How much carbon dioxide does a school produce a year?
The answer to this question is not straightforward as the emissions from a school (or any other organisation) depend on the size, location, and resource use for each school, among other factors. For example, a small school is likely to have lower emissions than a large one, but a large school that produces its own electricity via solar panels would likely have lower emissions than a small school using electricity from the grid.
When calculating a carbon footprint (the amount of greenhouse gas emissions released by an organisation or individual), it is important to include both direct and indirect emissions. For example, driving a car produces direct emissions from the use of fuel by the car, while using a computer produces indirect emissions from the use of electricity generated at a coal-fuelled power station. Similarly, a piece of paper has associated indirect emissions from the production and transport of the product.
More and more organisations, including schools, are measuring their emissions and developing plans to reduce these emissions. To provide an idea of the magnitude of emissions for a school, Corinda State High School in Queensland reported 1,075 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent(CO2-e) for 2020 in their Public Disclosure Statement for their carbon neutral certification by the Commonwealth Climate Active Carbon Neutral Standard. This is the equivalent of driving 488 fossil fuel burning cars for a year.
Carbon dioxide equivalent is a measure used to compare the emissions from various greenhouse gases by converting amounts of other gases to the equivalent amount of carbon dioxide. For example, the global warming potential of methane (a greenhouse gas released by cattle or decomposing waste in landfills) is 25 times higher than carbon dioxide, therefore 1 tonne of methane would equal 25 tonnes of CO2-e.
