Climate Commitment
In April 2008, GW President Knapp and members of the GW community signed the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment. Within one year of signing this document, GW has completed a comprehensive inventory of all Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions.
GW President Steven Knapp Signs American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment (4/22/2008)
GW's Climate Commitment [pdf] (4/22/2008)
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Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory Results
The inventory shows that GW has four major sources of GHGs that constitute 97% of GW’s FY2008 GHG emissions:
purchased electricity, stationary combustion, commuting, and air travel.
Click image to view.
In FY2008 GW emitted 128,301 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents (eCO2). This is equal to the annual emissions from approximately 23,498 automobiles1. GW’s gross emissions (in quantity and proportion) are on par with an average of other schools.
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Climate Change Basics
According to the Pew Center Climate Change 101: Understanding and Responding to Global Climate Change greenhouse gas emissions from cars, power plants, and other human activities - rather than natural variations in climate - are the primary cause of contemporary global warming. Due largely to the combustion of fossil fuels, atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2), the principal greenhouse gas (GHG), are at a level unequaled for at least 800,000 years. The greenhouse gases from human activities are trapping more of the sun’s heat in the earth’s atmosphere, resulting in warming. Over the last century, average global temperatures rose by more than 1°F and some regions warmed by as much as 4°F. The oceans have also warmed, especially in the upper layers.
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Why Commit?
The commitment reflects the University’s concern about and interest in addressing the unprecedented scale and speed of global warming and its potential for large-scale, adverse health, social, economic and ecological effects. As a signatory of the ACUPCC, the University recognizes the urgent need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the University's Climate Action Plan will outline how our commitment translates into tangible activities aimed at this goal.
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Climate Action Plan
This inventory will be the basis for creating a carbon neutrality plan to be completed by May 2010. This Climate Action Plan will outline the best near term GHG reductions and options for GHG offsets. It will also specify a target date for GW to achieve climate neutrality, along with interim targets for goals and actions with tracking mechanisms. The inventory will be updated annually to monitor progress.
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Accounting for GHGs
GW staff conducted the inventory for FY08 using the Clean Air-Cool Planet Campus Carbon Calculator. Over 500 schools in North America use this tool, including many signatories of the ACUPCC. The calculator is based on the World Resources Institute/World Business Council for Sustainable Development’s Greenhouse Gas Protocol. It is the most widely used international accounting tool for GHG emissions. More than 1,000 businesses and organizations worldwide have developed their GHG inventories using the GHG Protocol.
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Boundaries for GW
The inventory includes operations at the Foggy Bottom, Mount Vernon, and Virginia Campuses, and in leased facilities. The temporal boundary for this inventory is fiscal year 2008 (FY08).
There are multiple sources of the GHG emissions, but most come from four sources: purchased electricity, stationary combustion, commuting, and air travel. Electricity sources include those used by campus buildings such as heat, A/C, lighting, other mechanical equipment, plug loads, and some cooking, as well as GW Facilities’ fleet of electric vehicles. On-campus stationary combustion includes use of natural gas used for heating, hot water, cooking, generators, labs, art studio kilns, and distillate oil used for heating and generators. Commuting includes student, staff, and faculty travel to and from campus each day, and air travel includes only University funded air travel.
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Data Sources
Stationary Combustion: Natural gas is used in campus buildings for heating, hot water, cooking, generators, labs, and art studio kilns. No. 2 oil is another fuel source which is used for some heating and generators. The data source was utility bills for natural gas and No. 2 oil for owned/operated buildings while some assumptions were made about energy used in leased spaces.
Mobile Combustion: This includes gasoline and diesel fuel used in all University vehicles. The data source was credit card purchase records, with the exception of Athletics related vehicles, where a conversion to miles was performed by dividing total dollars spent by an average cost-per-gallon for the year. The calculation also included fuel used on two shuttle-bus routes operated by contractors (here as Scope 1 rather than as Scope 3 emissions).
Fugitive Emissions: A small component of GW's GHG emissions comes from fugitive sources such as refrigerants and agriculture. The inventory includes emissions from refrigerants lost from air conditioning and refrigeration equipment on campus. Refrigerants are lost during gas exchanges and equipment failures. Also included are emissions from fertilizers used on campus and from waste produced by animals kept for research purposes.
Purchased Electricity: The inventory includes electricity used by campus buildings for heating, A/C, lighting, other mechanical equipment, plug loads, and some cooking. It also includes electric utility bills for University owned/operated buildings while some assumptions were made about energy used in leased spaces.
Commuting: This includes student, staff, and faculty commuting to and from campus each day. The emissions data for this category does not include student travel to/from campus at the beginning/end of each semester. The data is based on an analysis of a comprehensive 2005 campus transportation survey of each population (students, faculty, and staff) that allowed us to extrapolate the average method and frequency of commuting to the three primary campuses based on the FY2008 population.
Air Travel: The ideal data to measure GHG emissions from air travel is the number of air miles traveled using University funds for both domestic and international flights. However, as noted, the University does not currently track mileage data. Therefore, the calculation of air travel miles is based on the separate dollars spent on international and domestic flights during the FY2008 divided by the respective factors of dollars-per-air- mile-traveled for 2007 as tabulated by the Air Transport Association of America (ATA). Air mileage not found in these categories was estimated based on origin and destination records.
Solid Waste: Solid Waste figures were tabulated based on existing records of waste generated as all three campuses.
Custom Sources: The inventory also includes emissions associated with paper purchases, wastewater treatment, and other directly financed ground travel (bus and car miles) as included in CACP v6.2.
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Your Voice and Actions
The GW Office of Sustainability and Office of Planning and Environmental Management wants you to help. Critical to our success as an institution will be the continued participation from members of the GW community. Progress in sustainability is not obtained solely by the leadership of a few groups, but by the commitment of all. Please share with us your ideas about how you as an individual or GW as an institution can reduce our carbon footprint. E-mail: sustaingw@gwu.edu. Follow us on Twitter: Sustain_GW. Join the group on Facebook: Sustain GW. View videos on Youtube: sustaingw.
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1According to the EPA GHG Equivalencies Calculator, GW’s GHG gross emissions of 128,301 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents (eCO2) is equal to eCO2 emitted from the burning of gasoline for 23,498 cars and light trucks (passenger vehicles) using the average US fuel economy (19.7 mpg) and average miles driven per year (11,856).
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