| Summary: | Effective decarbonization strategies employ both hard and soft measures to address climate change. Soft approaches can deliver carbon savings comparable to hard approaches, which are typically both infrastructure- and investment-intensive and are often postponed due to financial risks. As demonstrated in this study, the time variable can be used as a lever to reduce energy demand through an academic calendar shift that aligns the end of fall term with Thanksgiving break, thus reducing the need for redundant holiday travel among a significant population. If implemented at all undergraduate campuses of the University of California (UC) system, this strategy would produce a significant reduction (nearly 50,000 tCO2e) in the annual carbon footprint of the UC, an impact approximately equal to decarbonizing all UC-owned vehicles. This outcome is robust to many of its key assumptions and can be realized at any higher education institution that sees a significant portion of its population travel for Thanksgiving. The proposed academic calendar shift is a prime example of a soft decarbonization measure; it can be implemented within existing systems, provides numerous co-benefits, does not require new technologies, and augments ongoing hard decarbonization efforts that will lead to compounding benefits into the future.
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