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Client: Building & Estates Office, University College Cork

Title: University College Cork Carbon Footprint 2011-‐12 Internal Report

Document No. BE1310-‐BR-‐B-‐002

Issue Description Author Checked Release

A Internal Report on UCC’s 2011-‐12 Carbon Footprint

ND JM 24 Oct 2013

Cleaner Production Promotion Unit School of Engineering Civil Engineering Buildling University College Cork Western Road, Cork Ireland.

T: +353 21 490 2521 T: +353 21 490 3534 (accounts) F: +353 21 490 2128 http://www.ucc.ie/cppu

UCC Carbon Footprint 2011-‐12 Internal Report Oct 2013

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University College Cork Carbon Footprint 2011-‐12 Internal Report

1 Executive Summary

A ‘Carbon Footprint’ refers to the potential climate impact of the greenhouse gases (GHG) that are emitted directly or indirectly due to an organisation’s activities. To calculate a Carbon Footprint involves the preparation of a GHG inventory, typically an estimation of an entity’s annual emission of GHG expressed in terms of tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO₂e). An estimate of UCC’s Carbon Footprint was calculated for the academic year 2011/12, using the internationally recognised methodology ‘Greenhouse Gas Protocol Corporate Standard’. This work was an update of a previous study on the University’s ‘Carbon Footprint’ for the 2008/09 academic year. Table 1 below presents a summary of the study’s findings, categorised into the three ‘scopes’ of GHG emissions: Scope 1: Core direct emissions; Scope 2: Core Indirect emissions & Scope 3: Optional inclusions.

Carbon Footprint

Total tCO2e

Normalised Footprint tCO2e per student FTE Per staff FTE per m2 area

Scope 1 & 2 21,167 1.24 8.69 0.11 Scope 1, 2 & 3 31,747 1.86 11.90 0.16 Table 1: University College Cork Carbon Footprint Summary 2011/12

Internal benchmarking represents the most valuable application of the Carbon Footprint analysis. Figure 1 compares the core Carbon Footprint (Scope 1 and Scope 2 activities) across a number of University College Cork building clusters for 2011/12.

Figure 1: UCC Carbon Footprint 2011-‐12 (Scope 1 & 2) comparison between building clusters


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2 Introduction

2.1 Background In recent years, climate change has come to the forefront as a key international issue for both industrialised and developing countries. It will continue to be an important political and economic issue for generations to come (Sundin and Ranganathan 2002). World energy demand is growing at a rate of about 1.6% per year, and is expected to reach about 700 x 1018 J/annum by 2030, with more than 80% of worldwide primary energy production still coming from the combustion of fossil fuels. In an associated trend, global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are expected to exceed 30 x 109 t/annum in the near future (Pękala et al. 2010).

Large organisations such as University College Cork (UCC), have a vital role to play in efforts to mitigate global warming, as significant producers of industrial greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (known as ‘direct’ or Scope 1 emissions) or through GHG emitted throughout their value chain, or supply chain (known as ‘indirect’ or Scope 2 and Scope 3 emissions) (Downie and Stubbs 2011). Conducting an inventory of greenhouse gas emissions is an important first step, which an organisation can take towards developing an effective response to climate change. A greenhouse gas inventory provides valuable information on the risks and opportunities of operating in a carbon constrained economy (Sundin and Ranganathan 2002).

In this context, this study aims to calculate the organisational Carbon Footprint for UCC based on emissions data for the six main greenhouse gases (GHGs) identified by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: CO2, CH4, N2O, PFCs, SF6, with the final measurement being expressed in tonnes of CO2 equivalent (CO2e). In the case of UCC, CO₂ accounts for >99% of GHG emissions with small amounts of CH₄ & N₂O comprising the remainder.

