The Bavarian higher education institutions are supposed to become climate-neutral – one of them being THWS. The REKLINEU project is investigating how the carbon footprint of a higher education institution can be measured in the first place - and which area causes the most emissions.
Published on 18 June 2024
From body care products to food and clothing, more and more products are being labelled 'climate neutral'. This means: The CO2 balance of these products was entirely compensated for. Many industrial companies and other organisations are also increasingly setting themselves the goal of climate neutrality as part of their sustainability strategy - including the Bavarian State Administration. The Bavarian Government aims to become climate-neutral by 2028. Higher education institutions are supposed to set an example. The REKLINEU-project, a German acronym for regionale Wege zur klimaneutralen Hochschule, which translates to regional ways to becoming a climate-neutral higher education institution, is therefore focussing on the balancing of greenhouse gases and ways of offsetting them regionally.
Cooperative research
REKLINEU is a cooperative project of the Technical University of Applied Sciences Würzburg-Schweinfurt (THWS), the University of Würzburg (JMU), and the University of Applied Sciences Weihenstephan-Triesdorf (HSWT). The project is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) as part of the Transformation Pathways for Sustainable Higher Education Institutions funding programme.
The idea for REKLINEU emerged during a meeting of the Main-Franconian region of responsibility in August 2021 in exchange with Professor Dr. Anja Schlömerkemper from JMU, says Professor Dr. Ulrich Müller-Steinfahrt, Sustainability Officer at THWS THWS and co.founder of the project. "As all higher education institutions have to develop a sustainability strategy and concepts and approaches for a sustainable university, it was ideal to support some of the necessary work in a joint project." The REKLINEU project was launched on 1 October 2022.
Measuring, reducing, compensating, and communicating
Within the project, every higher education institution has their individual research focus. THWS is responsible for drawing up a greenhouse gas balance sheet in which all emissions, converted into so-called CO2 equivalents, are assessed and listed. It is important that this can be calculated uniformly and is easily reproducible. "Our task is to determine the status quo of the three higher education institutions involved in the project," concludes Professor Dr. Normen Langner of the Faculty of Architecture and Civil Engineering.
THWS is also researching ways to reduce these emissions - for example in the areas of building technology, waste disposal or the procurement of relevant products and services. The people responsible for these sub-areas are Professor Dr. Müller-Steinfahrt, who, together with his team at the Institute of Applied Logistics Solutions, is driving greenhouse gas balancing and developing alternative ways of sustainable acquisition, and Professor Dipl.-Ing. Gunter Benkert from the Faculty of Architecture and Civil Engineering.
On top of reducing emissions, the compensation of greenhouse gases plays an essential role for climate-neutrality. In this area, the research of a team of the HSWT is concentrated on the potentials of regional forests, fields, and moors for CO2 compensation. The third and last sub-project is focused on social transformation. "Transforming the language of science into society and doing so in a way that also resonates with society and is not perceived as boring or aloof - that is the task of the university," Professor Dr. Langner explains.
Greenhouse gas accounting according to the Greenhouse Gas Protocol
THWS oversees three of the ten work packages of the project, among them work package 2, CO2 Footprint - Balancing and savings potential. For this, the project team is drawing up a greenhouse gas balance. A holistic approach was taken, explains David Voellner, who not only is a master's student at THWS but also a member of the REKLINEU project: "We try to take into account all sources of emissions and include them into our climate balance."
The project team bases its accounting on the Greenhouse Gas Protocol (GHG Protocol), a transnational standard for the accounting of CO2 emissions, which was developed through collaboration between the World Resources Institute (WRI) and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD). In the GHG Protocol, the greenhouse gas emissions that are included in the carbon footprint of a company or organisation are divided into three categories, also known as scopes.
Scope 1 includes all direct emissions that occur on site, for example through combustion or laboratory processes. But "the emissions from the THWS vehicle fleet and the president's car are also included," explains Voellner. Scope 2 emissions, on the other hand, are indirect emissions caused by energy processes, such as purchased electricity or district heating. Indirect emissions are also recognised under Scope 3 - namely those generated along the value chain. "This primarily includes emissions generated during the production and transport of paper or cleaning agents purchased by THWS," Voellner outlines.
A matter of data
"Our approach to creating a climate balance was predetermined as we had a tool at hand, BayCalc," Professor Dr. Langner explains. BayCalc is a tool for greenhouse gas balancing, in the development of which THWS was involved within the scope of the Bavarian Center for Sustainability in Higher Education (BayZeN). The data required to draw up the carbon footprint is already described quite precisely in the report. The challenge, however, was accessing the data.
Another sticking point are the upstream and downstream Scope-3 emissions that do not occur on site at the University. These in fact include all of the greenhouse gases emitted by members commuting to and from THWS. In order to calculate these emissions, the REKLINEU sub-project team conducted a large mobility survey among THWS members in summer 2023. "The aim of the mobility survey was to get as extensive an image as possible of the commuting mobility of all THWS members," David Voellner explains. "In other words, from all students, academic and non-academic staff, lecturers, and professors."
About 1,400 THWS members participated in the survey. The project team thus now know approximately how many kilometres are travelled by which means of transport. "Every means of transport has its own emission factor that indicates the emissions released per person kilometre," outlines Voellner. These factors are already predefined by the balancing tool. While the results are not yet ready, a significant trend can already be made out: "Commuter mobility will probably account for the largest share of THWS's CO2 emissions."
These findings are not only to be included in THWS's climate balance. The objective now is to optimise the concept for the regional transport together with the University and the city of Würzburg, who also conducted a mobility survey last year. "Whether this concept will actually decrease mobility influence on the CO2 balance cannot yet be estimated," says Professor Dr. Langner. But this was another aim of the project: "Recognising where problems were and realising how to solve them."
