Expected Outcomes

The results expected during the project and on its completion are the following:

A first report on the current and future transport-related carbon footprint of Erasmus mobilities.

A second report on how to reduce the transport-related carbon footprint of Erasmus+ mobilities through the use of visualisation tools. This will include the findings linked to the implementation of a carbon footprint calculator. The objective is to help higher education students to make better choices regarding the means of transport they use to reach their Erasmus+ destination.

A third report on how to reduce the transport-related carbon footprint of Erasmus+ mobilities through the use of incentives or carbon offsetting. The report will specify what incentives are the best to influence the choices of higher education students and staff regarding the means of transport linked to Erasmus+ mobility across the three key actions of the programme. It will also cover the most interesting options for carbon offsetting and will put forward concrete suggestions that can be implemented efficiently by higher education students and staff and, thus, incorporated into the structure of the next Erasmus+ programme (2021-2027).

Finally, we will produce a handbook for higher education mobile students, guidelines for higher education institutions and policy recommendations targeted at policy-makers at both the central (Directorate General for Education and Culture (DG EAC) and Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA) and decentralised level (Erasmus+ National Agencies) in charge of the management of the Erasmus programme.

More widely, the project will raise the overall environmental awareness of higher education students and staff taking part in the Erasmus programme and ultimately help to reduce air pollution and fight global warming.

In the future, the results achieved in the higher education sector could serve as a template that pushes for similar changes in all the other sectors and actions of the programme to bring it closer to carbon neutrality.