It's Not Easy Being Green

Introduction

The following is a summary of a study that was done by Carnegie Mellon in 2008.  The goal of the study was to provide a coherent framework and set of tools to allow institutions to understand their environmental impacts in relation to their peers, to determine appropriate sustainability goals and targets, and to identify and implement cost-effective programs to achieve these goals.

This project was awarded the honorable mention prize at the AASHE 2008 conference in Raleigh, North Carolina.

A full copy of the report is available here: It's Not Easy Being Green (PDF)

Since completing this project in 2008, we have used the framework generated to direct activities at our campus.  In addition, we have been developing  tools for other campuses to use. 

Summary

Institutions and campuses are increasingly focusing on environmental and sustainability issues in response to climate change and related ecological concerns. Such actions are diverse and range from signing commitments for greenhouse gas emissions reductions to adding sustainability courses to the curriculum. Best practices for identifying areas of significant impact and ideal decision frameworks for effecting change are not yet clear.

This study provides a coherent framework and set of tools to allow institutions to understand their environmental impacts in relation to their peers, to determine appropriate sustainability goals and targets, and to identify and implement cost-effective programs to achieve these goals. The general methods and tools developed in this report are applicable to any institution, but the framework is applied here to the Carnegie Mellon campus.

An evaluation of existing carbon footprint calculators for institutions was performed and several inconsistencies were found. The six calculators assessed in detail differed substantially on the number of required inputs, ranging from 4 to 70. The three most significant calculator inputs for the Carnegie Mellon campus case study (which represent approximately 93 percent of all estimated emissions) were electricity, steam, and faculty/student air travel. Based on these key inputs, a simplified carbon footprint estimator was developed. Using this tool, the annual carbon footprint of Carnegie Mellon was estimated to be approximately 164,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MTCDE).

Given the overall analysis described above, a set of recommendations for Carnegie Mellon was developed, and an overall framework to be used by other institutions was designed.