Looking for the Most Environmentally Friendly College? It may very well be the one that has no fraternities or sororities, no football team, no faculty lounge, no dorms, in fact, it may have no lecture halls or classrooms at all. No, I’m not talking about Semester at Sea!
We all know that telecommuting, teleconferencing, faxes and email can save significantly on carbon emissions in the business world. Being able to do business without driving to an office every day or flying to a business meeting every week has been a wonderful thing both for quality of life for many in the workforce and for the environment. Being able to manage much of our data digitally has also meant less paper, less printing and less waste. But what about getting an online college degree? Does that have environmental benefits? According to WorldWideLearn.com, a directory of online learning, it does.
Their assertion is backed up by a study by the UK’s Open University Design Innovation Group (PDF) which found that distance learning courses produced 85% fewer CO2 emissions and consumed almost 90% less energy than taking a conventional campus course. The majority of the energy and carbon savings comes from the absence of output on things like travel, heating, facilities and the like for online education. Interestingly, they also found that part time campus study, as opposed to being a full time on-campus student, cut carbon emissions by nearly two thirds.
A big factor in the tremendous energy and carbon savings in online learning is based on economies of scale; a course developed by one or a team of teachers in one location can be delivered to hundreds or thousands of students. Further, the energy use for the server space (the temperature maintenance of server storage facilities are a huge energy suck) is divided by many more students than in a conventional class where the course work is often up on a server, regardless of whether students use it or not.
Surprisingly, the UK study also found that there is little difference in emissions and energy use between electronically taught and paper-based distance learning. The paper-based distance learning actually comes in at 20% less energy use and 12% less CO2 emissions based on a variety of factors that they outline, including the propensity of online students to print out materials and to use more heating for late night studying.
Online learning, which grew by 10% in the US last year and now accounts for 3.5 million students, has also had the added benefit of bringing education opportunities to populations that ordinarily can’t afford it, financially or in terms of the time commitment. Currently, I have two friends that are getting teaching degrees in Massachusetts at Lesley College, and both take the majority of their courses online so that they can continue their day jobs while transitioning to teaching careers.
WorldWideLearn has jumped on these statistics and similar findings from the Stockholm Environmental Institute and posted Nine Ways to Save the World with Your College Degree. These focus on why to opt for online learning when choosing a degree program, including increased access to environmental degree programs and eco-friendly colleges. For the many people out there looking for ways to break into the green economy, it’s something to consider.
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