New dashboard tracks environmental impact of travel across the university

Today, the Bloomberg Center for Government Excellence, also known as GovEx, launches a new Travel Emissions Dashboard communicating the climate emissions impact of business travel across Johns Hopkins University.

Supported by the JHU Office of Climate and Sustainability through its Campus as a Living Lab initiative—a program that supports sustainability innovation—the Travel Emissions Dashboard informs faculty and administrative leaders about the carbon footprint of business travel. This information will allow for better decision-making, encouraging actions such as consolidating travel, choosing more efficient airlines, avoiding stopovers, and opting for lower emission modes of transit, such as rail, where possible.

The dashboard was produced through a human-centered design process led by organizational change experts from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, who hosted participatory workshops engaging more than 100 Johns Hopkins faculty, staff, and student affiliates across seven academic divisions.

"The emissions dashboard allows faculty and staff from throughout the university to make data-based decisions about travel, knowing the potential impact on the environment," says Sara Bertran De Lis, director of research and analytics at GovEx. "Tools like this are essential to embracing an evidence-based, data-driven culture at Johns Hopkins."

The Travel Emissions Dashboard currently focuses on air travel, which for academic institutions represents the vast majority of emissions produced in trips related to business. It displays multiple interactive visualizations with comparable statistics across all Johns Hopkins divisions, highlighting that emissions from university travel increased by 20% over the past year, with the number of trips up by 15%. One visualization shows flight paths on an interactive map, while another highlights seasonal fluctuation in travel, showing flights peaking in volume in both fall and spring.

Faculty members travel the most of all affiliate types, producing more than double the emissions of administrative employees and staff. By total emissions volume, the School of Medicine is listed first, followed by Jhpiego. By number of trips SOM is also first, followed by the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences. This is likely due to the fact that SOM is the largest division by the number of affiliates.

"We are pleased to provide an accessible source for Hopkins affiliates to explore how and where we travel, along with climate factors related to travel," said Amy Page, manager of the Johns Hopkins Travel Program, which provided data on air travel booked through the Johns Hopkins managed travel program.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, transportation accounts for 28% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, making it the largest single source of carbon pollution and one that is rapidly growing. For short trips, flying is much more carbon-intensive than rail or bus travel. The dashboard seeks to foster an enabling environment for mitigation efforts that address Scope 3 emissions (indirect emissions), which the university's Climate Action & Sustainability Plan seeks to reduce, along with other emissions sources.

"The Travel Emissions Dashboard demonstrates how Johns Hopkins University's Campus as a Living Lab initiative can advance sustainability efforts," said Debi Denney, assistant director of the Office of Climate and Sustainability. "By quantifying Scope 3 emissions from business-related travel, this tool not only enhances awareness but also empowers the university community to make informed decisions, aligning with our commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase the use of sustainable transportation."

Added Daniel Ali, assistant scientist in the Department of International Health at the Bloomberg School: "We are gratified that Johns Hopkins University has joined other global leaders in education in monitoring scope 3 emissions, and particularly that this dashboard was developed through a co-designing approach. This strategy will enable the larger university community to engage with and continuously measure the University's efforts towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions."