Dartmouth College – Nicolas AL FAHEL – 2019

Goals 

Dartmouth College, a private Ivy League research university has been educating generations of students since its establishment in 1769. The Sustainability Office at Dartmouth created a set of sustainability principle to guide the rebuilding of the College’s transportation system and enlisted EDF Climate Corps Nicolas Al Fahel to help reduce its transportation relating to Scope 1 and Scope 3 emissions. 

Solutions

To reduce Scope 1 and Scope 3 emissions Al Fahel and the Sustainability Office analyzed commuter data and interviewed stakeholders, using this data they advocated for two internal carbon pricing (ICP) mechanisms. The first ICP option was an on-campus parking permit based each employee’s pre-tax income and the alternative commute options available. The second ICP option proposed a campus wide carbon pricing pilot project to engage each Dartmouth department in the effort to reduce transportation related emissions. Under such scheme, each department would be charged $40 per ton of CO2e reported and required to meet annual reduction mandates. The money collected would be refunded when the mandate was met and revenues from the carbon pricing scheme would be invested in purchasing secondary market emission allowances.

Potential Impact

Based on Al Fahel’s recommendations, Dartmouth College can focus on behavioral change to reduce Scope 1 and Scope 3 emissions while raising environmental awareness by providing individuals with a social cost of carbon based on their transportation decisions and incentivizing the adoption of alternative transportation modes. Members of the community have expressed interest in adopting the internal carbon pricing model on a broader community scale in order to reduce emissions.