As transportation companies prepare to bid on Concordia’s shuttle service contract, members of Sustainable Concordia are campaigning to change the way students look at the school’s infamous link between Loyola and the downtown campus.
“We want the renewal of the contract to be dependent on having at least one biodiesel fueled bus in the Concordia fleet,” said Geneva Guerin of Sustainable Concordia.
According to Guerin, Concordia shuttle buses consume over 75,000 litres of diesel fuel every year, releasing 205 tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as a result. “That’s the approximate weight of 41 elephants,” said Guerin. “Conversion to biodiesel could theoretically decrease carbon dioxide emissions by 80 per cent.”
According to a Sustainable Concordia press release, biodiesel is produced by a variety of feedstocks such as animal fats, virgin and recycled vegetable oils, oil-containing crops such as soybeans, canola, corn, sunflowers and palm and can even be developed from wood pulp waste. It has recently been hailed as the newest alternative fuel.
According to Guerin, the ratification of the Kyoto protocol has helped spark a greater interest in biodiesel research.
Last year, the Soci
