Conclusions and Next Steps

During the school years from 2016 to 2019, The Northwest School produced about 1,285 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions per year.

Our school community has 510 students and 160 faculty, so in one year, 1.91 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions are produced per person.

This number is an accumulation of the greenhouse gas emissions produced by natural gas consumption and transportation. Transportation includes student and faculty transportation to and from school, NWS bus trips, air travel for student trips, administrative air travel trips, and international student trips home.

Without international student travel, NWS produces 623 metric tons of greenhouse gases per year.

Next Steps

Now that we know the amount of greenhouse gas emissions produced from different sectors of the NWS, the next step would be to continue tracking this develop reduction goals. If we keep tracking the emissions produced, we can see the different trends and the fluctuation of emissions, and we can figure out what we were doing to increase or decrease the emissions over the years.

However, this will take years. In the meantime, action can be taken to decrease our emissions. Certain areas can be managed, while others cannot. For example, we can decrease our natural gas and NWS bus usage. We cannot, however, decrease the emissions produced from international student airplane travel home for breaks. An option to counter this is to purchase offsets for flights. Analyzing the data allows us to find where we can make small and quick adjustments, and where we may need to make larger structural changes.

Ultimately, if The Northwest School plans to become carbon neutral, establishing this greenhouse gas inventory is the first step.

For Further Study

  • As previously mentioned, there are greenhouse gas contributors that were not included in this inventory. These include food from the dining program, waste, and refrigerants and chemicals. The emissions from these could be calculated and add to the inventory.

  • How does the installation of the NWS bus program for commuting impact the school's footprint?

  • What will the relative impact of the future buildings be on the GHG emissions of the school?

Suggested Actions for Reducing Emissions

  • Find ways of reducing our bus usage and finding more fuel efficient ways

  • Reducing our natural gas usage (in the main building especially) and/or switching to electric heating.

  • Incentivize more fuel efficient ways of commuting

  • Purchase carbon offsets for air travel