Climate Change with Reference to Green Economy: Carbon Accounting of Hamdard University

Hamdard University is one of the biggest private sector universities in Pakistan. It is a not-for-profit organization whose objective is to serve people of Pakistan with excellent education system while taking care external factors into consideration, as a part of its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), especially the environment which is a key concern due to the climate change. This research paper focusses on measuring the carbon footprint or performing the carbon accounting of Hamdard University and to measure its share in climate change. Primary data, which is necessary to measure carbon footprint, have been taken by direct reporting and site surveys. Methodology and secondary data regarding the emission factors have been taken from Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, World Resources Institute, Word Bank, Greenhouse Gas Protocol, and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The carbon footprint of Hamdard University is 1786.2019 tonnes of CO2-e in 2018 which is 0.000547% of Pakistan 2014’s total GHG emission. Scope 1 emission constitutes 54.14% of total GHG emission which is mostly caused by the fuel combustion by varsity’s transport followed by scope 2 emission caused by purchased electricity which constitutes 45.32% of GHG total emission. Scope 3 emission is Pak. Journal of Int’L Affairs, Vol 3, Issue 2 (2020) Climate Change with Reference to ... 585 because of official air travel which is not significant, hence, constitutes 0.54% of total GHG emission.


Introduction
Although Pakistan produced 326.7740 Megatonnes (Mt) of C02-e which is 0.72% of Global GHG emission in 2014(World Resourse Institute, 2014. In spite of this, Pakistan is among the 10 most affected countries by climate change in the world (Kreft, Eckstein, Junghans, Kerestan, & Hagen, 2015).
Developing countries are estimated to be the most vulnerable to climate change (Cole, 2008) therefore adaptation is most important for these countries to offset the effects of climate change (Farber, 2007). Extreme weather events in Pakistan have made people and organization think about the environment. Civil society and businesses started taking green initiatives to adapt to the climate change and Hamdard University is no exception.
Hamdard University is one of the biggest private sector universities in Pakistan. Hamdard University is a not-for-profit university, its goal is to serve the nation of Pakistan while taking care the external factors into consideration including the environment which is a key concern due to the climate change. Although it is not mandatory for organizations to report greenhouse gas emission in Pakistan, yet in this research paper, we will perform the carbon accounting for Hamdard University as a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) to report the carbon footprint to all stakeholders.

Climate Change
Climate change is a long-term change of the earth's climate or it occurs when earth's climate results in new weather patterns for a long period of time usually a few decades to a million of years. Climate change is also referred to as global warming which occurs due to the presence of greenhouse gasses into the earth's atmosphere. Currently the earth has been warming more rapidly than ever before and it is caused by the anthropogenic factors (America's Climate Choices: Panel on Advancing the Science of Climate Change; National Research Council, 2010). Global warming leads to extreme weather events, sea level rise, melting glaciers, natural disasters, etc. It causes huge cost to the global economy due to which measuring the impact and its mitigation is very important which leads to the concept of green economy.

Green Economy
The impact of climate change is very severe and to mitigate the impact, governments have started moving toward the green economy, the economy with low-carbon emission and resource efficient (United Nations Environment Programme, 2011). Governments and organizations have started reducing the carbon emission and going toward the green products which are also called carbon-neutral products. The first step toward the green economy is to measure the carbon emission and then to reduce the carbon emission which you just measured and Hamdard University has started to contribute toward the goal of green economy by measuring and reducing the carbon footprint.

Carbon Accounting
Carbon accounting is the process to measure the amount of carbon dioxide equivalents emitted by the organization in a specified reporting period. Carbon accounting helps us quantify the amount of greenhouse gasses emitted directly and indirectly from the organization's activities with a set of boundaries. It is used to gather data that may be useful to assess the impact of climate change and carbonrelated decision making (Lippert, 2011). The term carbon footprint is interchangeably used for carbon accounting.

