Overall Rating Silver
Overall Score 53.85
Liaison Stephen Ellis
Submission Date Oct. 7, 2021

STARS v2.2

Boston University
OP-1: Emissions Inventory and Disclosure

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 1.42 / 3.00 Stephen Ellis
Director, Data Analytics
BU Sustainability
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

Part 1. Greenhouse gas emissions inventory

Has the institution conducted a GHG emissions inventory within the previous three years that includes all Scope 1 and 2 emissions? :
Yes

A copy of the most recent GHG emissions inventory:
A brief description of the methodology and/or tool used to complete the GHG emissions inventory:
Boston University (BU) used the University of New Hampshire's Sustainability Indicator Management and Analysis Platform (SIMAP) to calculate greenhouse gas emissions. Prior to BU's FY2018 STARS submission, we used an institutional boundary that included just the Charles River and Medical Campuses. Starting in our FY2018 STARS submission, we have expanded our institutional boundary and associated metrics to off-campus facilities within New England. In addition, on June 1, 2018, Wheelock College merged with BU, becoming the Fenway Campus; this campus will also be included in our institutional boundary for the last month of the 2018 fiscal year (FY). We intend to include Global Programs when that data becomes available in the coming years.

We have uploaded FY 2006 through 2020 data into SIMAP. BU uses an FY2006 baseline year for all sustainability-metric data. We account for Scope 1 emissions of (1) stationary combustion of fossil fuels on campus, (2) transportation-related fossil fuel consumption, (3) emissions from refrigerants & chemicals [until FY2018], and (4) fertilizers, Scope 2 emissions of purchases of (5) electricity and (6) steam.

We included emissions from the Boston University Shuttle (BUS) for the first time in our 2018 STARS submission. In that submission, we included the same amount of emissions in our baseline year (FY06) as our performance year (FY16). In our FY2018 STARS submission, we include more precise estimates of the emissions from the BUS. Specifically, we used nearly complete BUS fuel consumption data from FY13-18 to estimate FY06-12 using a linear regression model. The FY13-18 data had 5 months of missing data; we estimated the fuel consumption of these missing months as the average of the other four years of data for the specific month missing.

Regarding water consumption: We used BU's Budget Planning and Business Affairs (BPBA) and Facilities Management and Operations (FMO) records of water consumption on campus.

Has the GHG emissions inventory been validated internally by personnel who are independent of the GHG accounting and reporting process and/or verified by an independent, external third party?:
No

A brief description of the GHG inventory verification process:
---

Documentation to support the GHG inventory verification process:
---

Scope 1 GHG emissions
Gross Scope 1 GHG emissions, performance year:
Weight in MTCO2e
Stationary combustion 43,677 Metric tons of CO2 equivalent
Other sources (mobile combustion, process emissions, fugitive emissions) 1,566 Metric tons of CO2 equivalent

Total gross Scope 1 GHG emissions, performance year:
45,243 Metric tons of CO2 equivalent

Scope 2 GHG emissions
Gross Scope 2 GHG emissions, performance year (market-based):
Weight in MTCO2e
Imported electricity 42,626 Metric tons of CO2 equivalent
Imported thermal energy 11,286 Metric tons of CO2 equivalent

Total gross Scope 2 GHG emissions, performance year:
53,912 Metric tons of CO2 equivalent

GHG emissions from biomass combustion
Gross GHG emissions from biogenic sources, performance year:
0 Metric tons of CO2 equivalent

Scope 3 GHG emissions
Does the GHG emissions inventory include Scope 3 emissions from the following sources?:
Yes or No Weight in MTCO2e
Business travel No ---
Commuting No ---
Purchased goods and services No ---
Capital goods No ---
Fuel- and energy-related activities not included in Scope 1 or Scope 2 No ---
Waste generated in operations No ---
Other sources No ---

Total Scope 3 GHG emissions, performance year:
0 Metric tons of CO2 equivalent

A brief description of how the institution accounted for its Scope 3 emissions:
---

Part 2. Air pollutant emissions inventory

Has the institution completed an inventory within the previous three years to quantify its air pollutant emissions?:
Yes

Annual weight of emissions for::
Weight of Emissions
Nitrogen oxides (NOx) 0 Tons
Sulfur oxides (SOx) ---
Carbon monoxide (CO) ---
Particulate matter (PM) ---
Ozone (O3) ---
Lead (Pb) ---
Hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) ---
Ozone-depleting compounds (ODCs) ---
Other standard categories of air emissions identified in permits and/or regulations 43,828 Tons

Do the air pollutant emissions figures provided include the following sources?:
Yes or No
Major stationary sources Yes
Area sources ---
Mobile sources ---
Commuting ---
Off-site electricity production ---

None
A brief description of the methodology(ies) the institution used to complete its air emissions inventory:
BU visits all of its buildings on campus, inventories all emission producing equipment and calculates potential emissions using emissions guarantees and EPA-approved emission factors for criteria and GHG emissions. Actual emissions are calculated using the fuel use or run times of each piece of emission producing equipment.

No accounting was conducted for "Refrigerants & Chemicals". As of FY2019, Boston University is no longer required by the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) to report on "Refrigerants & Chemicals".

Optional Fields

Gross Scope 2 GHG emissions from purchased electricity (location-based):
---

Gross Scope 2 GHG emissions from imported thermal energy (location-based) :
---

Website URL where information about the institution’s emissions inventories is available:
---

Additional documentation to support the submission:
---

Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
This represents FY2020 BU Metrics.

As of FY2019, Boston University is no longer required by the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) to report on "Refrigerants & Chemicals".

The information presented here is self-reported. While AASHE staff review portions of all STARS reports and institutions are welcome to seek additional forms of review, the data in STARS reports are not verified by AASHE. If you believe any of this information is erroneous or inconsistent with credit criteria, please review the process for inquiring about the information reported by an institution or simply email your inquiry to stars@aashe.org.