No buildings or facilities that fell within the organizational boundary (financial control) were omitted.

The calculator enabled easy entry and conversion of collected data to its carbon dioxide equivalent based on global warming potential. The CACP Campus Carbon Calculator inventoried all six greenhouse gases outlined by the Kyoto treaty. It adapted protocols established by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for national-level GHG accounting for use at an academic institution.

CA-CP Campus Carbon Calculator's default emissions coefficients.

University operational boundary activities referred to as University GHG emissions included all those outlined in the WRI/WBCSD GHG protocol. Scope 1 emissions are associated with on-campus stationary sources, including the University fleet (gasoline), agricultural activities (fertilizer application), purchased gas (for steam generation), and fugitive emissions from hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) from HVAC systems. Scope 2 emissions include purchased electricity. Scope 3 considers GHG emissions associated with students and faculty/staff commuting in personally-owned vehicles, air travel for university-related activities, landfill emissions that resulted from University generated solid waste, waste water, and paper procurement. The off-campus activities of UMUC community members (e.g., energy consumption from student and faculty/staff housing) are outside the scope of this study. Also, with the exception of paper, all upstream GHG emissions associated with the production of equipment (e.g., electronics) and materials (e.g., construction materials) used by the University are not included. The GHG protocol (WRI/WBCSD 2004) requires organizations to account for Scopes 1 and 2, but leaves Scope 3 optional. The University of Maryland University College GHG inventory includes Scope 3, which means it takes the broadest perspective possible under the protocol.

The organization/spatial boundary was based on two guiding principles:
1) Only include buildings owned and controlled by the University or for which the University pays the electric-power bill.
2) For calculating commuting emissions, include all stateside online students and only Washington, DC metro area and Maryland faculty, staff, and face-to-face/hybrid course students.

There were no emissions sources excluded from this inventory and no sources classified as de minimis.

Quantifying the GHG emissions from commuter traffic proved to be one of the most challenging tasks. Due to a lack of transportation-related surveys, average commuting behavior (e.g. carpool, single driver, frequency of trips to campus, commuting distance) was not available. To estimate the commuting contribution to GHG emissions, a new protocol was developed including the following assumptions:

1. Students enrolled in face-to-face classes are assumed to have attended
each class meeting.

2. Students enrolled in hybrid courses are assumed to have attended half of all scheduled class meetings.

3. Students withdrawn from a face-to-face or hybrid course attended half
as many class meetings as those students who went through the semester.

4. Independent studies and credit by examination courses did not meet. (I.e., there are no round trips associated with the class registration.)

5. Undergraduate students enrolled in online courses made one roundtrip
per semester per class to complete the final exam.

6. Graduate students in online classes made zero trips.

7. Students withdrawn from an online class did not travel in that semester
for that class.

8. DM students taking classes in Taiwan are excluded from the counts.

9. Students with registrations in classes held onsite at place of employment made zero trips.

10. Zip codes for class locations without zip codes in the transaction system were determined from the UMUC website. Hybrid class zip codes were assumed to be the same as their face-to-face counterpart.

11. Only Adelphi students taking Adelphi division classes were included in the data. MILDE students (overseas based distance ed), for this reason, do not appear in the data.

12. Home zip code was given preference for determining student zip code.

13. Drops were not included in any of the data.

14. All holidays are assumed to have been observed and no class meetings
on UMUC holidays were included in the data.

15. Hybrid classes with no meeting pattern are assumed to have met once
per week. No attempt to remove holidays is made for these classes.

16. Face-to-face classes with no meeting pattern are assumed to have met
twice per week. No attempt to remove holidays is made for these classes.

For student commuting, the Assistant Vice President in the Office of Institutional Planning, Research and Accountability provided the Inventory Team with the number of roundtrips made by students for each unique trip for face-to-face and hybrid classes and total roundtrips for online classes (undergraduates in online classes must travel to a testing location for exams). Embedded in the roundtrip numbers were the number of students per class, number of classes per semester, and the frequency of class meeting. A number of assumptions went into producing these roundtrip numbers (see above). A single trip consists of unduplicated zip code of origin (home) and zip code of destination (classroom). Each unique trip was measured using Mapquest. Once it was assumed each student made 2 trips per roundtrip, total mileage per unique trip and for all roundtrips was measured. The furthest a student was assumed to drive for class was 60 miles; all distances over 60 miles, many of which were unreasonable cross-country commutes, were assigned the median distance for all student trips under 60 miles. Because the travel behavior of undergraduate online students was unknown, it was assumed they traveled the median face-to-face distance per trip for each test.

For faculty and staff commuting, the HRIS Director in the Office of Human Services and the General Manager of the UMUC Inn and Conference Center provided the Inventory Team with the number of employees commuting to the designated locations and the number of part and full time employees. It was assumed all full-time employees worked 215 days/year and part-time employees worked 125 days/year and all trips were made twice per day. Telecommuters were assumed to never commute. The furthest an employee was assumed to drive for work was 80 miles; all distances over 80 miles were assigned the median distance for all faculty and staff trips under 80 miles.

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Significant growth occurred within the established boundaries of the GHG inventory. The number of students, faculty and staff increased by 8, 4 and 29 percent between 2008 and 2009, respectively. Additionally, the total physical space captured in the inventory increased by 230,359 square feet, or 30 percent, between 2008 and 2009 as a result of the Academic Center at Largo.

The Academic Center at Largo demonstrates UMUC’s commitment to climate neutrality. In June 2010, the building was certified LEED Gold due to water efficiency features and innovation in building design among other characteristics . LEED Silver certification for all new buildings was established as an early tangible action the University would adopt under the American Colleges and Universities President’s Climate Commitment. Another important feature of the new facility is that it is accessible via Metro-rail and Metro-bus.

Last, we shifted to calendar year temporal scope (previously fiscal year) to better align with State reporting requirements.