Meeting commenced at 1pm (NZ time)
Present: Susanne Becken (Chair, Griffith), Gillian Lewis (Auckland), Kendra Wasiluk, Carmen Primo Perez (Uni Tasmania), Robert McLachlan (Massey), Tim Ryley (Griffith),
Apologies: Kim Blackmore (Australian National University), Anita Wreford (Lincoln), Lynda Johnston (Waikato), Brendan Moyle (Massey)
Monash update on internal levy and offsetting (presented by Kendra)
Monash has had net zero plan since 2017 and a Transport Strategy since 2021. They are committed to buying carbon offsets, but have some concerns/questions about integrity of this approach.
All air travel funded by Monash University is now automated charged with an internal levy ($18 per tonne of CO2, based on Green Fleet). This is operationalised through the Nutrip platform where all travel is captured.
They are in the process of setting up an Advisory Group to advise on carbon offsets and also on Sustainable Aviation Fuels. They have discussed alternative uses of the funds raised, e.g. for dedicated research.
In the future they will include student travel emissions, first in relation to conferences and field trips of enrolled students, but also planning to include Scope 3 of getting to Monash.
Susanne/Tim offered some thoughts from Griffith’s experience where the science (including Prof Brendan Mackey) would suggest not to use funds for offsets, but instead work on actual decarbonisation; but University leadership is attracted by the goal of being carbon neutral.
Gillian shared similar discussions from Auckland with questions on how ‘insetting’ might work best.
Carmen shared that UTAS has been carbon neutral certificatified since 2016 by the Australian Government Climate Active Carbon Neutral Standard, and this was pushed by students. The certification requires emissions reducion before offseting remaining emissions. They do have an ambitious decarbonisation strategy with a target of a minimum -50% by 2030. They are planning on implementing an internal carbon price/budget and this will be applied to cost centres, with air travel being an important emission source to be addressed. Concerningly (but not surprisingly), air travel emissions have increased by 20% in the first quarter of 2024 compared to Q1 in 2023.
Robert noted that Massey went with the AirNZ FlyNeutral programme in 2019; cost about $100k and benefits are questionable. It has not been continued.
Travel guidelines synthesis table
The summarised table (Worksheet 2) was discussed and agreed on (with minor modifications)
Susanne will draft a 2 pager that can go to stakeholders, including our Universities and funding bodies, that contains the Table as a minimum action guidance, plus a few leading examples and a summary of the key issues that all grapple with. These are:
- Insetting versus offsetting
- Scope 3 for student travel
- Equity in terms of staff flying less
Ideas for good practice case studies:
Victoria University in Wellington have an internal carbon tax.
Auckland Uni are showing the top flyers in an internal system; this helps to assess unequal distribution…
ANU have a detailed Dashboard in place on the Intranet. It is called ‘Tracker’.
Funding Bodies Meeting
The NZ Funding bodies Meeting is 13 May 2024 at 10.00 NZ time. If anyone likes to join please let me know.
Date of next meeting
Wednesday, 12 June 2024, 1-2pm (NZST)