Last month, a group of Loyola students held a small conference hosted by the Rev. Timothy Brown and the Environmental Action Committee (EAC). They met an ambassador for UCapture, an online shopping program that helps offset the amount of carbon used and ultimately fights to end climate change.

Loyola’s ultimate goal is to become a more sustainable campus by becoming carbon neutral and reducing the amount of carbon used. By teaming up with UCapture, the Evergreen campus can now provide a free and easy program that would help each student offset their own personal carbon footprint by simply online shopping.

Right now, we know that greenhouse gases have contributed to climate change and global warming, and we know many ways to help offset our carbon emissions to reduce the production of greenhouse gases to save the environment.

However, according to many environmentalists, most of the ways to achieve that goal are extremely expensive. Ultimately, the problem with fixing climate change is a financial one. There are currently companies that may have the money to help, but do not want to donate the money arbitrarily. For the most part, companies want profit and a reason to donate money that will benefit them in the end.

UCapture offers a solution to this problem. They believe that companies will settle for giving money to environmental causes if they can retain customers and get more sales on their products. They’ve already teamed up with more than 2,500 online companies, representing 80 percent of all online spending, so that people can spend money while still going green.

UCapture works by providing the user with a browser extension or an app that tracks how much carbon you use while you online shop. They claim that their extension doesn’t cost any money, and it doesn’t change one’s shopping experience. Additionally, UCapture provides coupon codes from recognizable companies like Groupon. This, in turn, reduces carbon offsets by funding environmental projects.

Loyola plans on advocating for UCapture so that students can reduce their carbon footprints. The partnership has already begun, with a small group of students doing some of the marketing for the partnership around campus. They even plan on doing some presentations, including one at the Sellinger Scholars event.

UCapture funds certain carbon offset projects across the country, but are planning to bring more to the Baltimore area. They have already talked to other schools in the area such as Johns Hopkins, Goucher, and University of Maryland. Hopefully sometime in the future there can be an offset activity in our area, or Loyola even could step up and develop a project of their own.

Although those endeavors would be tackled in the future, the EAC is currently working on getting the word out on UCapture and other easy ways to reduce students’ carbon footprints. Let’s hope Loyola can become a more sustainable campus that helps the fight against climate change.