2.2 Institutional Context Founded in 1845, the National University of Ireland, Cork -‐ University College Cork (UCC) is one of four constituent universities of the federal National University of Ireland. Located in Cork city in the southwest of the country, UCC is a leading educational and research institution in the state. It was selected three times (2003, 2005 & 2011) by The Sunday Times as the Irish University of the Year. The University’s research income is consistently one of the highest in the country and in the 2012 QS University Rankings was ranked in the top 2% of universities worldwide based on the quality of its research.

Sustainability and care for the environment are evident throughout the University curriculum with environmental subjects taught across a range of academic areas, including: Engineering, Chemical Sciences, Biological Sciences, Environmental Science & Management, Geography, Geology, Sociology, Zoology etc. In parallel with and complementary to this teaching, University College Cork has substantial and varied research activities in sustainable development and environment throughout


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all of its colleges and schools. In keeping with it role in environmental teaching and education, UCC has a strong commitment to reducing its environmental impacts though an Environmental Policy, which covers: Recycling & Waste, Energy, Water, Procurement; Commuter Planning; Buildings & Estates; Education & Communication.

UCC’s Buildings and Estates Office (B&EO) has led the University’s efforts in this regard and has recently overseen the development of a comprehensive Environmental Management System. In February 2010 UCC became the first third-‐level educational institution in the world to be accredited with the prestigious international ‘Green Flag’ award, while in 2011 it was first University worldwide to achieve the ISO 50001 standard in energy management. It was ranked third in UI World Green Metric University Rankings 2012.

In 2010 the Cleaner Production Promotion Unit in the School of Engineering was requested by the Buildings and Estates Office (B&EO) to determine the University’s carbon footprint for 2008/09. This report presents the carbon footprint for the year 20011/12 and represents an update of the initial study.

2.3 Carbon Foot-‐printing The term ‘Carbon Footprint’ has now become a synonym for the climate change impact of individuals, communities, nations, companies, or products (Wiedmann 2009). While derived from the Ecological Footprint methods developed by (Wackernagel and Rees 1996), the widespread use of Carbon Footprint methods has been promoted in the main by non-‐governmental organisations (NGOs), companies, and various private initiatives, as opposed to by research (Weidema et al. 2008). The wide variety of entities adopting carbon foot-‐printing has however resulted in a wide variety of approaches and there is a large spectrum of definitions ranging from direct CO2 emissions to full life-‐cycle greenhouse gas emissions as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Spectrum of ‘Carbon Footprint’ definitions after (Dunphy & Henry 2012)


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Examples of definitions of ‘carbon footprint’ include:

“…the total greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) caused directly and indirectly by an individual, organisation, event or product” (Carbon Trust 2007).

"…measure of the impact that human activities have on the environment in terms of the amount of greenhouse gases produced, measured in units of carbon dioxide” (UNEP, n.d.).

“…the total amount of CO₂ and other greenhouse gases, emitted over the full life cycle of a process or product. It is expressed as grams of CO₂ equivalent per kilowatt hour of generation (gCO₂eq/kWh), which accounts for the different global warming effects of other greenhouse gases” (POST, 2006).

In acknowledging such differences, Peters (2010) recommends the following open definition: “the ‘carbon footprint’ of a functional unit is the climate impact under a specified metric that considers all relevant emission sources, sinks, and storage in both consumption and production within the specified spatial and temporal system boundary”. The lack of consensus as to what constitutes a carbon footprint underlines the importance of adopting an internationally recognised standard such as the Greenhouse Gas Protocol in this study.

This study aims to calculate the organisational carbon footprint for UCC based on emissions data for the six main greenhouse gases (GHGs) identified by the IPCC.

2.4 Carbon Footprint Limitations The information contained in a Carbon Footprint varies, depending on how it is calculated and on how much responsibility the entity in question is willing to assume (Matthews, Hendrickson, and Weber 2008). There is an inherent trade-‐off between comprehensiveness of the measure developed on one hand and practicality of data collation and analysis on the other. There is also a limit to the extent to which final consumers and intermediate businesses can affect emissions occurring far up the supply chain (Matthews, Hendrickson, and Weber 2008). In addition, nontrivial shortcomings in the collection and aggregation of GHG emissions data have an impact on the degree of credibility and relevance of sustainability reports, such as those presenting Carbon Footprint results (Dragomir 2012). For any given Carbon Footprint analysis, including this study, a number of questions need to be addressed to ensure the validity of the reported findings. Table 1 presents an overview of these, after the paper by (Finkbeiner 2009). Use of a standardised approach assisted in this regard.


