Eco-gesture & action plan for UIC carbon footprint reduction

Videoconferencing instead of travelling helps reduce carbon footprint, costs, fatigue and save time.
 In France, over long distances, switching from air to rail makes it possible to divide emissions by 40.
 When travelling by plane, opting for economy instead of business class allows emissions to be divided by more than half (as business class seats are wider, fuel consumption per seat is higher).

The fig.1 below shows the GHG emissions generated by a single person travelling 1,000 km for different modes of transport according to their average occupancy rate.

With some simple actions, one can easily achieve important savings on the electricity consumption on the long run:

 Plugging your office electronic devices (coffee machine, kettle…) into a multiple socket with a switch so that you can completely switch off the mains supply instead of leaving them in standby mode. The consumption of electronic devices either switched off (i.e. still connected to mains supply) or in standby mode represents about 15% of the total consumption of the device..

 Turning off unnecessary lighting during the day and systematically turn off lights as soon as you leave the room last.

 Optimizing email use and storage: a simple e-mail without attachments is equivalent to emitting approx 10 grams of CO2 into the atmosphere - which corresponds to the carbon footprint of a plastic bag.
Deleting your old emails and empty your spam or junk folder. When exchanging by email, also think about reducing the number of recipients and avoiding oversized attachments.

 Preferring stairs to elevators for short trips

1% reduction in consumption (electricity and heating) thanks to these eco-friendly gestures would prevent the emission of 115 kgCO2e on the basis of emissions assessed in this study of the UIC carbon footprint study.