Green Mountain College
OP-1: Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Clean Air Cool Planet Calculator.

Green Mountain College Professor of Economics and Environmental Studies and Renewable Energy & Ecological Design Program Director, Steve Letendre, reviewed the report and results. He was a primary author on a previous inventory, so he understands the methodology, but was independent of this particular project.

In FY 2013, 13.1 short tons of compostable food scraps were processed on campus. Approximately 5.3 short tons were fed to the pigs and 7.8 were processed in the compost pile on the campus farm. The composting system is run through a collaboration between the sustainability office and the college-run farm.

Green Mountain College achieved climate neutrality in FY 2011 under the ACUPCC framework, has maintained neutrality through the most recent greenhouse gas inventory in FY 2013, and plans to maintain it in the future. In addition to a reduction of over 30% in actual emissions since 2007, the College purchased carbon offsets from Green Mountain Power's (Formerly Central Vermont Public Service) Cow Power Program. Cow Power is a Vermont-based program that provides revenue to local dairy farmers who generate electricity using methane capture projects on their farms. Anaerobic digesters capture the methane from cow manure and then burn this gas to produce electricity. To quantify and verify the emissions reductions from this process, the methane capture project on Blue Spruce Farm, just 37 miles from the GMC campus, was verified with AgRefresh, an offset verifier based in Burlington, VT. The offsets were then certified and retired on the Chicago Climate Exchange in 2011. The offset provider was chosen through a campus-wide participatory process where three offset vendors gave public presentations and students recorded their thoughts on the merits of each vendor and each project being proposed. After reviewing the responses, the Campus Sustainability Council then concluded that the Cow Power Program would be the best source of offsets because of its positive impact on the local economy and its close proximity to the College.

The FY 2007 baseline was adopted because it is the first year that the College did a greenhouse gas inventory, and it is the year that President Brennan signed the ACUPCC.

Other categories include study abroad air travel.

Scope 1 Every year the College increases the efficiency of the central heat and power biomass plant. Improvements include upgrades to steam pipe components and more efficient operation methods. These actions have a noticeable impact on the total scope one emissions over time. Scope 2 In 2012, the College started a $30,000 green revolving loan fund, which has already completed its first three projects. Gains from the first two of these projects are reflected in the FY 2013 greenhouse gas inventory reported here. These include replacement of all 80 outdoor lamp post lights with LEDs and construction of a 5.8 kW solar charging station for electric vehicles. More recently in 2014, the Two Editors Inn on campus was transformed into a model of efficiency for older buildings by gap filling, installing higher value insulation, and installing a cold climate heat pump to offset the oil consumption. Over the last three years, a suite of small electric efficiency projects have added to a projected 7.5% reduction in electricity use, for which the College has met Efficiency Vermont’s Energy Leadership Challenge in 2013. Gains in efficiency have been made despite an overall growth in the square footage of campus buildings. Scope 3 Solid waste emissions have gone down as tonnage of landfilled material has decreased from 187 in 2007 to 123 in 2013 due to aggressive recycling, composting, and reuse programs on campus.

The performance year is FY 2013. The "laboratory space" square footage reported here includes only traditional science laboratories. Computer labs are counted under "other energy intensive space." Other energy intensive space also includes the biomass plant and dining services.