Carbon Footprint
Footprint means the impact made by person or activity. This metaphor was first used in 1990 by William Rees, a Canadian ecologist, in the context of energy (Cleveland & Morris, 2015). He then, along with Mathis Wackernagel, develop the concept of ecological footprint (Cleveland & Morris, 2015). Since then the term has been used with carbon, as carbon footprint.
Carbon footprint is the impact of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases (GHG), excluding the water vapor (H2O), to our earth's atmosphere through anthropogenic sources, which is the main cause of our current climate change or global warming.
Major greenhouse gases (GHG) consists of Water vapor (H2O), Carbon dioxide (CO2), Methane (CH4), Nitrous oxide (N2O), Ozone (O3), Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and Hydrofluorocarbons (incl. HCFCs and HFCs). Greenhouse gases creates the greenhouse effect which warms the earth's surface. Water vapor and clouds contributes 50% and 25% while carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases contributes 20% and 5% to the greenhouse effect respectively (Schmidt, Ruedy, Miller, & Lacis, 2010). Current climate change is caused by the emission of greenhouse gases by anthropogenic sources. Hence, water vapor is not directly caused by humans, therefore, we exclude it from carbon footprint. Other greenhouse gases have different lives and therefore different Global Warming Potential (GWP) with respect to carbon dioxide. Therefore we measure these greenhouse gases with respect to carbon dioxide and the output is called Carbon Dioxide Equivalent (CO2-e). The carbon dioxide contributes significantly in greenhouse effect (after excluding water vapor) as compared to other greenhouse gases, due to which, the term carbon footprint is used for greenhouse gases as a general term.
The term carbon footprint gained popularity in early 2000 and researchers have started using this regularly since 2008 (Cleveland & Morris, 2015). The term climate footprint is sometimes used to include all other human-emitted greenhouse gases, which are not even carbon-based.

Background
On 12 December 2015, 196 countries which participated in the 21st yearly session of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) agreed by consensus, to the Paris Agreement, to keep the global warming well below 2°C (Chappell, 2015) (CBC News, 2015). The member countries agreed to reduce their carbon or greenhouse gas emission as soon as possible to limit the global warming. The Paris Agreement requires each country to voluntarily set the carbon or greenhouse gas inventory reduction target and register it to UNFCCC Secretariat after every five year as a Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, 2015).

Recent Developments
Not only governments but civil society and businesses are on board too. As a matter of fact, some companies have already joined the climate change initiatives that supports the Paris Agreement and have started making sense to talk about Business Determined Contributions (BDC) (We Mean Business, CDP and NewClimate Institute, 2016). Businesses could cut almost 60% of total greenhouse gas emission promised in Paris Agreement by NDC or 3.2-4.2 billion tons of CO2 equivalent per year by 2030 (We Mean Business, CDP and NewClimate Institute, 2016). It is almost 7-9% of global greenhouse gas emission of 2010 (We Mean Business, CDP and NewClimate Institute, 2016). Business Determined Contributions (BDCs) could potentially cut by almost 10 billion tons (We Mean Business, CDP and NewClimate Institute, 2016) of greenhouse gas emission but with the support of the government to make right policies for all relevant companies signing up to these initiatives.
Organizations significantly contributes to country's carbon emission in which they operate. Therefore, some countries have made it compulsory for organization to report their carbon emission annually, while others have not. Hence, some companies practice the carbon accounting to report the greenhouse gas emission to stakeholders each year as a requirement by the governments. On the other hand, some companies measure the carbon footprint and report it to all stakeholders as a part of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) even if it is not required by the government.

Research Methodology
The methodology is which is used to measure the carbon footprint of Hamdard University is taken from the report of "The World Bank Group Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory Management Plan for Internal Business Operations 2014" (The World Bank, 2015) which is as per international standards.

Emission boundary
Organization boundary for carbon accounting is established on the basis of operational control approach (Commonwealth of Australia, 2017) which includes the Hamdard University main campus only.

Emission sources within the boundary
Hamdard University emission sources are classified as scope 1 (direct emission sources), scope 2 (indirect emission sources) and scope 3 (operational sources).

Scope 1 emission
Scope 1 emission of Hamdard University includes: i. Fuel combustion for electricity generation by backup generators. ii. Emission from fuel combustion that is Petrol, and Diesel in University's vehicles. iii. Emission from the consumption of natural gas. iv.
Emission from refrigerants v. Emission from vehicle's refrigerants

Scope 2 emission
Scope 2 emission of varsity consists of: i. Emission from purchased electricity from K-electric.

Scope 3 emission
Hamdard University scope 3 emission are from the following activities. i. Business Travel.

Greenhouse Gas Inventory
Out of from six major greenhouse gasses, Hamdard University greenhouse gas Inventory includes CO2, CH4, N2O, HFCs, PFCs excluding SF6 which doesn't have known emissions. HFCs and CFCs are optional to include in GHG inventory according to GHG Protocol.