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Area Issue Scope of emissions Shall all GHGs specified by IPCC 2007 or only the six

GHG gases of Kyoto Protocol be considered?

Life cycle stages While a general understanding is that Carbon Footprint should relate to the life cycle using process-‐based data, the inclusion of the use phase might be controversial between business-‐to-‐business and business-‐to-‐consumer perspectives. If included, how can use phase profiles be defined in a meaningful way?

System boundaries How to specify cut-‐off criteria? Materiality threshold or GHG threshold? How to deal with employee transport? Time boundaries can be challenging as well, especially for agricultural products

Offsetting Shall offsetting be included in the calculation or not? Is the use of renewable energy a type of offsetting or not?

Data Which data sources? Share of primary activity data and secondary data? Are any operational data quality requirements possible?

Allocation

Is there any progress or further specification possible compared to the existing ISO 14040 procedures? For system expansion, how can the identification of an avoided product system be qualified?

End-‐of-‐life

How to define end-‐of-‐life scenarios? Recycled content approach on the product level or average recycled content on the material level?

Carbon storage How to deal with carbon storage, carbon capture, carbon sequestration?

Land use change Shall emissions arising from direct land use change be included or not? Shall changes in soil carbon (source or sink) be included or not?

Capital goods How to deal with capital goods? Renewable electricity and electricity mix

Shall the grid-‐average carbon intensity be used and, if so, what is the grid? Shall renewable energy be treated as part of the grid or shall there be specific benefits if it is used in a specific supply chain?

Table 2: Issues with Carbon Footprint Methodology, after (Finkbeiner 2009)

3 Methodology

3.1 Introduction The scope and boundary of carbon emissions is critical to identifying and measuring the direct and indirect carbon emissions across the activities of an organization, and its supply chain. Without clear identification of these activities, accurate carbon emissions and footprint measurement and reporting cannot be made (Lee 2011). However, the current diversity of GHG accounting practices makes it difficult to develop comparable GHG inventory and reduces the credibility, and utility of the


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resulting information (Sundin and Ranganathan 2002). Against this, there is a growing standardisation and professionalisation of environmental reporting (Dragomir 2012)1. For Carbon Footprint analysis, the Greenhouse Gas Protocol Corporate Standard, the GHG Protocol, represents such a standard.

3.2 Greenhouse Gas Protocol Corporate Standard The GHG Protocol uses a structured yet flexible accounting and reporting framework based on a bottom-‐up accounting process. Emissions are calculated at the level of GHG sources and can be subsequently aggregated and disaggregated by facility, business unit, country, region, etc. (Sundin and Ranganathan 2002). The GHG Protocol thus represents a voluntary international standard for accounting and reporting greenhouse gas emissions that will enable businesses to report information from global operations in a way that presents a clear picture of GHG risks and reduction opportunities, while facilitating understanding and comparison with similar reports (Sundin & Ranganathan 2002)2.

The Greenhouse Gas Protocol: A Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard, revised edition (GHG Protocol Standard) categorises an organisation’s emissions into 3 groups or ‘Scopes’, as described below and illustrated in Figure 3.

Figure 3: Overview of Emissions & Scopes (Source: GHG Protocol Corporate Standard)

Scope 1 – Core direct emissions: Direct emissions resulting from activities within the organisation’s control. Includes on-‐site fuel combustion, manufacturing and process emissions, refrigerant losses and company vehicles. These are emissions from

1 The introduction of new estimation methodologies for existing databases, and the adoption of international standards are essential steps in promoting the transparency of corporate environmental performance (Dragomir 2012). 2 It is important to note that the GHG Protocol Standard is designed to develop a veritable inventory; it does not purport to provide a standard for how a verification process should be conducted.


