Avoided CO₂ Emissions from Reduced Thesis Printing: A Four-Year BiPSU Case Study with Regional and National Projections in the Philippines

Abstract

The growing shift toward digital academic workflows presents an important opportunity to reduce paper consumption, conserve forest resources, and mitigate greenhouse gas emissions within the higher education sector. The present study estimates the environmental benefits of reduced thesis printing at both the institutional (Biliran Province State University – BiPSU) and national levels in the Philippines over a four-year student cohort. Using enrollment-based projections, paper-to-tree conversion factors, and life-cycle emission estimates for A4 paper, we quantify pages saved, equivalent trees conserved, and avoided CO₂ emissions associated with minimizing hardbound thesis requirements.
Results indicate that, across a four-year cohort of 11,141 students, BiPSU could avoid approximately 3.34 million printed pages in total, equivalent to 610 trees saved and 15.09 t CO₂e avoided over the period (3.77 t CO₂e annually). Based on an Elsevier/Science Direct benchmark of 5,476 A4 sheets per tree, the annual reduction of 218,048 pages corresponds to roughly 40 mature trees saved each year, while life-cycle estimates suggest 0.94–1.03 t CO₂e avoided annually from paper production alone. At the national scale, reduced thesis printing across all higher education institutions could save over 1.54 billion pages, conserve 281,615 trees, and avoid 6,962.68 t CO₂e over the same four-year window (1,740.67 t annually).
These findings demonstrate that even a single provincial university can generate measurable climate benefits, while regional and national scaling of digital thesis policies could produce substantial cumulative reductions in emissions and forest resource demand. The results will support the adoption of a one–hardbound-copy policy with mandatory digital archiving, establishment of centralized institutional repositories, and alignment of academic requirements with climate and sustainability commitments.