I am working on a project to determine which of several different choices that a U of A student can make is the most sustainable. Because this project has a lot of jargon, I am going to clarify what several words and acronyms related to the project mean.
First, sustainability: the sustainable choice is the one that will preserve the world's ability to carry life the longest. It is not the least expensive, the most comfortably, or generally the easiest. That said, very few will be solely focused on sustainability because it is uncomfortable and difficult. The goal of this project is to find the point at which students are comfortable yet not destroying the environment.
Second, life cycle assessments (LCA) are the tool that scientists use to quantify the sustainability of various options. In an LCA, a scientist examines what negative effects a given thing has on the environment. The format this project will use to display the results of an LCA is the amount of carbon dioxide a given subject produces. This can be in the amount of CO2 used to produce a textbook or the amount of CO2 produced by burning coal to generate electricity to power your laptop.
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