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sources that are owned or controlled by the reporting institution (i.e. owned or controlled by UCC). Inclusion of such emissions is mandatory.

Scope 2 – Core indirect emissions: Indirect emissions from electricity, heat or steam purchased and used by the organisation. These are emissions that are a consequence of the operations of the University, but occur from sources owned or controlled by another company. Inclusion of such emissions is mandatory.

Scope 3 – Non-‐core indirect emissions: Any other indirect emissions from sources not directly controlled by the organisation. Examples include: employee business travel, outsourced transportation, waste disposal, waste usage and employee commuting. Inclusion of these categories is generally elective. There is broad discretion about which (if any) Scope 3 emissions should be included – for example, organisations may choose to include (or not include) categories such as waste disposed to landfill and employee business travel. Using the GHG Protocol methodology ensures that the UCC Carbon Footprint report and results will be prepared in accordance with international best practice. As this was also the procedure used in the previous study, the results will allow for temporal comparisons and with appropriate caveats.

3.3 Study Process Figure 4 illustrates the methodological approach used within the study. The first step was to scope the study, select relevant (spatial, temporal and process) boundaries, identify the likely sources of GHG emissions (through reference to, and review of decisions taken in the previous study). Secondly, possible GHG emission sources were identified; this involved updating the review of the activities of the University and literature review of similar studies whilst referencing the GHG Protocol Standard and other relevant texts. Data were collected and actual GHG emissions sources confirmed. The GHG emissions for each source were calculated (in terms of t CO₂e). The data were reviewed for robustness and the overall carbon footprint for University College Cork calculated.


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Figure 4: Methodological framework used in the study

3.4 Scope of Emission Sources.

3.4.1 Temporal Boundary The reporting period to be covered in this Carbon Footprint analysis is the academic year 2011-‐2012 (October 1st 2011 – September 30th 2012). While most organisational or institutional Carbon Footprints are measured on a calendar year basis, it is more relevant to measure a University’s footprint based on its operational year, i.e. academic year (as this aligns with the period for which data are collected). Again this is comparable with the approach adopted in the original study.

3.4.2 Spatial Boundary University College Cork is an Irish University catering for 17,082.5 student FTEs3 and 2435.07 staff FTEs in 2011-‐12. The buildings considered in this report cover an area of approximately 196,002 m2, which includes both main campus and outlying buildings. The individual Carbon Footprint contributions for building clusters were also determined. These include: Main Campus, Brookfield, Lee Maltings, Western Gateway, North Mall, Environmental Research Institute and the other outlying buildings. This serves to further detail the overall UCC Carbon Footprint and allows for comparison within the University, across building clusters. Student 3 FTEs – full -‐time equivalents are the number of employees (or students as the case may be) on full-‐time schedules plus the number of on part-‐time schedules converted to a full-‐time basis.


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accommodation is operated separately from the University, and as a result is excluded from analysis. Figures 5 to 7 illustrate the principal UCC locations involved.

Figure 5: UCC Main Campus

Figure 6: UCC West Campus


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Figure 7: UCC East Campus

3.4.3 Activities and Emissions from GHG Protocol Scopes: The choice about which activities and which emissions to include the calculation of a carbon footprint is always a difficult process. However, these decisions will greatly influence the credibility and usefulness of the report and its compatibility with other CF results determined using the same methodology.

When following the GHG Protocol Standard, it is compulsory to include core direct and indirect emissions (i.e. Scopes 1 & 2) in a Carbon Footprint analysis. These core direct and indirect emissions are those emissions typically used for comparison purposes. The following activities are included in the Carbon Footprint analysis conducted for this report:

• Scope 1 – direct emissions from sources owned/controlled by UCC: Direct energy consumption – on site consumption of gas for space and water heating, teaching and catering

• Scope 2 – indirect energy emissions generated in the production of electricity: Purchased electricity, steam and heat consumed

• Scope 3 – indirect emissions optional inclusions such as staff business travel, commuting, waste and emissions from the provision of water.

