Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory Update. Data Collection and Findings for

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1 Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory Update Data Collection and Findings for Prepared by: Brittany Prischak, Sustainability Officer Date Submitted: September 2010

2 Intro Mercyhurst College submitted its first Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions Inventory in the Spring of 2009 including data from 2001 through the end of the 2007/2008 school year. This is an update for the GHG Emissions Inventory with data for the rest of 2008 through the end of To help compile this inventory, we have used the Campus Carbon Calculator resource provided by Clean Air- Cool Planet, Inc. This calculator consists of a comprehensive Microsoft Excel template of all the necessary components needed to estimate the GHG emissions due to campus activity. The calculator was created for use by all the colleges or universities that have signed the ACUPCC to aid in their determination of campus GHG emissions. Since the calculator requires the same basic components from each university or college using it, the results may be compared among institutions. The three main components to the inventory are GHG emissions due to transportation, natural gas consumption and electricity usage. According to Clean Air-Cool Planet, Inc., there are about 1200 campuses in the United States who are participating in the GHG emissions inventory. 2

3 Data and Results Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory ( ) Figure 1: Graph showing the total carbon emissions vs. the net carbon emissions which have the REC purchase taken into affect. Years (Above) The overall increase in total emissions from 2007 to 2009 is 7.14%, and decrease in net emissions is 4.72%. Between 2007 and 2009, Mercyhurst College has decreased Electricity consumption by 6.6%, but increased natural gas use, solid waste disposal, and emissions due to transportation. The use of refrigerant chemicals decreased and the amount of fertilizer use increased, but compared to other emission contributors, these changes are negligible. The percentage of emissions due to each general contributing activity is shown in pie graphs displaying the results for 2007, the baseline emissions, and 2009, the latest data collection. 3

4 Figure 2: Percentage of carbon emissions per contributing activity comparing the baseline emissions in 2007 (Above) to the latest results, 2009 (Below) Total emissions in 2007 was 13,055 MT eco 2 and in 2009 was MT eco 2. 4

5 From these graphs, it can be seen that the percentage of emissions due to natural gas consumption is still relatively the same; however, electricity emissions has decreased by about 4.76% of the total emissions, while transportation emissions and solid waste disposal emissions has increased by a collective 4.8% of the total emissions. The large increase in total emissions by far is due to a 35% increase from 2007 to 2009 in emissions from transportation alone; this is due to the additional inclusion of student air travel in the 2009 data, which had not been taken into account in the If we exclude the air travel data, the increase in transportation emissions is only 11% from 2007 to 2009 and overall total emissions increase of 2.88%, compared to the 7.14% increase with air travel emissions. Figure 3: Comparative graph of transportation emissions from 2007 and 2009 displaying the emissions from specific forms of transportation (Above). 5

6 Discussion Of the six contributing activities to campus emissions, electricity, solid waste, and transportation changed the most from 2007 to Emissions from natural gas consumption still increased between those two years, but the increase was relatively small compared to the others. Natural gas conservation through standard thermostat settings and limiting the months of its use will still be a part of an ongoing education and awareness campaign. The use of refrigerant chemicals is not constant from year to year; these chemicals are only used if necessary, and this need changes per year based on the conditions of the refrigeration on campus from the food service department, hospitality management department, and in the residential apartments and A/C units in all buildings. Decreasing the use of chemical fertilizers will be tied in with a decrease in solid waste disposal through the purchase and use of composters. Electricity The decrease in electricity consumption from 2007 to 2009 can be attributed to a combination of conservation efforts: the upgrade of all light bulbs and lighting systems in all of the buildings on Erie campus to energy efficient models, installation of motion sensors on some of the lighting systems, the continual replacement of electric appliances with energy efficient models and behavioral changes in the campus body to be more conservative. Mercyhurst College purchases renewable energy credits (REC) in the form of wind power; in 2008, the percentage of wind power was increased from 10% to 30%. This accounts for the large difference in total emissions compared to net emissions in REC purchasing will continue to assist Mercyhurst College in reaching carbon neutrality by offsetting emissions from electricity consumption, and even more so because in July of 2010, the REC percentage was increase to 100%. This offsets all emissions from electricity, cutting total emissions in 2011 by about 54.5% if emissions from electricity remain relatively the same percentage from 2009 to

7 New construction of freshman residence hall was completed for fall In the 2010 data, an increase in electricity consumption should be seen due to the addition of a new residence building, especially because the heating and cooling system is run by electricity rather than natural gas. The PTAC heating and cooling system is an energy efficient model outperforming a geothermal system in the Hammermill Library by 27% and equal in performance to two other geothermal systems, one in the Audrey Hirt Academic Center and the other in the Mary D Angelo Performing Arts Center. Solid Waste and Fertilizers In the fall of 2010, Mercyhurst College will install two large Earth Tub composters to compost the food waste from the dining areas on-campus and other biodegradable materials like paper. Landscaping waste (i.e. grass clippings, leaves, chipped branches, etc) will also be composted in the tubs. Each tub can compost up to 150 pounds of material per day and hold about 3200 pounds of compost. The composters will reduce the waste by 75% during the composting process, which takes between three and four weeks. After composting the waste, the material must cure outside the tubs for another four weeks before use. These Earth Tubs will be placed near the maintenance building and can be partly powered by our solar panels. Compost from the Tubs will be used at the West County Garden, in the Erie campus flower beds, and around trees. This will cut down significantly on the purchase of mulch, compost, and artificial fertilizers. With these composters, Mercyhurst should be able to compost up to 109,500 lb yearly; this would help to reduce our yearly landfill waste, and therefore our carbon emissions due to solid waste disposal, by about 7.59%. 7

8 Transportation As mentioned previously, the large increase in emissions due to transportation is from the inclusion of student air travel in 2009, but not in the 2007 data. This information was not available when the baseline emissions were determined. The student air travel will continue to be included in all GHG emissions inventories, but will begin to include different types of student air travel. In the 2008 and 2009 data, student research and course requirement trips were included, but not the use of air travel by Mercyhurst College sports teams. This information will hopefully become available for the 2010 inventory update which will again cause an increase due to new information rather than an actual increase in activity. Additional new information that may be included in air travel will be additional faculty members using air travel for business, but are unknown at this point. The commuter transportation data was estimated using the results of a transportation survey conducted in the fall of 2008 by students in an upper-level ecology class. The survey asked questions concerning the distance people live from campus, their method of transportation, how often they traveled to campus in a week, if their method of travel or number of trips changed depending on weather, and whether they were student, faculty, or staff. population breakdown per zipcode was conducted. It was found that there was adequate evidence to support our claim that the survey sample population matched the overall population. This survey will be updated, hopefully during the next two years, to estimate changes in behavior since the first survey in 2008 and to determine the necessary information to estimate the emissions due to commuter transportation. 8

9 Conclusions Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory ( ) The end goal is carbon neutrality for Mercyhurst College, and towards this goal, we are well on our way. With this update of greenhouse gas emissions, conservation efforts and methods can be evaluated. The previous focus for these efforts was on electricity consumption, natural gas use, and transportation. These are still main focal points as the college moves forward since these are the top three contributors to campus emissions. Now we have more definitive plans as to how to proceed. 9