Go Greener – Offsetting carbon emissions with your car use

One of the targets in the School’s sustainability plan it to look at our carbon footprint regarding transportation.  This includes getting to and from school as well as transportation used by the School for educational purposes. One of the changes we have made is to have bike racks available in the Primary and Secondary school for our community to use.

On World Car-Free Day in 2015, Maailma conducted a survey on how people travelled to school. We found from the replies that:

• 32% of people travelled by bus
• 5% walked to school
• 30% used a private car
• 19% took a ferry
• the remaining used bikes, trains and a combination of all of the above.

Things would have changed considerably since then and it feels like the private car has played a major role in transportation of students with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Car users can offset their car emissions by joining and subscribing to organisations which undertake activities such as growing legally protective native forests. Google “offset car emissions’” to find more information.

If you know of any other ways we could look at sustainability regarding transportation at SCEGGS please email me.

Sue Zipfinger
Sustainability Co-ordinator