Polytechnique Montréal
IN-26: Innovation C

PolyCarbone was founded by Polytechnique Montréal engineering graduate students. Our initial objectives were: 1) to develop activities for the Polytechnique Montreal community to support individual behaviour changes toward more sustainable habits; 2) to develop a trading system of carbon points for Polytechnique Montreal which represent the avoided greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions due to individual behavioural changes. Carbon points are quantified based on the life cycle assessment methodology. It is worth noting that all co-founders of PolyCarbone were affiliated to the CIRAIG, which is the International Reference Center for Life Cycle of Products, Processes and Services.

Since 2017, we have helped the Polytechnique Montréal community to fight against climate change and take action for a more sustainable world. To do so, we organized various activities at Polytechnique Montréal:
• Implementation of awareness-raising and commitment to action campaigns;
• Organization of challenges to engage the community into more sustainable actions. For instance: the vegetarian challenge (Défi végé), the zero food waste challenge (Défi zéro gaspi), the #demarquetoi second-hand clothing shop during the campaign to reduce the impacts of clothing;
• Calculation of related avoided GHG emissions based on a life cycle perspective;
• Development of a mobile application to support the adoption of more sustainable individual habits.
Through all these activities, we want to achieve the following goals:
• Educate the Polytechnique Montréal community on the environmental, social and economic impacts of their way of life;
• Provide concrete means of action to reduce their impact;
• Invite the community to commit to reducing their impact by taking action;
• Develop a reward system to encourage action and long term behavioural change;
• Measure the reduction efforts by quantifying avoided GHG emissions.
By showing the way, the Polytechnique community will influence and inspire the entire university community, as well as their living environments and society in general. Today, we think that our mission lies beyond the borders of Polytechnique Montréal. We are now ready to become an influential player in the fight against climate change in Quebec. As a result, our mission is now defined as “reducing the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of the university community in the province of Québec by promoting more sustainable behaviour."