The main objective of this study is to create a baseline emission for University of Cincinnati which will be directly usable information for campus sustainability planning as well as to other research and campus administration professionals implementing sustainability as part of their own planning efforts. Clean Air Cool Planet (CA-CP) Campus Carbon Calculator version 5.0 is the model used for calculating the carbon footprint for the university as a part of the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment (ACUPCC). Various other carbon footprint accounting tools, techniques, and guidelines competitive to CA-CP Campus Carbon Calculator are also used to calculate the carbon footprint of university to ensure credibility of the results from CA-CP Campus Carbon Calculator. Comparisons and evaluations are also done, to know how different techniques impact the final results. The study also helps us determine important parameters which effect the emissions. It also provides a sensitivity analysis on the various data inputs to estimate the impact of the data quality on the results using University of Cincinnati as a test case.
It was estimated that on annual basis, University of Cincinnati emits an average of approximately 315,000 MTCO2e. Annually there is an approximate increase of 3 percent since 2004. Overall, University of Cincinnati’s carbon footprint has increased by 16.5 percent from 288,723 MTCO2e for fiscal year 2004 to 336,273 MTCO2e for fiscal year 2008. Purchased electricity and on-campus stationary sources are the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions and comprise 90 percent of the total carbon footprint for fiscal year 2008. A significant difference of 13 percent was observed between the highest and lowest estimating tools.