“makingAchange” is a cooperative project between scientists and schools. Together with the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, Science, and Research, the Climate Change Center Austria (CCCA) invited all secondary schools in Austria to participate in the “Climate Change and Sustainability” project. Its goal was to contribute to transforming society and to integrate the themes of climate protection and sustainability into schools and daily life as a matter of course. Students participating in the project were encouraged to engage with the theme independently and find their own solutions. One of the educational formats on offer — CO2 balancing — was co-supervised by TU Graz (Working Group Sustainable Construction). The CO2 balancing of “makingAchange” enabled participating schools during the project’s three-year span to identify their largest sources of operation emissions by collecting data and calculating emissions in order to, in the next step, determine the most effective measures for climate protection. Updating the balance at regular intervals in the future will measure the effectiveness of the climate measures established.
Online workshops with students and teachers taught the basics of CO2 balancing to give students the knowledge and tools to achieve CO2 balancing at their school on their own. In addition, measure workshops were held to support the development of emission-reduction measures and goals on the basis of the CO2 balance. Over the course of the project, CO2 balances were supervised jointly by the Center for Global Change and Sustainability (BOKU) and the Working Group Sustainable Construction at TU Graz. A cooperation with TU Graz, it was launched for the period after the project’s end to ensure that CO2 balancing will continue.
At the joint closing ceremony, held at BOKU Vienna on September 22, 2023, all of the formats and participants’ projects developed were presented once again.
