Praise for the Campus Carbon Calculator

  • “Clean Air-Cool Planet's free Campus Carbon Calculator has defined how universities track their carbon emissions.”
    -Mark Orlowski Sustainable Endowments Institute

  • “…….invaluable to the [676] presidents that have made a commitment to becoming climate neutral institutions and the larger higher-ed. sustainability movement.”
    Tony Cortese, President, Second Nature

  • “Clean Air-Cool Planet is a key partner for UNH: innovative, collaborative and responsive”.
    Tom Kelly, Director, UNH Sustainability Academy

  • “This initiative, and your support……. have done a wonderful job of fostering stronger communication and new connections within the University.”
    Melissa Goodall, Assistant Director of Sustainability, Yale University

  • “Thanks Clean Air-Cool Planet for…… your generous sharing of energy and expertise as well as with your amazing tool kit”.
    Susan Jennings, Director, UMass Dartmouth Office of Campus & Community Sustainability

The Future of Campus Carbon Management

Clean Air-Cool Planet has provided the Campus Carbon Calculatortm as a free, comprehensive, and transparent solution to measuring and analyzing institutional greenhouse gas emissions since 2002. The Calculator’s three modules walk users through the process of strategically reducing their greenhouse gas emissions:

  • Inventory module: Measure the carbon footprint
  • Projections module: Analyze how planned institutional growth will affect emissions in the future
  • Solutions module: Determine the most cost-effective emission reduction projects available and project their impact on the campus carbon footprint

Clean Air-Cool Planet has now partnered with Sightlines LLC and Carnegie Mellon University to take the Campus Carbon Calculator™ to the next level—making it a comprehensive web-based system for measuring and managing institutional greenhouse gas emissions.

The web-based Campus Carbon Calculator™ will launch in Spring 2012, and will initially feature:

  • More user-friendly versions of the three core modules, including better graphs
  • Ability to save multiple projection scenarios and solution portfolios
  • Ability to email direct data entry assignments to other staff members
  • Reports customized for several of the most popular public emissions reporting systems
  • Automatic updates to emissions factors and tool so that users do not need to transfer files
  • Integrated user support

We are also developing additional advanced features for future release, including:

  • A library of sample project data to reduce the initial research burden of climate action planning
  • Ability to benchmark the institution’s performance against trends within higher education.
  • Direct submission of inventory results to public reporting systems
  • Communication tools to broadcast progress and tie-in to social media

Clean Air-Cool Planet invites feedback throughout the development process. Please share your reactions and thoughts by contacting CA-CP Carbon Accounting Manager Claire Roby at croby@cleanair-coolplanet.org.

In the meantime, we are excited to share with you a new tool developed by Carnegie Mellon University. This tool will help you identify which schools may be used as comparison benchmarks to evaluate your institution’s performance and emissions profile. This tool is also useful in performing “quality checking” of your institutional data, that is by comparing your CA-CP tool estimates to those reported by other schools before you submit them to organizations like the ACUPCC.

CMU researchers have populated the tool with institutional data from the US Department of Education, public emissions disclosures, and climate zone classifications. They hope to be able to link it with AASHE STARS data in the future. We invite you to explore this tool on the “Peer Tools” tab.

For more information on our partners and each organization’s role in this project please refer to the “About” page.