WHY IS “SUSTAINABLE TRAVEL” IMPORTANT?

UBC has made a commitment to combat climate change, stating that addressing the climate crisis is critical to the University’s key functions.

Air travel contributes approximately 2% of anthropogenic climate change (Lee et al., 2020) but is one of the most difficult industries to decarbonize owing to its reliance on liquid fuel and necessity for lightweight equipment.

UBC staff and faculty flights generate approximately 15,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions each year and are one of the most significant emissions sources for our university.

As such, the UBC community has a responsibility to minimize travel wherever possible, and choose sustainable options when travel cannot be avoided. A growing group of UBC faculty members have formally pledged to minimize their travel, through the UBC Zero Emissions University website.

For more information on UBC sustainable travel and purchasing recommendations, see the UBC Sustainable Purchasing Guide.

TELECONFERENCING

Aim to avoid traveling whenever possible, and find other ways of being present at meetings, events or conferences. Tele or Videoconferencing is an ideal, sustainable choice for communications and meetings, between UBC Vancouver and UBC Okanagan and anywhere in the world, and will save time and money. UBC has a campus-wide license for Zoom as a platform for delivering courses online and larger meetings. Zoom is an easy-to-use video conferencing platform that offers a wide range of features.

OFFSETTING YOUR TRIP

Visit Green Globe to make informed decisions about traveling green, and learn more about the sustainability performance of travel and tourism businesses and their supply chain partners. If travel cannot be avoided, using reputable offsets is another way to minimize the climate impact of your journey. However, it is important to keep in mind that offsets are not a perfect solution: see the Zero Emissions University Page for more information.

Offsetters is a Canadian website with Canadian offsetting projects and its founders are UBC alumni. Calculate the emissions from your journey and offset the emissions through of the Offsetters carbon sequestration or green energy projects.

STATEMENT ON “GREEN HOTELS”

Use the Green Key website to find green hotels for your stay. There are many Green Key hotels in Vancouver, mostly downtown. Check out this link from UBC Finance on three ways to make your hotel stay greener.