Assessment of Carbon Footprint of a Campus with Sustainability Initiatives

Abstract

Carbon footprint of a 10-year old university campus is estimated using IPCC Tier 1 Methodology. Key sources and sinks that cause carbon emissions were identified. Electricity, fuel, food and paper consumption were considered as the key items that would increase the emissions. Trees and recycling practices were considered as the key items that would reduce the emissions. Through communication with campus staff and data collection, annual consumption/production data were compiled in a spreadsheet application that uses these data to estimate the amount of carbon that is emitted per year. It was demonstrated that there has been a reduction in the carbon emissions between 2011 and 2017 due to the sustainability initiatives that were launched during that time in the campus. To analyze future years and address the uncertainty in the data, the spreadsheet allows to perform a probabilistic estimation through Monte Carlo simulation and analysis.