ACUPCC Reporting System

GHG Report for Bellevue College

Submitted on February 7, 2011; last updated on January 13, 2012

Summary Statistics

Making fair comparisons between higher education institutions is always challenging due to the rich diversity of higher education. The unverified nature of the information in this database and unavailability of unbiased normalization metrics means such comparisons are even more difficult. Users should therefore approach direct institution to institution comparisons with caution and recognize that all comparisons between institutions are inherently biased.
Total Per Full-Time Enrollment Per 1000 Square Feet % Offset
Gross emissions (Scopes 1 + 2) 7,149 metric tons of CO2e 0.5 metric tons of CO2e 10.3 metric tons of CO2e 0%
Gross emissions (Scopes 1 + 2 + 3) 28,117 metric tons of CO2e 2.1 metric tons of CO2e 40.7 metric tons of CO2e 0%
Net emissions 28,086 metric tons of CO2e 2.1 metric tons of CO2e 40.6 metric tons of CO2e N/A

Emissions Inventory Methodology and Boundaries

Start date of the 12-month period covered in this report July 1, 2009
Consolidation methodology used to determine organizational boundaries No information provided
If any institution-owned, leased, or operated buildings or other holdings that should fall within the organizational boundaries are omitted, briefly explain why.

There were difficulties including our North Campus Building which is leased. However, the lease on this building is expected to end soon. Once it is no longer used by the campus it will not need to be in future reports. (Commuting to the North Campus Building is included in the calculations for all campus commuting.)

Emissions calculation tool used Clean Air-Cool Planet
Please describe why this tool was selected.

This seemed to be the most useful tool for calculating campus emissions. However, it should be noted that it was designed for 4-year colleges and did present some challenges to 2-year colleges that required some adjustments.

Please describe the source(s) of the emissions coefficients used.

We used coefficients from the Clean Air-Cool Planet database.

Which version of IPCC's list of global warming potentials did you use? Fourth Assessment Report
Who primarily conducted this emissions inventory? Student researcher(s)
Please describe the process of conducting the inventory.

A detailed description of the process used to conduct the audit are written up in the appendix of the attached document. This was done in order to make sure future audits are conducted using a similar methodology. In short, the audit was conducted by gathering the relevant data from different campus groups and compiling it using the Clean Air-Cool Planet spreadsheet.

Please describe any emissions sources that were classified as de minimis and explain how a determination of the significance of these emissions was made.

As noted above, as a commuter college our largest impact is from transportation, however, this is still one of the hardest areas to get a handle on - we conducted an in-depth survey of the campus community and extrapolated the results to the entire campus. Therefore, we view this number as an estimate, however, feel that is serves as a good baseline. We plan to calculate the number in the same way in the future, which will at least provide for a consistent way of monitoring changes in transportation emissions.

Please describe any data limitations related to this submission and any major assumptions made in response to these limitations.

No information provided

Emissions Data

Emissions from the following sources (in metric tons of CO2e)

Scope 1 Emissions
Stationary Combustion 1,544.1 metric tons of CO2e
Mobile Combustion 38.0 metric tons of CO2e
Process Emissions 0.0 metric tons of CO2e
Fugitive Emissions 46.3 metric tons of CO2e
Total Scope 1 emissions 1,628.4 metric tons of CO2e
Scope 2 Emissions
Purchased Electricity 5,521.0 metric tons of CO2e
Purchased Heating 0.0 metric tons of CO2e
Purchased Cooling 0.0 metric tons of CO2e
Purchased Steam 0.0 metric tons of CO2e
Total Scope 2 emissions 5,521.0 metric tons of CO2e
Scope 3 Emissions
Commuting 20,509.4 metric tons of CO2e
Air Travel 288.8 metric tons of CO2e
Solid Waste 73.6 metric tons of CO2e
Business Road Travel 37.0 metric tons of CO2e
Wastewater 59.0 metric tons of CO2e
Total Scope 3 emissions 20,967.8 metric tons of CO2e
Biogenic Emissions
Biogenic Emissions from Stationary Combustion 0.0 metric tons of CO2e
Biogenic Emissions from Mobile Combustion 0.0 metric tons of CO2e

Mitigation Data

Carbon Offsets
Carbon offsets purchased No information provided
Offset verification program(s) No information provided
Description of offsets purchased (including vendor, project source, etc.)

No information provided

Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs)
Total RECs purchased None kWh
Percent of total electricity consumption mitigated through the purchase of RECs None %
Emissions reductions due to the purchase of RECs No information provided
REC verification program(s) No information provided
Description of RECs purchased (including vendor, project source, etc.)

No information provided

Sequestration and Carbon Storage
Sequestration due to land owned by the institution 31.0 metric tons of CO2e
Description of how sequestration was calculated

Campus Forest Preservation
There are no long term plans to develop the 7.64 acre (3.09 ha) plot of forest located on the northwest side of campus (west of the track fields). Therefore, it was determined that this forest was eligible for some offset credits. Using the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) average from the IPCC website* for how much carbon is sequestered by temperate forests (2.7 metric tons C / ha / yr, which converts to 9.9 metric tons CO2 / ha / yr) we calculated the annual offset of the forest as: 3.09 ha forest x 9.9 metric tons CO2 / ha / yr = 30.6 mtCO2/yr. This value should remain the same every year.

*IPCC, “Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry - Part III - 5. Methods for Measuring and Monitoring,” 2010 www.ipcc.ch.

Carbon storage due to composting No information provided

Normalization and Contextual Data

Building Space
Gross square feet of building space 691,148.0 sq ft
Net assignable square feet of laboratory space No information provided
Net assignable square feet of health care space No information provided
Net assignable square feet of residential space No information provided
Population
Total Student Enrollment (FTE) 13129.0
Residential Students No information provided
Full-time Commuter Students 9899
Part-time Commuter Students 9519
Non-Credit Students No information provided
Full-time Faculty 846
Part-time Faculty No information provided
Full-time Staff 718
Part-time Staff No information provided
Other Contextual Data
Endowment Size No information provided
Heating Degree Days 5286
Cooling Degree Days 227
Please describe any circumstances specific to your institution that provide context for understanding your greenhouse gas emissions this year.

Campus population data is difficult to calculate for a commuter college that has varying enrollment and flexibility in the number of adjunct teaching faculty and staff each quarter. We are not easily able to separate full and part-time faculty and staff, so the total number is listed as "full-time" in the columns above.

Supporting Documentation

Completed inventory narrative BellevueCollegeCarbonAuditReport0910
Download
Completed inventory calculator Download

Auditing and Verification

These emissions data have not been audited, verified, or peer-reviewed.