The core direct and indirect emissions were collated as completely as possible and an inclusive approach was taken to selecting the optional non-‐core and indirect emissions. In accordance with the GHG Protocol Standard the six greenhouse gases covered by the Kyoto Protocol are addressed by the study. However, as mentioned earlier for UCC, Carbon Dioxide accounted for >99% of GHG emissions with the


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remaining emissions consisting of small amounts of methane and Nitrous Oxide.

The most basic carbon footprint would only encompass direct emissions from major emissions sources like fuel and electricity consumption, whether caused by energy use in buildings, other on-‐site facilities or vehicle fleets. However, such a basic approach often excludes indirect emissions such as emissions from waste production, water consumption, business travel, commuting etc. for studies aiming to achieve a comprehensive assessment of an organisation’s carbon footprint, it is vital to include secondary carbon emission sources and their impact. As these Scope 3 emissions differ greatly from study to study, it is therefore Scope 1 & 2 typically that are used for inter-‐institutional comparison purposes (in so far as such comparison are useful). However, of course Scope 3 emissions are of interest for temporal comparisons within the same institution.

This study follows the decisions made for the 2008/09 study, which was made following a review of carbon footprint reports from universities in the UK and USA. As can be seen in Table 3 below, the operational scope for this Carbon Footprint includes all components that would be expected in the mandatory scopes. In addition, when selecting Scope 3 emissions, an inclusive approach was adopted in keeping with the objectives of the study.

Activity Activity Subset Scope 1 Stationary Combustion Natural gas; Liquid fuel; Motor fuel (UCC-‐owned

vehicles) Mobile Combustion Process Emissions Fugitive Emissions

Scope 2 Purchased Electricity Electricity & Steam produced onsite (non-‐UCC)

CHP

Scope 3 Employee Commuting Car, Motorbike, Bus, Rail Employee Business Travel Car, Motorbike, Bus, Rail, light rail, short haul

flights, long haul flights Student Commuting Car, Motorbike, Bus, Rail Student Academic Travel Car, Motorbike, Bus, Rail, light rail, short haul

flights, long haul flights Waste Landfill Water

Table 3: Operation Boundary for UCC CF Study 2011/12


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3.5 Data collection After setting the boundaries and scope of the study, it is then necessary to collect the consumption data required to calculate the carbon footprint of each of the GHG causing activities in UCC. Table 4 on page 14 outlines the consumption data collected to calculate the carbon footprint of each of the GHG causing activities.

3.5.1 Data Collection – Notes & Qualifications Academic Travel – survey of academic departments

Business Travel – monetary data on travel were available and it was therefore possible to extrapolate, albeit using significant assumptions.

Combined Heat & Power (CHP) – electricity generated from the CHP is not counted, but instead, the actual fuel (natural gas) used to generate to electricity. This is done in order to represent the carbon savings achieved by both generating electricity on-‐site and from using the co-‐generated heat.

Commuting – The study used raw data from a 2011 survey on commuting (ca. 23.5% response rate from UCC staff & ca. 6% response from students) combined with map resources, working year averages and extrapolated for 2011/12 data.

Note: Many assumptions were made in the calculation including: 1) That the sample size is representative of the whole of UCC staff and students; 2) That all vehicles are of average engine size.

Electricity – records of electricity used on the main campus includes electricity derived from the CHP plant. To avoid double counting (the natural gas used in the CHP is already counted) the electricity generated by the CHP was subtracted from the main campus electricity consumption. As practice differs with respect to using supplier-‐specific or general grid emission factors (e.g. GHG Protocol Standard allows supplier-‐specific EF whereas UK DEFRA/DECC guidance insists on National Grid), for transparency, Irish Grid averages have been used in this study (CER, 2013).

