Carbon Neutrality

The essence of carbon neutrality is a net result of zero emissions of carbon dioxide equivalents (CDE), which includes carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and occasionally other greenhouse gases like fluorocarbons and sulfur hexafluoride. The CDE for gases other than carbon dioxide is calculated by multiplying the mass of a gas by its global warming potential (e.g. 122 times that of carbon dioxide for methane), as defined by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.  The ambition to have zero net impact on climate is a powerful one, and a goal of neutrality has the potential to drive transformation within and beyond a campus community – while also promoting shared responsibility with suppliers and communities for emissions beyond the campus’s immediate control.

The American College & University Presidents Climate Commitment (ACUPCC) is a high-visibility effort to address global warming by garnering institutional commitments to neutralize greenhouse gas emissions, and to accelerate the research and educational efforts of higher education to equip society to re-stabilize the earth’s climate.   The Campus Climate Action Toolkit supports ACUPCC signatories in meeting the challenges of emissions inventories, target dates, and climate neutral action plans.

The concept of “carbon neutrality” has captured the corporate imagination as well.  Clean Air-Cool Planet works with a number of companies on their carbon neutral plans. But this apparently simple concept – that a company or campus, or one of its products or services, can have no net impact on climate – is surrounded by controversy, and a wide range of assumptions and actions lie behind the claims that have been made.  Clean Air-Cool Planet recently released a report, Getting to Zero… on corporate carbon neutral claims; it is intended to serve as a guide both to organizations aspiring to carbon neutrality; and to stakeholders that are trying to evaluate whether a particular claim is justified or not.

Ultimately, when emissions have been reduced as much as possible, carbon neutrality can be reached by the purchase of carbon offsets from reputable traders in renewable energy credits in an amount equal to the number of tons of CDEs remaining.