Carbon, energy, electrification, greenhouse gas (GHG) – does your organization have any of these goals or mandates they are working towards that all relate to decarbonization? Whether your focus is on decarbonizing to meet city, state, or federal mandates, or you believe it’s time to do something to combat the many climate events that are happening more frequently—around the world and close to home—a roadmap of processes and strategies will help you successfully navigate your decarbonization journey.
According to the University of Oxford, currently, 45% of global greenhouse gas emissions come from conditioning and electrifying buildings, another 8% comes from the carbon associated with building materials, and another 24% come from transportation (vehicles, planes, ships, trains), for a total impact of 77%.
“A successful decarbonization strategy should consider its impact in all of these areas as well as create value for the organization through a triple-bottom-line approach.”
– Renée Azerbegi, National Sustainability Market Leader
This three-part series on Building a Decarbonization Roadmap guides you through the process of achieving sustainability, illuminating the path toward a greener future with insightful guidance. This approach aligns well with locations such as installations, airports, and higher education institutions.
Identifying the Right Map for Your Decarbonization Journey
A map through Kansas cornfields won’t help you navigate mountain passes in Colorado. Likewise, when implementing a Master Plan with decarbonization as a fundamental aspect, you need the right map.
Most maps have a key to help you navigate critical points along your journey, and your Master Plan is the equivalent of a map key. Your Master Plan must include your goals for decarbonization—implementing the goals in your master plan is where the rubber meets the road. The Master Plan should consider current carbon related goals and policies and the big moves or future studies that will be needed to accomplish those goals. For example, many higher education institutions have adopted certain carbon goals, and they will need a mix of on or off-site renewables, perhaps an electric Central Utility Plant, and energy efficiency improvements. At the same time, there is an increased need for electric fleets, shuttles, and passenger vehicles. The future electrical capacity needs should be studied in these early stages to determine if there will be a need for major substation improvements or additional substations as that would be a large capital cost to plan for.
Decarbonization studies should ideally be part of the master planning process as a subset to the overall plan. The focus should be wide-ranging to consider all the potential sustainability moves with the greatest impact that may need to happen over the life of the master plan.
Identifying the Boundary: How Far Will You Go?
Carbon on a campus can encompass many things, including from operation usage, material use (embodied carbon), transportation usage, refrigerants, and as a sink and source in the landscape. Determining the boundary of this decarbonization project is the first step. Many in the beginning of their journey focus on carbon from emissions. Scope 1 is carbon you can control and includes any fossil fuel-burning equipment and any refrigerants used on site. Scope 2 is from the electric grid and depends on how clean the grid is. While Scope 3 is more challenging, it can also potentially have the greatest impact. Scope 3 emissions refers to what is beyond the owners control. For example, at airports Scope 3 emissions from airline jet fuel usage can represent over 90% of the emissions of an airport.
Data Gathering and Goal Setting: Can You Get There from Here?
Once the boundary of decarbonization has been set, then data gathering begins. Ideally, you already have meters in place to gather metered data on Scope 1 and 2 emissions. Scope 3 emissions may take a little more time to determine how the data will be gathered consistently year to year.
Another helpful tool to have prior to starting your decarbonization journey is an asset management data set of all your equipment, its age, its condition, its fuel or refrigerant type, etc.
Keep in mind it is not enough to simply report the data. After reviewing your existing data trends, you want to compare them to others—or benchmark your data and compare it to similar facilities. After benchmarking, goals and scenarios are established for your future carbon reductions that are realistic and achievable.
Coming up Next on the Roadmap…
In Part II, we’ll set our compass toward decarbonization pathways that help building campuses measure their carbon footprint and set targets across Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions. This will provide greater insights into what is needed to achieve your decarbonization goals, making your building campuses future-ready by reducing environmental impact.
