Net Zero Education

Sectors related to information services, such as higher education and human resources, which do not necessarily sell a product but which do involve the exchange of information and ideas, may have a very short way to go to decarbonize the direct emissions related to the operations of their business, with the exception of flight emissions. Sectors for which the primary emissions spend is flying should follow a travel hierarchy model to avoid flying, seek shorter trips and then offset in that order. Because the aviation sector is a hard to abate sector, offsetting may be required to reach net zero in these sectors. These offsets must be hard rather than soft offsets by the desired net zero date.


Existing Efforts and Net Zero Coalitions in the information sector:

The UK services sector has launched a pledge to achieve net zero.


The University of Oxford will partner with several UK universities to launch a Net Zero Universities Coalition at COP 26. An interdisciplinary research group has formed between climate scientists, economists, engineers, experimental psychologists, and linguists produce best practices and policies for incentivizing flight reduction and offsetting policies for higher education members and organizations in the information sector.  A working report is coming.