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How to ground your organisation

You aren’t satisfied with the amount of flights and emissions produced at your university or workplace? You want to reduce air travel and “ground” your organisation? 

 

Here is how you can do it!

Step 1: Get your co-workers on board!

Talk to your colleagues and fellow students about the disastrous impact of air travel.

  • Take a look at our info section

  • Take a look at our guide to form a bottom up initiative at your university or other organisation:

Campaign Toolkit to start a Bottom-Up Initiative for Grounded Travel

This campaign toolkit by Explane can help you to raise awareness in your university or in other types of bigger organisations.
You are a student or staff member and want to reduce your university’s emissions by addressing air travel? Then “Explane” your university and start your own group by following our step-by-step toolkit.
Download Campaign Toolkit here
If you need any advice or financial support or have questions or comments please get in touch via info@timetoexplane.com

Step 2: Analyse your emissions!

Carbon Calculators are tools to quantify the climate impact of an activity like travel. Our partner Zeroing Flying collected some useful calculators that can help organisations to analyse their travel emissions.

Typically, the emissions of greenhouse gas are calculated by combining user input e.g. for his/her travel(s) and mode choice(s), with default data e.g. on the average fuel efficiency and the carbon intensity of the fuels. Good calculators structure the process of data gathering; they cover all relevant aspects, are transparent in their assumptions and allow their modification by the user; they have a scientific foundation, are well documented and up-to-date.

The following presents three online carbon calculators for:

  1. air travel in detail on an individual level
  2. air travel compared to other surface transport modes
  3. mobility as part of total household consumption

All calculators presented here acknowledge the most important parameters for the resulting emissions of air travel. They distinguish between cabin class (from economy to first) and account for non-CO2 effects of air travel by an uplift factor of 1.9. This factor can be considered a lower limit: see the Stay Grounded paper on the total impact of aviation on climate, according to which a flight’s CO2 impact should actually be tripled in footprint calculators.

In « Additional information on calculators » you find other carbon calculators and a more detailed comparision of the calculators presented below.

Calculating individual flights: atmosfair

Atmosfair  calculates the CO2-eq emissions from one or several flights. The user needs to specify departure and arrival airports to obtain a result. Further flight details can be entered: scheduled or chartered flight, cabin class (economy, premium, business, first), possible stopovers and aircraft type. Non-CO2 emissions are factored in as 1.9 times the CO2 emitted depending on flight distance and typical flight profiles.

The emissions of the flight are given for an average and for the most efficient airline on the destination. The flight emissions are furthermore compared to average annual emissions from a citizen in a developing country, to emissions from average annual car driving and to a climate compatible emission budget for one person.

The calculator offers an emission offsetting, which is however not recommended by Stay Grounded.

Airlines often calculate flight emissions using the ICAO calculator. However, this has very low results as it omits non-CO2 effects and distributes emissions on a full economy seating (see more info in “Additional information on calculators”). We do not recommend using the ICAO calculator.

Comparing emissions from flights with other transport modes: ecopassenger

Ecopassenger compares “the energy consumption, the CO2 emissions and other environmental impacts for planes, cars and trains in passenger transport”. The calculator has been developed by a scientific institute for the International Union of Railways; its results are also embedded in online timetable and ticketing systems of several European railways.

The user specifies start and destination. Entering the date and time of travel determines the exact railway connection. For air travel, journeys to and from the airports are included, the load factor can be varied and non-CO2 effects are accounted for by a factor of 1.9. Details on the fuel economy, emission standard and occupancy of cars and the load and electricity mix of railways can also be adjusted. This covers the most important factors for the emission calculation.

Household carbon footprint calculators: My carbon balance

My Carbon Balance

My carbon balance is a household footprint calculator. It helps placing emissions from air travel in the context of emissions from all activities over the course of a year. The calculator covers activities most important for the carbon footprint, like car travel, air travel, transport, electricity consumption, heating and cooling demands, diet, and material consumption.

It offers two calculation levels. The top level requires only little user input. Emissions are calculated using default data from Germany. The second level allows for a more detailed calculation of the annual carbon balance by entering data specific to the own consumption. For air travel, the details are very similar to the atmosfair calculator. All results are compared to the average carbon footprint by consumption category for Germany.

Very interestingly, My Carbon Balance includes a forward looking perspective: the user can specify intended changes to his/her consumption pattern, e.g. less air travel, a switch to an electric car or savings on heating and electricity consumption, etc. over the short-, medium- and long-term. The remaining emissions are then calculated and compared to climate compatible emissions. The users can thus analyse the effectiveness of their own “mitigation pledge”.

Carbon Footprint is a similar household calculator based on UK default data.

Step 3: Ground your travel policy!

Nine Concrete Steps towards a Climate Friendly Travel Policy

Most of the steps can be implemented either bottom-up or top-down. So no matter whether you have a leading position in your institution or whether you just started a new initiative on this topic (see campaign toolkit) – have a look at this guide and nail things down to a concrete, effective and long-lasting policy.
Download Guide Here
Resources to ground your organisation

The project FlyingLess develops resources and approaches to reduce flight emissions in academia and makes them available to all

The Travel Better Package and the Guide by “Sustainability Exchange”, delivered by the Alliance for Sustainability in Education (EAUC), aims to support the reduction of air travel in the higher and further education sector. It contains:

  • Business Travel Guide with a Business Travel Action Plan and best practices
  •  Questions & Answer tool addressing concerns individuals may have about reducing air travel
  • The Travel Better Pledge Template for individuals, departments or institutions
  • The Air Travel Justification Tool, which supports individuals in justifying/reflecting on attending events only accessible through flying

 

Prepare for landing: Practical tips on tracking, reporting and reducing business air travel emissions by the Stockholm Environment Institute

There are already hundreds of articles, studies and opinion pieces on the possibilities, obstacles and consequences of flying less for business trips – especially in academia. The experiences of universities provide many important lessons for other types of organisations, too. We highly recommend to have a look at the following resource collections, from which also this website could benefit (thank you very much!):

Step 4: Go virtual!

Virtual meetings and conferences can be one important means to reduce air travel in organisations. In this section, we collect information that may help you to promote online communication in your organisation.

Take a look at our webinar and read our guide to online meetings:

Guide and Webinar on Online Meetings and Conferences

You are wondering how to organise online meetings and conferences effectively, so that business air travel becomes less necessary? Then have a look at our guide « Skip the Plane, Meet Online! » and our webinar « Virtually International – How Virtual Meetings Can Help to Avoid Flights« :
Webinar
Guide
Resources on online conferences

organisations joined our community

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Guides to Ground your Organisation

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Examples of Grounded Organisations

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