New Rules for Counting Emissions May Complicate Climate Commitment

The World Resources Institute has a proposed set of rules for counting the so-called Scope 3 greenhouse-gas emissions, reports Niles Barnes, a staff member of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education and a former Buildings & Grounds guest blogger.

And he’s not thrilled about what they prescribe, because they might have undesirable effects on colleges that have signed the American College & University Presidents’ Climate Commitment. (Scope 3 emissions are those that are generated off site by activities related to the business of the campus, like air travel and commuting.)

The commitment, he points out, “requires that greenhouse-gas-emission inventories be consistent with the standards of the Greenhouse Gas Protocol of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development and the World Resources Institute.”

Here’s the problem: The proposed rules may have standards that conflict with those required by the climate commitment. Further, the new standards might be so burdensome that they would discourage colleges from measuring and reducing their Scope 3 emissions.

“The problems are only compounded due to the difficulty in determining where Scope 3 emissions sources end for educational institutions,” he writes. “Do the emissions associated with higher education’s ‘products’ (i.e., graduating students) count? How about emissions associated with our ‘raw materials’ (i.e., incoming students). Many campuses already have difficulty calculating emissions associated with air travel and commuting, and this new standard appears to only complicate what many consider the ‘least methodical, quantifiable part of our emissions footprint.’”

He encourages college administrators and sustainability officers to prepare reactions to the rule for a comment period beginning in June.