented on a recent article found in National Geographic called How to feed a plant, which talks about the wastage associated with the food we purchase.  It is unreal. 

So what should you do?
Purchase only what you actually need 

• If you find you throw food out each week, reassess the quantities you are purchasing or evaluate how you can ensure that food is not wasted for example when fruit and vegetables start to look less than their best, cutting them up and displaying them on a plate as this soon encourages people to eat them!  
• The left over meal can be stir fired for the next days meal, or used in sandwiches for the next days meal and so on.  
• If Bread is going mouldy before you use it, try only having half a load out and freezing the rest. 
•  Sure food waste can we composted BUT that isn’t the point really.  There are plenty of people who have none. 

Take a look at what you are purchasing 

• Is there a product available with less packaging
• Is there a product available with packaging that is more easily able to be reused or recycled?
• Do we need that product with so much packaging – is there are fresh or whole food alternative?

I hope that gives you food for thought!!  If you haven’t already clicked on the link above make sure you do because it’s a pictorial that says many thousand words!!

Have a great and sustainable weekend.