Fugitive Emissions – Similarly there were no records related to refrigerant leakage or other possible fugitive emissions, which are not tracked within the University. It should be possible to maintain a central record of the purchase of refrigerants, which would contribute to future studies. However as they would be less than 1% of the total Carbon Footprint, i.e. they are not considered significant they can be excluded from the process without impacting on results.

Lab Fuel – Data on laboratory fuel use are absent, due to the lack of records; however it is not considered to be significant i.e. less than 1% of Carbon Footprint

Natural Gas – Data on natural gas usage in UCC are considered completely separately to the natural gas used in the campus CHP plant to ensure there is no double counting. Also as the electricity generated from the CHP plant is only used on main campus, the natural gas used for the CHP was attributed to the main campus


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only.

Process Emissions – There were no details on process emissions available. Although unlikely to be very large it should be followed up in preparation for future studies. As process emissions would be less than 1% of Carbon Footprint i.e. not significant they can be excluded from the process without impacting on results.

Vehicle Fuel – This was calculated from monetary values using estimates of average price of fuel for the corresponding time-‐frame of analysis.

Waste – Data for the Oct to Dec 2011 were not available and so estimates based on the remaining year were used. The landfills that take UCC waste have methane recovery & electricity generation in operation, which is reflected in the emission factor used.

Table 4 below summaries the data types and data collection sources used in the study.

GHG Producing Activity

Activity Subset Data Collection Sources

Units

Stationary Combustion

Natural Gas B&EO Energy Report 2011-‐12; B&EO Staff

MWh / year*

Liquid fuel Finance Office quantity of fuel / year*

Mobile Combustion UCC-‐owned vehicles

Finance Office; B&EO fuel use or mileage data

quantity of fuel / year*

Process Emissions NA GHG emissions / year*

Fugitive Emissions Refrigerant leakage

NA GHG emissions / year*

Purchased Electricity Source fuel mix B&EO Energy Report 2011-‐12

MWh / year*

Elec. Produced Onsite CHP B&EO quantity of fuel / year*

Employee Commuting

Car, Bus, Rail, Motorbike

B&EO 2012 commuting survey

est. passenger km / year

Business Travel

Car, Bus, Rail, Plane

Finance Office km / year*

Student Commuting Car, Bus, Rail, Motorbike

B&EO 2012 commuting survey


Student Travel

Car, Bus, Rail, Plane

Departmental information


Waste Landfilled B&EO waste records 2011-‐12

tonnes / year*

Water B&EO Energy Report 2011-‐12

m3 / year*

Table 4: Data Collection Sources and Data Types for UCC carbon footprint study


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3.6 Calculation of GHG Emissions Calculation GHG emissions from the unit of activity data, requires emission factors for the greenhouse gases (specifically CO₂, CH₄ and N₂O). These factors enable GHG emissions to be estimated from a unit of available activity data (e.g. tonnes of fuel consumed, tonnes of product produced). These are then expressed in tonnes of CO₂ equivalent tCO₂e.

The majority of CO₂ emission factors came from Irish sources especially the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA, 2012) and the Commission for Energy Regulation (CER, 2013). It was confirmed by the CER that the carbon emission factors presented are inclusive of transmission and distribution losses. Emission factors from the other greenhouse gases were not available on an Irish level, and were sourced from the Clean Air Cool Planet Campus Climate Action Toolkit, which is widely used in the U.S. and based on IPCC data (CA-‐CP, 2008).

Using these factors, the activity data as discussed above, are applied to yield emissions for that activity by specific GHG type. Each GHG is then assigned a Global Warming Potential (GWP), which describes its global warming impact relative to carbon dioxide. The total GHG emissions are translated into a standard measurement of t CO₂e.

