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Scope Definitions

As defined by the GHG Protocol [1], and described by the ACUPCC [2] in their Implementation Guide ^[1] for colleges and universities:

• Scope 1 GHG emissions are those directly occurring "from sources that are owned or controlled by the institution, including: on-campus stationary combustion of fossil fuels; mobile combustion of fossil fuels by institution owned/controlled vehicles; and "fugitive" emissions. Fugitive emissions result from intentional or unintentional releases of GHGs, including the leakage of HFCs from refrigeration and air conditioning equipment as well as the release of CH4 from institution-owned farm animals." (ACUPCC Implementation Guide ^[1] p. 11)
• Scope 2 emissions are "indirect emissions generated in the production of electricity consumed by the institution." (ACUPCC Implementation Guide ^[1] p. 11)
• Scope 3 emissions are all the other indirect emissions that are "a consequence of the activities of the institution, but occur from sources not owned or controlled by the institution" such as commuting, air travel for university activities, waste disposal; embodied emissions from extraction, production, and transportation of purchased goods; outsourced activities; contractor owned- vehicles; and line loss from electricity transmission and distribution" (ACUPCC Implementation Guide ^[1]p. 11-12).

Most GHG inventories done by post-secondary institutions in North America include Scope 1 and 2 and selected scope 3 emissions within their boundaries. The ACUPCC signatory institutions are responsible for inventorying scope 1 and 2 emissions, along with commuter and air travel and waste disposal (Eagan et al. 2008^[2]).

The BC Campus Climate Network is encouraging BC schools to take steps to go beyond carbon-neutral by considering how our institutions can be fully responsible for their scope 1 through to scope 3 emissions.

Although scope 3 emissions are difficult to measure (such as food or paper production and transport, or products consumed on campus like textbooks, t-shirts and mugs with school logos, etc.), they can be quite substantial contributors to overall emissions. For example, Fahmida Ahmed, then Sustainability Specialist for UC Berkeley, calculated that the school's GHG inventory total would more than double if scope 3 emissions from construction, campus procurement and other remote sources were counted (Eagan et al. 2008 ^[2]).

Including these indirect, remote emissions in campus GHG inventories is an important part of going beyond carbon neutral, in which colleges and universities can be a model and catalyst for carbon reduction throughout the web of relations that service the campus in the community and the world.

Producer vs. Consumer Responsibility

There are many schools of thought on how responsibility for emissions should be assigned. Bastianoni et al. (2004) ^[3] describe three different approaches to emissions accounting: direct geographical, ecological footprint, and carbon emissions added.

The first approach, direct geographical, has been proposed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) [www.ipcc.ch/]. Simply, it means that countries (or, in this case, schools), are only responsible in their GHG inventories for those emissions which were directly produced within their geographical boundaries, and are not responsible for those emissions related to the production and transportation of goods that they import and use. There are significant equity implications to this approach. Bastianoni et al. (2004 ^[3]) write: "if we consider a country [or school] which only imports transformed goods, without transforming them within the country [or school's] boundaries, we might observe a paradoxical situation of a high standard of living coupled with a very low level of GHG emissions" (Bastianoni et al. 2004 pg. 254^[3]). When this approach to emissions auditing is taken at the level of the state, "a country [mainly developing nations] which produces goods for another country would have to “pay” for the CO2 associated with something they will never benefit from" (Bastianoni et al. 2004 p. 254^[3]). At the campus level, where many goods are imported to keep it running, the direct geographical emissions accounting approach is inadequate to fully measure emissions the institution is responsible for, and fails to consider how the institution could have beneficial effects throughout the web of connections it has with the wider community.

The Ecological Footprint approach (Wackernagel and Rees, 1996 ^[4]) does the opposite, assigning complete responsibility for all the GHG emissions, from creation to disposal of a product, with the consumer (Bastianoni et al. 2004 ^[3]). The downside of this approach is that it provides no incentive to producers, other than that of consumer preference, to reduce their GHG emissions.

The “Carbon Emission Added” (CEA) approach combines aspects of both approaches. It is based on the embodied Energy-Emergy Analysis concept developed by Odum (1996^[5]). "Emergy" refers to the amount of energy that has gone into a product through its lifetime. It can be thought of as embedded energy, or 'energy memory' (in Chena and Chen, 2007 ^[6]). This GHG accounting approach tallies all the GHGs that are embodied or accumulated throughout the lifetime of a product, divides the lifetime into stages, and assigns responsibility for these stages to different consumers along the way. The Carbon Emission Added approach is complex, but assigns responsibility in fairer and more accurate ways than the above two approaches.

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3} Dautremont-Smith, Julian et al. 2007. Implementation Guide: Information and Resources for Participating Institutions. American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment (ACUPCC), v. 1.0 http://www.presidentsclimatecommitment.org/pdf/ACUPCC_IG_Final.pdf Accessed August 2008.
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1} Eagan, David J., Calhoun, Terry, Schott, Justin, Dayananda, Praween. 2008. Guide to Climate Action Planning: Pathways to a Low-Carbon Campus. National Wildlife Federation Campus Ecology. http://www.nwf.org/campusecology/pdfs/climateactionplanning.pdf. Accessed August 2008
3. ↑ ^{3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4} Bastianoni, Simone, Pulselli, Federico Maria and Tiezzi, Enzo. 2004. The problem of assigning responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions. Ecological Economics, Volume 49, Issue 3, pgs. 253-257
4. ↑ Wackernagel, M. and Rees, W.E., 1996. Our Ecological Footprint: Reducing Human Impact on the Earth. , New Society, Gabriola Island, BC, Canada 176 pp.
5. ↑ Odum, H.T., 1996. Environmental Accounting: Emergy and Environmental Decision Making. Wiley, New York 370
6. ↑ Chena, B. and Chen, G.Q. 2007. Modified ecological footprint accounting and analysis based on embodied exergy—a case study of the Chinese society 1981–2001. Ecological Economics, Volume 61, Issues 2-3, Pages 355-376 http://www.sciencedirect.com.ezproxy.library.uvic.ca/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VDY-4JVTCGK-1&_user=1007916&_coverDate=03%2F01%2F2007&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=article&_cdi=5995&_sort=v&_docanchor=&view=c&_ct=1714&_acct=C000050229&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=1007916&md5=9d70a01112825e8e564890c80183acbe#secx3 Accessed August 18, 2008.