A Win-Win Scheme for Improving the Environmental Sustainability of University Commuters’ Mobility and Getting Environmental Credits

Laura Cirrincione, Salvatore Di Dio, Giorgia Peri, Gianluca Scaccianoce, Domenico Schillaci and Gianfranco Rizzo
Additional contact information
Laura Cirrincione: Dipartimento di Ingegneria, Università degli Studi di Palermo, Viale delle Scienze Ed. 9, 90128 Palermo, Italy
Salvatore Di Dio: Dipartimento di Architettura, Università degli Studi di Palermo, Viale delle Scienze Ed. 14, 90128 Palermo, Italy
Giorgia Peri: Dipartimento di Ingegneria, Università degli Studi di Palermo, Viale delle Scienze Ed. 9, 90128 Palermo, Italy
Gianluca Scaccianoce: Dipartimento di Ingegneria, Università degli Studi di Palermo, Viale delle Scienze Ed. 9, 90128 Palermo, Italy
Domenico Schillaci: PUSH Design Lab, Piazza Sant’Anna n. 3, 90133 Palermo, Italy
Gianfranco Rizzo: Dipartimento di Ingegneria, Università degli Studi di Palermo, Viale delle Scienze Ed. 9, 90128 Palermo, Italy

Energies, 2022, vol. 15, issue 2, 1-19

Abstract: European Union Member States are called upon to meet internationally proposed environmental goals. This study is based, in particular, on the recommendation of the European Union (EU), which encourages Member States to pursue effective policies to reduce greenhouse gas (GHGs) emissions, including through appropriate changes in the behavioral habits of citizens. In this respect, among the main sectors involved, transport and mobility should certainly be mentioned. National institutions should be adequately involved in order to achieve the objectives set; in this regard, universities must certainly be considered for their educational value. These latter, for instance, could commit to improving the environmental performance of the mobility of their commuter students (to a not insignificant extent), since commuting modes are often the cause of high CO 2 emissions; indeed, they still largely involve the use of internal combustion engines based on fossil fuels. In this paper, the effectiveness of a smartphone-app-based method to encourage commuter students to adopt more sustainable transport modes is evaluated. In more detail, starting from a statistical analysis of the status quo of mobility habits of a sample of students at the University of Palermo (Italy), an improvement of current habits toward a more sustainable path is encouraged through a new application (specifically created for this purpose) installed on students’ smartphones. Then, the daily and annual distances traveled by commuters with the new mobility modes are calculated, and the resulting savings in energy and CO 2 emissions are estimated. Finally, it is proposed that the reduced emissions could be converted into energy-efficiency credits that the University could use to enter the emission trading system (ETS), here contextualized within the Italian “TEE” (“Energy Efficiency Credits”) scheme, while the benefits for students participating in the program could consist of reduced fees and free access to university services. The results obtained show the feasibility of the proposal. This approach can be considered a useful model that could be adopted by any other public institutions—not only universities—to facilitate their path toward decarbonization.

Keywords: sustainable mobility; universities; commuter students; efficiency credits; smartphone’s social-game-based app; mobility behavior (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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