Overall Rating Gold - expired
Overall Score 72.07
Liaison Katie Koscielak
Submission Date May 7, 2020

STARS v2.2

Cal Poly Humboldt
OP-1: Emissions Inventory and Disclosure

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 2.00 / 3.00 TallChief Comet
Director, Office of Sustainability
Facilities Management
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

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:

HSU's Climate Action Analyst utilizes SIMAP, the Sustainability Indicator Management & Analysis Platform (www.unhsimap.org), to calculate 2018-2019 greenhouse gas emissions. Scope 1 emissions are calculated from natural gas (derived from therms of natural gas used in boilers and co-generation plant), propane (derived from gallons of fuel used in emergency generators and forklifts), diesel (derived from gallons used in research vessel, fleet vehicles and emergency generators), gasoline (gallons used in fleet vehicles), and B20 biodiesel (gallons) used in fleet vehicles. Fugitive emissions are considered de minimis and are not included. Scope 2 emissions are calculated from kWh of annual electricity consumed. HSU does not purchase steam or chilled water. Scope 3 emissions are calculated based on an annual commuter survey (for student, faculty and staff commute), annual pounds of solid waste generated, and dollars spent (for faculty/staff business travel).


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:

HSU's Energy Planner does an internal review and verification of consumption totals for Scopes 1 and 2 emissions calculations. The Sustainability Office Director reviews and finalizes solid waste totals for scope 3 emissions. HSU Office of Contracts & Procurement tracks, reports and verifies expense reports to determine total dollars spent on business travel. The final inventory generated by the SIMAP calculator then directly exports to HSU's Second Nature Climate Commitment reporting dashboard.


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

Gross Scope 1 GHG emissions, performance year:
Weight in MTCO2e
Stationary combustion 5,499.99 Metric tons of CO2 equivalent
Other sources (mobile combustion, process emissions, fugitive emissions) 219.63 Metric tons of CO2 equivalent

Total gross Scope 1 GHG emissions, performance year:
5,719.62 Metric tons of CO2 equivalent

Gross Scope 2 GHG emissions, performance year (market-based):
Weight in MTCO2e
Imported electricity 3,365.02 Metric tons of CO2 equivalent
Imported thermal energy 0 Metric tons of CO2 equivalent

Total gross Scope 2 GHG emissions, performance year:
3,365.02 Metric tons of CO2 equivalent

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

Does the GHG emissions inventory include Scope 3 emissions from the following sources?:
Yes or No Weight in MTCO2e
Business travel Yes 1,102.03 Metric tons of CO2 equivalent
Commuting Yes 2,916.96 Metric tons of CO2 equivalent
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 Yes 163.50 Metric tons of CO2 equivalent
Other sources Yes 169.45 Metric tons of CO2 equivalent

Total Scope 3 GHG emissions, performance year:
4,351.94 Metric tons of CO2 equivalent

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

HSU's business travel calculation is only business air travel and not other modes of transport (e.g., rental car). SIMAP calculates air travel based on dollars spent. Business Travel emissions are based on dollars spent on faculty and staff air travel for the reporting year. HSU Financial Services tracks annual dollars spent on business travel for all campus departments and auxiliary organizations. However, Financial Services tracks airfare separate from other business travel expenses ONLY for campus (i.e., State-side) departments. The Office of Sustainability therefore calculates the percentage of total business travel dollars that are airfare for the Campus, and then applies that percentage (9%) to auxiliary department business travel expense totals.
Commuting emissions are derived from responses to an annual commuter survey sent to students, faculty and staff. Percentage of trips by mode are calculated based on survey responses and entered into SIMAP to calculate emissions.
Emissions from solid waste are based on pounds of landfilled solid waste, determined from tip fee and hauler receipts. Total pounds of solid waste are entered into SIMAP to calculate emissions. Other sources in Scope 3 are T&D loss.


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) 7.08 Tons
Sulfur oxides (SOx) 0.01 Tons
Carbon monoxide (CO) 9.24 Tons
Particulate matter (PM) 0.01 Tons
Ozone (O3) ---
Lead (Pb) ---
Hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) ---
Ozone-depleting compounds (ODCs) ---
Other standard categories of air emissions identified in permits and/or regulations ---

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

A brief description of the methodology(ies) the institution used to complete its air emissions inventory:

For this credit, the Office of Sustainability (OS) used EPA document AP 42 to retrieve emissions factors. The OS converted fuel consumption by boilers, the Housing co-gen (natural gas), and emergency diesel generators (gallons of diesel) to MMBtu, and then multiplied them by emissions factors from EPA document AP 42. Specifically, the OS used emission factors from Table 1.4-1 for boilers, Table 3.2-2 for the Cogen, and Table 3.3-1 for diesel generators. Since the boilers burning natural gas at HSU are a mix of system types, the OS determined that we would only report the CO emissions factor of 84 lb/10^6 scf, (which is the same factor for large wall-fired boilers and small boilers), because other pollutants vary so widely between boiler technologies. The OS realizes other pollutants are created from the boiler emissions, but did not feel comfortable accurately calculating those with the information available. Therefore, only CO is presented here because it has the same emission factor regardless of boiler type. Furthermore, the OS derived calculations for CO by including consumption data from boilers, the Cogenerator, and emergency diesel generators, whereas the OS derived all other emissions metrics from only the Cogenerator and the emergency diesel generators.


Gross Scope 2 GHG emissions from purchased electricity (location-based):
3,446.26 Metric tons of CO2 equivalent

Gross Scope 2 GHG emissions from imported thermal energy (location-based) :
0 Metric tons of CO2 equivalent

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:
---

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.