As part of UCD’s   UCD Sustainability Plan to 2030  the School  of Computer Science has the ambitious objective to be Carbon-neutral by 2027. While the School intends to reduce its energy consumption as far as possible, being reliant on a national electricity supply that is 45% non-renewable, and the travel emissions due to hosting several hundred non-EU students, it is inevitable that these scope 2 and 3 emissions alone need to be offset.

Simple offsetting  approaches such as funding  the planting trees do contribute to sinking emissions but there are questions if they are reliable and effective in the long term. Trees may perish and the integrity of the planting organisations can be dubious. The school is considering alternative offsetting measures. Projects which address sustainability at several levels  are preferred. An example is the Changu Changu Moto project  that operates in Malawi which trains local community members to build fuel-efficient, durable, and low-cost clay-based cookstoves. These stoves reduce household wood usage by 66%, significantly lowering pressure on local forests and reduce dangerous smoke inhalation.

The school invites suggestions and proposals from universities or individuals that they have employed in carbon offsetting and the metrics that have,  or could be applied to quantify the degree of carbon offsetting that these projects achieve.

Please give your proposals below in the comment box, and possibly give a more detail explanation as a Reflection post by May 31st.