New carbon calculator launched by College

The Imperial Transition Pathways Explorer has been launched by the College to help organisations explore how to reduce their carbon emissions. The tool is being used internally to inform Imperial’s Sustainability Strategy Committee, as well as in teaching programmes across the College.

Based on more than a decade of development, including the 2050 Calculator – a family of models designed in collaboration between the UK government, think tanks, and the Centre for Environment Policy – the Explorer works by taking an organisation’s current carbon footprint and allowing users to adjust the levels of different technologies and behaviours . The four levels of exploration, ranging from level one, or “business as usual,” to level four, where the most ambitious possible action is taken within feasibility, allowing organisations to model different permutations of the action they can take.

Harriet Wallace, Director of Sustainability at Imperial, said: “Imperial’s Transition Pathways Explorer is helping us focus our sustainability efforts where we can make the biggest reductions to our carbon footprint. For example, getting off gas for heating and taking more sustainable approaches to travel and procurement offer much greater potential than more visible areas like recycling or commuting where Imperial’s footprint is small.”

Professor Jem Woods, Professor of Sustainable Development, from Imperial’s Centre for Environmental Policy, added: “The Calculators allow experts and implementers to dynamically interact on complex, so-called ‘wicked’ sustainability problems, co-producing viable, consensus-based solutions at scales and times that are achievable and meaningful to the problem. This approach has been tested at national and international scales but to our knowledge, this is the first time it has been applied to an organisation.”

The tool is available online and is free to use.