Climate calculator – an effective tool for motivating the working community
The Use of public premises project has assigned the WWF climate calculator to be used by the eco-supporters in the pilot premises. Exact information concerning the use of energy and paper in the facility, amounts of waste, purchased paper and the personnel's work travel is entered into the climate calculator. The calculator on the WWF website calculates the total greenhouse gas emissions from these areas and presents them in proportion to the amount of personnel in the facility.
The aim is to continuously reduce greenhouse gas emissions from operations and make the results that the eco-supporters activities have achieved within the work community visible. This will motivate everyone towards working for the environment.
The information required for the calculator can often be found in the cities' real estate departments and accounting. A separate form has been prepared for tracking travel during work, and it is available from the municipal contact persons. The eco support person collects the information in cooperation with the Julia contact persons for the cities and enters the figures into the calculator at the beginning of the year. The calculator calculates the total carbon dioxide emissions and emissions per person, which can then be used to make comparisons to other similar facilities.
The Julia 2030 project tests the use of the climate calculator in supporting eco-support activities, and analyses opportunities to expand the use of the tool to cities' other facilities in the future.
Cost tracking brings out the results
The climate calculator has been developed in the Julia 2030 project together with WWF. The new climate calculator is even more exact in calculating the greenhouse gas emissions caused by waste treatment and transport. The coefficients used by the climate calculator have been developed in cooperation by a large group of experts. Finland's environmental administration has been responsible for preparing the greenhouse gas emission coefficients for each waste type.
The calculator has also been supplemented with annual cost monitoring for electricity use, district heating consumption, paper purchases and generated waste. This makes the cost savings for reduced use of paper visible, which may be quite considerable in schools, for example.