Sustainability students will soon have access to greenhouse gas reporting technology after the University struck a deal with a Scottish sustainability company.
Officials partnered with the Scottish company Ecometrica to give students enrolled in the Greenhouse Gas Management graduate certificate program access to the company’s greenhouse gas-tracking software, the Scottish Business News Network reported Wednesday.
The technology allows users to keep track of their greenhouse gas use, make reports based on their use and calculate the impact of the greenhouse gas use on climate change by using satellite data applications. The platform will be used in the program’s Greenhouse Gas Management Assurance and Information Systems Design course, SBNN reported.
GW is the first American university to gain access to the technology for training purposes and the second worldwide, according to the report.
Professor Jonathan Deason, the co-director of the Environmental & Energy Management Institute, said the course combines the technology with lectures and expert interviews to help students understand how companies use systems to manage greenhouse gas emissions.
“The course, supported by Ecometrica’s software, prepares students to make the maximum possible impact once they enter the workforce,” Deason said.
Vanessa Boudreau-Sannier, Ecometrica’s chief operations officer in North America, spearheaded the partnership and said the company is pursuing collaborations with universities and other private entities to help them manage their environmental impact. She said carbon reporting is becoming increasingly important to businesses in the United States.
“U.S. businesses have really stepped up their efforts to become environmentally responsible in the last years, and greenhouse gas management-focused courses are emerging in North America partly as a response to that,” she said. “We hope this community initiative will pave the way to support other US universities, which are training tomorrow’s environmentally responsible business leaders.”
Sustainability has been one of the University’s top priorities for the past several years under former University President Steven Knapp’s administration. The University pledged to derive more than half of its electricity from solar power as part of a partnership with Duke Energy Renewables in 2014.
