Project targets carbon emissions

After eight months of work, a preliminary carbon baseline has been completed for UMKC identifying 12,616 metric tons of carbon annually emitted into the atmosphere by the university.

Kaye Johnston, coordinator of Building Services for Campus Facilities Management and director of the Sustainability Team, joined forces with former Student Government Association President Sean McClain to complete the carbon emissions inventory. McClain began working on the project for an Environmental Sustainability class he took last spring

The baseline lists all sources of carbon emissions on campus, puts them into categories and figures the amount of carbon emitted from each item. Johnston said the data will be helpful with getting groups involved in preventing emissions because it will allow them to easily see the carbon they are emitting.

"I would like to see individual departments, faculty senate, staff senate and student senate more formally involved [with sustainability] in 2009, and this is a tool that will help," Johnston said.

The inventory identified commuting as one of the highest sources of carbon.

Johnston and McClain chose to use the Campus Carbon Calculator created by Clean Air-Cool Planet to complete the baseline. The calculator is an Excel file with a series of spreadsheets that list all possible sources of carbon. Once the data has been entered into the 13 parameters of information, the program calculates the emissions and creates graphs that can be used to present the data.

Johnston said the three things that set this calculator apart from the others they considered were that it was designed specifically for colleges, it has a calculator that can figure the affects, cost and savings of future projects and it includes transportation carbon.

She said the Sustainability Team will begin computing possible projects once everyone feels comfortable all of the information in the baseline is accurate.

"The goal is to be able to put in a one-year, two-year, five-year plan and be able to adjust incrementally."

Johnston said one of the keys to the baseline being successful is getting people on campus involved in prevention.

"We need to get folks to understand that what they do does matter, that's revolutionary. If we are going to make an impact as a global society, we need to be at zero emissions within 20 years."

Now that the preliminary data has been collected, the Sustainability Team is going to review the information, develop an executive summary and then present it to department heads.

"I really hope this will help departments take initiative on their own with Sustainability," Johnston said. "It's important to keep students, staff and faculty engaged."

alang@unews.com