Agnes Scott owns off-campus residential buildings that are leased to individuals other than students. These are considered to be outside of the organizational boundaries because the utilities are metered by building and paid for by the tenant.

It is the recommended method by ACUPCC.

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Complete data were acquired from fiscal years 2003 to 2008 for the following categories: operating budget, research budget, energy budget, full time students, part-time students, summer school students, faculty, staff, and total building space. Agnes Scott does not differentiate between research space and total building space, so research space data are not available.

The Office of Facilities was able to provide spreadsheets with total electricity usage per fiscal year from 2003 to 2008. Agnes Scott’s electricity region is SERC South, which also includes parts of Alabama, Florida, and Mississippi. Selecting this region allowed the calculator to use historical emissions factors for electricity produced in the region for the calculations.

Agnes Scott does not purchase any steamed or chilled water. Campus boiler emissions were included in the stationary sources section as natural gas.

Although the campus does not have a cogeneration plant, Agnes Scott uses natural gas for a variety of heating purposes, and these data were entered as on-campus stationary sources (see definition in footnote 2). Spreadsheets from facilities were again obtained with usage totals from fiscal year 2003 to 2008. No other stationary sources – such as propane, coal, or incinerated waste – are used on campus.

Transportation emissions were divided into two categories: commuting and air travel. Although no commuting data could be tracked for previous years, a survey created in conjunction with Agnes Scott’s Information Technology Services office was sent out to all staff and faculty, as well as commuting students, in April 2008. The survey requested information on whether or not an individual drove alone, carpooled, took the bus, took the commuter train, or some other form of alternative transportation, and how far they traveled per trip. Out of 149 emailed surveys sent to students, 40% responded. 47% of staff and 45% of faculty responded to the survey. Agnes Scott did not include student transportation to and from campus each year, as this was determined to be the individual student’s “footprint” rather than that of the college. Data for the small campus vehicle fleet was largely unavailable, as only a few cars regularly recorded mileage, so this was also not included in emissions calculations.

Air travel data for staff were researched with assistance of administrative staff in the offices expected to have the greatest amount of off-campus travel: development, admissions, and the President. Other offices did not have accessible documentation of air travel, and any travel that may occur within these offices is considered to be minimal. Therefore the above listed three offices are assumed to give a close approximation of staff air travel, although it is not exhaustive. No centralized method of recording air travel for faculty currently exists on campus, which made this data impossible to obtain, but efforts will be made to change logging techniques for travel to make future inventories more complete. Student flight data took into account travel by students studying abroad, as well as Global Connections program and other programs directly affiliated with Agnes Scott. As with the commuter data, air travel emissions were only calculated for fiscal year 2008.

Solid waste from Agnes Scott is sent to a landfill where methane recovery and flaring is currently underway. Dollar amounts charged to the campus for waste handling were obtained from purchase orders filed in the facilities from fiscal year 2005 to 2008. After contacting the Commercial Territory Manager of the college’s waste hauler, Allied Waste, an estimate was given of $40 per ton of waste. This allowed for calculation of tonnage using the purchase orders. Only the 34 yard container was included in calculations because all other containers are not weighed at the time of pick-up. The data are still considered accurate, however, as the 34 yard container makes up roughly 80-90% of waste collected from the campus.

The refrigerants HFC-134a, HFC-404a, and HFC-22 are used in varying amounts at Agnes Scott. Total pounds for fiscal years 2005 to 2008 were obtained from purchase orders in facilities. It should be noted that the accuracies of the data are not known, as Agnes Scott relies on the mechanics to write down the type and amount of refrigerant used per work order; thus it is possible that some data are missing from the calculations.

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In February 2009 a peer-reviewer (the college's engineering consultant) identified an error in our conversion of the natural gas data. Re-entering the data with the correct conversion resulted in our footprint being lower than originally calculated. The initial data was reviewed by the faculty advisor for the student research assistant and the director of sustainability. Our results were reviewed by a 19 member Sustainability Steering Committee and a 6 member National Advisory Committee. In Summer of 2009, while performing the greenhouse gas emissions inventory for the year 2009, an error in the natural gas bills was found that affected 2008 figures. This inventory has been adjusted to reflect the change in natural gas usage.