Activity Activity Subset CO2 Emission Factors Source Scope 1

Stationary & Mobile Combustion

Natural Gas 205,522.7 g CO2 / MWh EPA, 2012

Diesel 265,690 g CO2 / I DEFRA, 2012

Petrol 230,510 g CO2 /I DEFRA, 2012 Scope 2

Purchased Electricity

Grid Average 481,000 g CO2 / MWh CER, 2013

Scope 3

Commuting & Travel

Car 172.4g CO2 / km SEI in EPA, n.d. Bus 69.5 g CO2 /passenger km DEFRA, 2012 Rail 55 g CO2 /passenger km DEFRA, 2012 Motorbike 116.1 g CO2 /km DEFRA, 2012 Flight domestic 163.13 g CO2 /passenger

km DEFRA, 2012 Flight short haul 89.85 g CO2 /passenger km Flight long haul 78.8 g CO2 /passenger km DEFRA, 2012

Waste Landfill 870 g CO₂ / kg waste IPCC in EPA, n.d. Water 18.46 g CO2 / m3 EPA, n.d.

Table 5: Emission Factors used


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4 Results & Commentary

4.1 Results A summary of the estimation of the carbon footprint for University College Cork in 2011/12 is presented as Table 6 below.

Carbon Footprint Total tCO2e Normalised Footprint tCO2e per student FTE Per staff FTE per m2 area

Scope 1 & 2 21,167 1.24 8.69 0.11

Scope 1, 2 & 3 31,747 1.85 11..87 0.16 Table 6: University College Cork Carbon Footprint Summary 2011/12

As shown in Table 7 and Figure 8 below, the normalised (for building area) carbon footprint component associated with energy consumption in the University has reduced by 15.6% compared to the 2008/09 study. Indeed, each of the cluster areas demonstrated a reduction in the normalised ‘carbon footprint’ associated with energy usage. This reflects the importance placed on energy management by the Building and Estates Office and the on-‐going operation of an ISO 50001:2011 accredited energy management system in the University.

UCC Cluster GHG Emissions Scope 1 & 2 tCO2e

Footprint per m2 tCO2e Cluster Areas m2 (2012) 2011-‐12 Change vs 08-‐9

Main Campus 10,570.4 0.10 -‐8.3% 101,469

Lee Maltings 4,509.5 0.25 -‐37.6% 18,031

Brookfield 872.5 0.07 -‐17.1% 12,562

Western Gateway

1,550.7 0.09 NA 16,498

Mardyke 1,171.9 0.11 -‐48.1% 11,099

ERI 239.7 0.09 -‐17.7% 2,781

North Mall 621.5 0.08 -‐17.8% 7,933

Other 1,631.2 0.08 -‐32.4% 25,629

Total 21,167.4 0.11 -‐15.6% 199,130 Table 7: Results per Cluster (core emissions) There is however two caveats that should be observed lest too much emphasis be placed on this reduction. Firstly, it must also be acknowledge that the decarbonisation (albeit slow moving) of the electricity grid has also had a significant impact. The carbon intensity of the Irish Grid has reduced by 10% since the initial study. Accordingly any building cluster principally using electricity would be expected to make a reduction of at least this quantum. Secondly, as energy consumption is greatly dependent on weather conditions, degree-‐day analysis should be conducted to take account of weather influence. Such an analysis will be conducted by the authors, in conjunction with the Building and Estates Office, and an addendum to this report will be issued to address this question.


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Figure 8: Changes in normalised core carbon footprint (Scope 1 & 2) of UCC building clusters

Downie and Stubbs (2011) posit that lack of knowledge of Scope 3 emissions will inhibit an organisation’s ability to pursue the most cost-‐effective carbon mitigation strategies. There is currently not much guidance or framework for estimating or reporting Scope 3 emissions, consequently the resulting reports are not necessarily consistent or comparable between organisations even in the same sector (Huang, Weber, and Matthews 2009). However that is not to ignore that value for tracking an organisation’s own Scope 3 emissions over time. The optionally included (i.e. Scope 3) emissions are presented in Table 8 below.

