With its academic buildings, hospitals, and support facilities, UVA needs a lot of energy to function. Supplying that much energy sends greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, as do leaks from refrigerators and rotting garbage.
Just how much gas piqued the interest of a trio of undergraduates from the Environmental Sciences Organization. Their recent report, “Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory: University of Virginia,” found that from 2000 to 2007, greenhouse gas emissions from UVA operations rose 15 percent. But there is a silver lining to this cloud of carbon dioxide: Per student, emissions increased only 2 percent, and per square foot of university buildings, emissions actually dropped 10 percent.
All told, UVA puffed about 640 million pounds of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere in 2007, or about 28,000 pounds per student and 37 pounds per square foot of building. That performance puts UVA on par with similar universities. New York University and U-C Berkeley, for example, had per student emissions about one-third of UVA’s, while Duke’s and the University of North Carolina’s per student emissions were about 50 percent higher than UVA’s.
Through increased recycling, more efficient lighting, and other changes, UVA did prevent some emissions, but those activities represent only a tiny fraction of total emissions and could not offset the gains. About 60 percent of the University’s greenhouse gases come from the electricity that UVA buys from Dominion Power, and those electricity purchases increased noticeably between 2000 and 2007. About another 20 percent of emissions come from UVA’s own furnaces and power generation. Ten percent comes from UVA’s employees as they commute; about 77 percent drive alone in a car to work, while only 4 percent walk or bike. Indeed, lead author Thushara Gunda explains that this transportation information was the hardest to collect. Those “records we had to unearth from storage and manually enter data into the software.”
Other emissions sources proved too difficult to estimate, even for someone willing to dig. Records about paper usage or air travel for conferences and other events, Gunda says, were dispersed “locally at each department and thus proved impossible to compile. We highlight in the report that this is one area the University can easily address by centralizing its data.” The report also didn’t consider the emissions needed to produce the goods and services UVA buys, whether furniture, food, or a new basketball arena. For instance, constructing new buildings, even energy-efficient ones, requires concrete and machinery, both major sources of pollution. Hence, Gunda cautions, “The sources we account for in the inventory are all energy-based, and thus, this report does not represent a carbon footprint of the University.”
Gunda is glad the report has been well-received by many people, but she seems frustrated that it “has yet to be publicly accepted or acknowledged by the University administration.” The report also emphasizes UVA has not made a commitment, unlike other universities, to become carbon neutral.
Nevertheless, the University’s Facilities Management and Office of Environmental Health and Safety provided data to the students for this emissions inventory, and UVA conducted its own sustainability review in 2006. Moreover, UVA Sustainability Planner Andrew Greene believes the numbers from the report set “the benchmark for developing our plans for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The inventory is something that will be done regularly, and I think it will be more absorbed institutionally.”
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