At Universidad Austral de Chile, 58.7% of the 2023 carbon footprint came from students and staff travelling to and from its campuses. Electricity was 25.4%. Boilers, 12.8%.
At Universidad Carlos III de Madrid the proportion is even starker. Of the 16,424 tonnes of CO2 equivalent it reported for 2024, 13,693 come from daily commuting.
A university looks little like a company here. Its largest emission appears on no invoice. It depends on how thousands of people arrive every day, and the only way to know is to ask them.
This guide starts there. It then covers which commitments exist in Chile today, what accreditation actually says and where to go next if you already measure. If you came only for accreditation, that section sits past the halfway point and reads fine on its own.
Where a campus footprint sits
The table summarizes the 2023 inventory of Universidad Austral de Chile, verified by a third party. We use it because it is published in full, with its categories.
| Source | tCO2e | Share of total |
|---|---|---|
| Student and staff transport | 4,906.6 | 58.7% |
| Purchased electricity | 2,127.2 | 25.4% |
| Stationary combustion: firewood, oil and gas in boilers | 1,066.7 | 12.8% |
| Products used by the organization | 195.4 | 2.3% |
| Own vehicles | 67.5 | 0.8% |
| Total | 8,363.3 | 100% |
Not every campus splits the same way. A university in a cold southern city will carry more weight in heating. Carlos III reports its purchased electricity as zero. What repeats is transport in first place.
The commuting survey
It is the part that takes the most work and weighs the most, so design it well the first time.
We found no standard that sets the sample size or frequency for a university commuting survey. What follows is our own judgment.
Ask little: where the person comes from, by what means, how many days a week. Separate students from staff and separate by campus, because results vary a lot from one to another. At Austral, transport was 81% of the footprint at the Puerto Montt campus and 41.8% at the Miraflores campus.
And repeat the same questions every year. A survey that changes from one year to the next makes it impossible to tell whether emissions fell or the question changed.
What does sit on invoices
Electricity, gas, oil, firewood and fuel for the university's own vehicles all have a supporting document. It is the easiest part to measure well and the first thing a verifier reviews.
The usual problem at a university is that invoices are scattered. Each faculty, campus or building may have its own meter, its own supplier and its own office paying the bill. Gathering them often takes longer than calculating.
The boundary: a decision you make once
Three things need settling before measuring.
Which sites are in. Campuses, research centers, teaching hospitals, field stations, residences.
Who you count. The universities we reviewed include student commuting, which multiplies the footprint compared with counting staff alone.
Which indirect emissions you include beyond daily transport: academic travel, purchasing, waste, water. Carlos III reports business travel, water, waste and paper.
Write these decisions down and keep them. They are the first thing you will be asked if you verify.
In Chile, the concrete commitment is the APL
On September 9, 2021 the second Clean Production Agreement (APL) for higher education institutions was signed in Santiago. Its carbon actions are the best available description of what the sector considers a complete program:
- Measure or update the organizational carbon footprint every year with the HuellaChile tool, with 2019 as the baseline year.
- Verify the footprint with verifiers recognized by the HuellaChile Program.
- Prepare and implement a carbon neutrality plan, with quantifiable reduction actions and targets.
- Keep data updated every year in RESIES, the reporting platform of the Red Campus Sustentable network.
The agreement set its deadlines at 36 months from signing. If your institution did not join, the list still works as a roadmap: measure, verify, plan the reduction, report.
Red Campus Sustentable states it has 44 member higher education institutions. How the Program's seals work is in the Programa Huella Chile guide.
And accreditation
Precision matters here, because more is often claimed than the texts say.
The institutional accreditation criteria and standards for universities that Chile's National Accreditation Commission (CNA) published in the Official Gazette on September 30, 2021 do not mention the carbon footprint. We searched the text and it is not there.
What it does say, in the Community Engagement dimension, is that the university incorporates "indicators that reflect the university's contributions to the sustainable development of the region and the country".
A measured and verified footprint is an indicator of that kind, with a recognized method and third-party backing. It works as evidence in that dimension. Accreditation does not require it, and we would not say otherwise in a self-assessment report.
In Peru
The equivalent route is Huella de Carbono Perú, the Ministry of the Environment's free tool, which recognizes four levels. We explain it in the Huella de Carbono Perú guide.
Rankings
If your university reports to international rankings, the inventory is used there too.
AASHE STARS has an emissions inventory and disclosure credit. It asks you to upload the inventory with Scope 1, 2 and 3 clearly indicated.
The 2026 Times Higher Education methodology includes, under SDG 13, indicators for low-carbon energy use and carbon neutrality.
Rankings ask for scopes and HuellaChile for ISO categories. The GHG Protocol and ISO 14064 guide has the table to move between them.
Where to go next
If you are just starting: define the boundary, gather one year of energy invoices and run the commuting survey. That gives you the three sources that explain almost the whole footprint.
If you already measure: verify. A verified number is one you can show outside the university.
If you already verify: set a target on transport. That is where most emissions are and where acting is hardest, because it depends on other people's decisions. We have no recipe. Universities that publish their plans talk about bicycles, public transport and less use of private cars.
Where Grumbic fits
Grumbic handles the part that lives on invoices. It gathers energy and fuel consumption across all your campuses and keeps every figure linked to its document, which is what a verifier reviews.
See the platform or talk to us.
Sources
Information reviewed on October 10, 2026.
- 2023 carbon footprint report, Universidad Austral de Chile (in Spanish)
- Scope 3 carbon footprint, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (in Spanish)
- Second Clean Production Agreement, Sustainable Higher Education Institutions, September 9, 2021 (in Spanish)
- Institutional accreditation criteria and standards for universities, CNA, Official Gazette, September 30, 2021 (in Spanish)
- Red Campus Sustentable (in Spanish)
- AASHE STARS, Emissions Inventory and Disclosure credit
- Times Higher Education methodology
