Overall Rating Silver - expired
Overall Score 55.41
Liaison Deborah Steinberg
Submission Date Feb. 18, 2013
Executive Letter Download

STARS v1.2

Carnegie Mellon University
OP-5: Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 4.51 / 14.00 Martin Altschul
Director of Strategic Facilities Initiatives of FMCS
Facilities Management Services
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

Scope 1 and 2 gross GHG emissions, 2005 :
125,709.90 Metric tons of CO2 equivalent

Off-site, institution-catalyzed carbon offsets generated, 2005:
0 Metric tons of CO2 equivalent

Third-party verified carbon offsets purchased, 2005:
3,715.70 Metric tons of CO2 equivalent

On-campus residents, 2005:
3,745

Non-residential/commuter full-time students, faculty, and staff members, 2005:
10,252

Non-residential/commuter part-time students, faculty, and staff members, 2005:
1,463

Scope 1 and 2 gross GHG emissions, performance year :
108,123.70 Metric tons of CO2 equivalent

Off-site, institution-catalyzed offsets generated, performance year:
0 Metric tons of CO2 equivalent

Carbon offsets purchased, performance year:
81,369.50 Metric tons of CO2 equivalent

List the start and end dates of the GHG emissions performance year:
July 1, 2011 - June 30, 2012

On-campus residents, performance year:
4,137

Non-residential/commuter full-time students, faculty, and staff members, performance year:
10,510

Non-residential/commuter part-time students, faculty, and staff members, performance year:
1,200

Time period for weighted campus user (list the consecutive 12 month period that most closely overlaps with GHG performance year):
August 2011 - July 2012

Data source(s) and notes about the submission:

Carnegie Mellon University's GHG emissions inventory was first initiated by an undergraduate research study in spring of 2007 in cooperation with few graduate students and faculty members using the Clean Air-Cool Planet calculator. The student project was expanded, corrected, and refined by the Green Practices intern Andrew Ko, university engineer, Martin Altschul and the university environmental coordinator, Barbara Kviz. The University's GHG emission inventory was calculated from 1995-present, to also reflect the pre and post 2006 regional EPA emissions factor reclassification. EPA eGrid pre-2006 subregion was corrected from prior submissions. Per EPA documentation Duquesne Light and Pittsburgh were considered to be in ECAR Ohio Valley.

It should be noted that the emission numbers reflect the University's growth and rebuilding efforts since year 2005.


Carnegie Mellon University's GHG emissions inventory was first initiated by an undergraduate research study in spring of 2007 in cooperation with few graduate students and faculty members using the Clean Air-Cool Planet calculator. The student project was expanded, corrected, and refined by the Green Practices intern Andrew Ko, university engineer, Martin Altschul and the university environmental coordinator, Barbara Kviz. The University's GHG emission inventory was calculated from 1995-present, to also reflect the pre and post 2006 regional EPA emissions factor reclassification. EPA eGrid pre-2006 subregion was corrected from prior submissions. Per EPA documentation Duquesne Light and Pittsburgh were considered to be in ECAR Ohio Valley.

It should be noted that the emission numbers reflect the University's growth and rebuilding efforts since year 2005.

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.