Scope Activity Footprint tCO₂e Change vs 08-‐09 tCO₂e Percentage

Employee Commuting 1,403.6 -‐1,214.3 -‐49.3% Employee Business Travel 1,637.5 464 39.4% Student Commuting 6,350.5 3,320.6 109.6% Student Academic Travel 124.2 -‐59.1 -‐32.2% Other 1,063.5 609 134.6% Total 10,579.2 3,092.5 41.3% Table 8: Scope 3 emission per activity The data above shows that Scope 3 emissions rose by 41.3% since 2008/09, an increase of some 3,092.5 t CO₂e. The cause of this increase is quite apparent from the data as the GHG emissions associated with student commuting has more than doubled since the initial study on both an absolute and normalised basis; drilling down into the data it can be seen that this is due to a significant increase in the level of students traveling to UCC by car.

Also, there is a nearing halving of emissions associated with staff commuting to UCC. While staffing levels have reduced by just under 10% in the intervening period this


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accounts for only some of the reduction as the normalised footprint has also reduced by 40%. The amount of travelling by both car and bus has reduced by nearly 50%, while rail has remained steadier. It may be that staff are increasingly locating closer to UCC (with city housing now more affordable) and walking or cycling to work, or it may be increased levels of car-‐pooling, or perhaps the impact of the park and ride.

However, it should be noted that these figures are based upon surveys and the representativeness of the survey population is unknown. The response rate to the commuting survey was ca. 23.5 % for staff and just 5.9% for students.

Figure 9: Trends in the UCC Scope 3 emissions

Figure 10: Graphical representation of Carbon Footprint by activity


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Figure 10 above illustrates the relative significance of each source of greenhouse gas emissions comprising the total carbon footprint. The changes in relative importance are illustrated in Figure 11 below.

Figure 11: Trend in relative importance of greenhouse gas sources in total UCC Carbon Footprint

5 Conclusions

The results presented above are an estimation of the carbon footprint of University College Cork for the academic year 2011/12. The core greenhouse gas emissions associated with energy consumption have reduced on a normalised basis. There is a need to conduct a degree-‐day analysis on these data, however. Care needs to be taken to ensure that over those emissions arising from energy utilised in heating and cooling activities are further analysed in this way, before conclusive comments can be made.

The optional Scope 3 emissions analysis is most interesting and shows significant decrease in emissions arising from staff commuting with a contrasting significant increase in student travel by car. This may be due to societal issues and anecdotal evidence would suggest than many students are choosing to commute rather than incur the cost of accommodation.

There are a number of optional emissions which have not been addressed to date including those arising from the University’s procurement spend. Ozawa-‐Meida et al. (2011) recently published a consumption based carbon footprint methodology for higher education institutions, their approach is somewhat similar to the way in which business travel data were calculated in the UCC carbon footprint studies (i.e. extrapolation from financial records) and offers great potential for inclusion of non-‐travel procurement goods and services in University carbon footprints. The challenge


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in adopting the methodology is determining the suitability of the supply chain emission factors for different countries; the close proximity of Ireland to the UK and the close economic links between these countries bodes well for using this approach at UCC.

Construction is a significant part of any University’s procurement spend but the inclusion of such project spending in what are in effect GHG inventories may lead to potential distortions of the carbon footprint totals. GHG emissions associated with non-‐operational spending such as construction and other significant development projects should perhaps be amortized over time so that footprints are comparable over time (Dunphy et al. 2013).

Other Scope 3 consideration of potential significance includes: services provided on campus directly to the University community e.g. catering; travelling of overseas students; visitors to the campus; etc. The inclusion of these additional Scope 3 emissions should be considered in the context of the development of a carbon management plan for the University. This should serve to improve the quality of the footprint measures developed but care needs to be taken to ensure that this is done in such a way so as not to distort the metric to such an extent that it loses value.

As mentioned in the original report Universities as educators, centres of research and community leaders have an important to play in tackling the challenge of climate change. This Carbon Footprint, and the innovations envisaged above, have the potential to form the basis for the development, implementation and evaluation of an effective carbon management plan to enable University College Cork to address its ‘carbon performance’ in an integrated and useful way and to communicate such performance to its stakeholders.


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6 References

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