Turkish Healthy Cities Association have calculated its Corporate Carbon Footprint in 2015

Since its foundation, acting in unison with its members in order to spread the idea of healthy city, and relevantly to raise awareness of local administrations along with the public, Turkish Healthy Cities Association has been conducting very significant national and international studies and organizations to accomplish this goal.

In order to manage the whole process accordingly, the Association based in Bursa; attaches great importance to the cities’ taking inventory of carbon footprint, since they have the largest share related to global warming and climate change. Therefore, a training meeting for our affiliate member municipalities titled as “The Importance of Greenhouse Gas Emission Inventory for Local Administrations and How to Make It” was held on 4-6 March 2015, hosted by Trabzon Metropolitan Municipality, under the guidance of Prof. Dr. Cengiz Türe – Member of Advisory Committee of Healthy Cities Association.

In reference to this study, RecepAltepe, president of Turkish Healthy Cities Association and Mayor of Bursa Metropolitan Municipality stated that at every opportunity he makes a point of expressing that the solution to this crucial global problem should initially come out at local level, and that practices of “Urban Carbon Footprint” add a brand value at an international level to the municipal mentality of not only our Union’s affiliate members, but all local administrations.

Mayor Altepe also said “With this study by which we aimed to designate the size of our carbon footprint occurred over the course of activities of our executive office itself, we intended to set a good example of small-scale application model for all of our affiliate members.”

This study aimed at designating the size of Carbon Footprint generated in relation to the activities of the executive office and only the organizations held by Turkish Healthy Cities Association in 2015. Led by Prof. Dr. CengizTüre – Head of the Department Of Ecology of Anadolu University and Member of Advisory Committee of Healthy Cities Association, and with the contributions of Turkish Healthy Cities Association employees, the results of this study were summarized in graphics.

These results indicate that; as a result of the managerial and organizational activities carried out by its executive office, the size of carbon footprint generated by Turkish Healthy Cities Association was calculated as 41 tonnes of CO2 equivalent (CO2e). It is seen that the largest share of this Carbon Footprint size is based on the national/international transportation activities via highway and airway by a total of 28,2tonnes of CO2e; and it is followed by the activities related to accommodation equivalent to 5 tonnesCO2e arising on the organizations of the corporation and thepower generated in its building.

In the following phases of this study which aimed to reveal our current situation, it is intended to accomplish the objective of becoming a Carbon Neutral Turkish Healthy Cities Association by planting trees in specific number of equivalent to the carbon rate we generate, while taking the required measures to reduce our Carbon Footprint.