05 Carbon Footprint

The urgency of climate change, environmental degradation and the need for sustainable development have led to increasing pressure on companies to reduce their negative impact on the environment and society. Consequently, corporate sustainability reporting methods are continuously adapted to incorporate new insights, calculation methodologies and (inter)national policies. 

The existing Non-Financial Reporting Directive (NFRD), introduced by the European Union, fell short in providing consistent and reliable sustainability information, making it difficult for investors, customers, and stakeholders to accurately assess the sustainability performance of companies. Aligned with the European Green Deal, the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), introduced in 2023, requires companies to provide detailed and standardized sustainability reports. These are essential for achieving the EU’s goal of climate neutrality by 2050. 

Eventually, educational institutions will also be required to report their environmental impact according to CSRD standards. Therefore, Erasmus University Rotterdam has decided to start improving our carbon footprint scope by implementing different calculation methods and using spend-based analyses to meet these requirements. As a result, the carbon footprint calculations for 2022 and 2023 available below comply with CSRD requirements. 

The annual financial reports served as the basis for calculating the EUR's environmental impact. Based on the university’s financial reports, the relevant monetary items within its operations were identified, and the legal entities were mapped out. These monetary items were largely converted from euros to CO2 equivalents using a spend-based analysis. In short, the carbon footprint calculations represent the impact of every euro that EUR spent within its operations in 2022 and 2023. However, qualitative data from our stakeholders was used instead of spend-based data where available. 

EUR employees actively working on the Sustainable Event Application, aiming to share it with the EUR event planning community and make it accessible beyond the university. The Sustainable Event Application will allow (EUR) event managers to plan CO2-neutral or even eco-positive events. 

Based on national averages, about half of the CO2 emissions from cleaning services are linked to the commuting of cleaning staff. However, EUR is a positive exception: most of the cleaning staff already use public transport, walk or bike to work, while only a small fraction drives. What's more, those who do drive frequently carpool. This is an encouraging finding from a carbon footprint perspective, allowing the cleaning company (GOM) to concentrate on other sustainability areas where further improvements can be made.

The results from 2022 and 2023 show that the CO2 footprint is significantly higher than in 2021. One of the main reasons for this increase is the use of a different calculation method, specifically a spend-based analysis. This expanded scope has resulted in higher CO2 emissions compared to previous reporting years. However, other universities and universities of applied sciences in the Netherlands will also need to report in compliance with CSRD in the coming years. This will likely reveal similar significant differences in CO2 emissions compared to previous years.

EUR will prioritise reduction efforts within the most impactful categories identified. Additionally, improving data quality is considered a foundational step for more precise decision-making. Therefore, one of the challenges in the coming years will be improving data quality for activities with the highest expenditures, such as 'Capital Goods' and 'Purchased Goods and Services.' By shifting from spend-based analyses to supplier-specific emission factors per physical unit, the impact of sustainability policies will become more transparent. This approach will also help automatically reduce EUR’s CO2 footprint.