Reducing Scope 2 Carbon Emissions with AHU Fan Upgrades
The greenhouse gas protocol establishes a set of comprehensive, standardised frameworks to measure and manage greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from private and public sector operations. In accordance with the GHG protocol, UK universities must now record their Scope 1 & 2 carbon emissions with a view to achieving net zero status in the future, and, in line with these plans, they were set a challenge to reduce their carbon emissions by 43% between 2005 and 2021. It has been reported however, that up to 59% did not meet these targets. By 2030, this target is a 63% reduction in carbon emissions so there’s still a large way to go.
So how can we help universities and other education institutions reduce their overall emissions. Firstly, let’s understand how carbon emissions are categorised.
Emissions are broken down into three scopes:
To create a carbon reduction plan, it is necessary to identify all carbon emissions generated from usual business operations. From here, improvements can be made to reduce emissions from each contributory set.
Scope 1 emissions are direct emissions, such as those generated from the purchase of gas and electricity. For example, natural gas.
Scope 2 emissions are indirect emissions such as the carbon emissions generated from using electricity to power equipment in the buildings.
Scope 3 emissions are indirect from other activities such as distribution, air, and road travel, not usually associated with the building itself.
In January 2023, The Royal Anniversary Trust released a report titled “Accelerating towards Net Zero” in which it estimated the total carbon footprint for the tertiary education sector across all three scopes was 18.1Mt CO2e, with higher education contributing approximately 86% of this.
Scope 1 & 2 Emissions and The Built Environment
Scope 1 and 2 emissions relate predominantly to the building and infrastructure, the daily business activities, and operations of the building. How energy efficient these activities, processes and equipment’s are, has a large impact on the potential to reduce scope 2 carbon emissions. The report mentioned above identified three key action pathways to achieving net zero, with one of these being the Built Environment.19% of the sectors total emissions are related to the built environment representing scope 1 & 2 fuel and electricity use, as well as scope 3 emissions.