Abstract
Background:One of the benefits of online education is the potential reduction in carbon emissions through the decrease in travel toattenda universityin person.We estimated the savings in CO 2emissions ofan internationalcohort of master's students who studied fully online from their home countries, rather than travelling to the UK and living there while attending university. Methods:The city and country of residence ofa cohort ofstudents who first enrolled in the fully online Peoples-uni/Manchester Metropolitan University Master of Public Health programme betweenthe second semesterof 2011and the first semester 2013 were recorded. Total difference in emissions was calculated by adding the estimated aviation emissions between Manchester, UK and the cities where students resided, to the difference in per capita emissions between the country of origin and the UK for the time that the student would have spent in Manchester, based on the semester in which they first enrolled. Results:128 students enrolled from 55 cities in 31 countries. 93 students werefroma range of African countriesand 18 from the Indian sub-continent. Flights to and from Manchester were estimated to have accountedfor 114,553kg of CO 2andliving in Manchester for the duration of their course compared with staying in the home country would have been equivalent to 854,904kg of CO 2. Thecombinednet savings was 969,457kg of CO 2. Conclusions:A smallcohortof overseas students,largely fromAfrica and India, studied online rather than attending university in the UK. The likely saving by this smallcohortofnearly amillion kg of CO 2emissions offers an indicationof the potential environmentalbenefitsofoffering university education online to overseas students.
Highlights
One of the benefits of online education is the potential reduction in carbon emissions through the decrease in travel to attend a university in person
A retrospective cohort study explored the records in the Peoplesuni database of each of the students who first enrolled through Peoples-uni in the Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) Master of Public Health (MPH) award programme between the second semester of 2011 and the first semester of 2013
Even though the course was part-time, we assume that students would have been living in Manchester full-time and would have travelled by air from their home city. We assumed that they would have lived in Manchester for 18 months to complete a full 180 credit MPH, 12 months for those exiting with a 120 credit Graduate Diploma or 6 months for those exiting with a 60 credit Graduate Certificate
Summary
One of the benefits of online education is the potential reduction in carbon emissions through the decrease in travel to attend a university in person. We estimated the savings in CO2 emissions of an international cohort of master’s students who studied fully online from their home countries, rather than travelling to the UK and living there while attending university. Methods: The city and country of residence of a cohort of students who first enrolled in the fully online Peoples-uni/Manchester Metropolitan University Master of Public Health programme between the second semester of 2011 and the first semester 2013 were recorded. Flights to and from Manchester were estimated to have accounted for 114,553kg of CO2 and living in Manchester for the duration of their course compared with staying in the home country would have been equivalent to 854,904kg of CO2
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