The How-to Guide to Carbon Negative: Development of a Unit Level Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory
Penn State’s Office of Physical Plant (OPP) creates an annual university-wide Greenhouse Gas (GHG) inventory, but because of its broad scope, the inventory does not provide unit-level detail to be used by individual colleges and campuses to assess their emissions. A unit-level inventory can provide better identification and management of potentially avoidable GHG emissions, and may increase unit accountability to reduce emissions, increase sustainability, and make progress towards university goals.
The boundary of this inventory includes emissions attributed to the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences (EMS) at the University Park (UP) Campus. It attempts to mirror the sources and scopes included in Penn State’s University-wide Inventory. This report explains how emissions were calculated, including the sources of data utilized and assumptions made thus providing a “how-to” guide for other colleges and units to follow while also viewing the data and formulas stored within an EMS GHG Inventory Excel spreadsheet.
The development of this college-level GHG inventory was done over an eight-week period in June/July 2020. Because of the time constraint as well as other limitations associated with working remotely during the covid pandemic, this analysis contains suggestions for future work to ensure that the most accurate and current data for the College of EMS is utilized when planning how to reduce their carbon footprint. It is crucial that EMS be responsible for pursuing the suggestions for future work and updating this guide to maximize the relevance and opportunities to reduce emissions associated with the college-level GHG inventory.