Excluded Emissions Sources
Following emission sources are excluded on the basis of relevance or materiality principle (Commonwealth of Australia, 2017). i. Data regarding the Fertilizers used in horticulture is not available and very limited in amount and hence not material to include.

Base year
This research paper focuses on carbon footprint of 2018. Hamdard University has never accounted for carbon emission before, therefore the base year is 2018.

Data collection on emissions sources
All the data is collected through direct reporting and site surveys of Hamdard University.

Emission Factors
The emission factors, which are used to calculate the greenhouse gas emission of Hamdard University, are taken from different sources used in the report of The World Bank Group Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory Management Plan for Internal Business Operations 2014. These emission factors are according to the international standards and guidelines of the World Resources Institute (WRI) and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development's (WBCSD) Greenhouse Gas Protocol Initiative (GHG Protocol) for its internal corporate greenhouse gas accounting and reporting.

Scope 1; Direct Emission Sources
It is the emission which is directly caused by the organization's activities within the established boundary.

Emission from fuel (petrol) combustion by backup generators
Hamdard University consumed petrol of PKR. 1765678.21 in 2018 for electricity generation purpose from backup generators. The amount in PKR is divided by the average price of petrol each month, taken from the Petroleum Oil Lubricants (POL) Archives at PSO website (Pakistan State Oil, n.d.) due to non-availability of data in volume, equals to 19591.6056 liters. Emissions from greenhouse gasses CO2, CH4 and N2O in tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent are estimated as follows:

Emission from diesel combustion in transport
Hamdard University consumed 71799 liters of Diesel in 2018 for transport purposes. Fuel-specific emission factors of CO2, CH4 and N2O for mobile fuel emission factor is 0.002699055 tCO2eq/l, 2.90621E-06, 5.81242E-06 kg/l respectively. [9][10] 100-year GWP of CH4 and N2O is 25 and 298 times that of CO2. 11 Emissions from greenhouse gasses CO2, CH4 and N2O in tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent are estimated as follows:

Method
Data regarding the each unit of refrigerant, its type etc. is the hardest piece of information to collect. Due to the non-availability of this type of data, we use the method which yields the approximate value. It is based on the refrigerant emission rate (ton refrigerant emitted/ft 2 /year) based on the occupied Hamdard University building area.

Estimated Refrigerant Recharge Amount
Estimated refrigerant recharge amount = estimated area per ton of cooling × conversion factor of one ton of cooling per one kg of refrigerant charge × an assumed leakage rate -

Conversion factor
Conversion factor of one ton of cooling per one kg of refrigerant charge. Refrigerant charge per cooling ton (kg/ton) is equal to 1 kg per cooling ton (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2004) which is equal to 1306.322 kg.

Assumed leakage rate
Annual operating loss factor = 10% (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2004) Substituting these value in equation 14 to get the estimated refrigerant recharge amount.
Estimated refrigerant recharge amount = 1306.322 ton of cooling × 1 kg per cooling ton × 10% assumed leakage rate = 130.6322 kg which is 0.1306322 tonnes

Refrigerant Specific GWP
Refrigerant type is not known therefore we assume the refrigerant type to be HFC-R134a as it is the most common type of refrigerant which is mostly used in all refrigerants (The World Bank, 2015). GWP of HFC-R134a is 1300 (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 1996). Substituting estimated refrigerant recharge amount and GWP of the refrigerant type specified in equation 13 to get total CO2-e from Refrigerants.

Standard refrigerant charge per vehicle
It is 0.8 for passenger vehicles (Recycling & Refrigerants, 2004)

Standard operating loss factor
It is 20% (The World Bank, 2015).
Substituting these values in equation 16 to get the annual refrigerant loss in kg.

Scope 2; Indirect Emission Sources
Although this emission is not directly caused by the organization's activities but organization's activities consumes this or requires them (producers) to produce more that is the reason it comes under the head of indirect emission.

Emission from purchased electricity
Hamdard University consumed 1966825 kWh which is equal to 1966.825 MWh of purchased electricity in 2018. Fuel-specific emission factors of CO2, CH4 and N2O for mobile fuel emission factor is 902, 0.070, 0.012 lb/MWh respectively. 12 100-year GWP of CH4 and N2O is 25 and 298 times that of CO2. 13 Emissions from greenhouse gasses CO2, CH4 and N2O in tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent are estimated as follows:

Scope 3; Other Indirect Emission Sources
Scope 3 emission is the indirect emission which occur as a result of organizational activities but not owned or controlled by the organization. Scope 3 emission is optional to report and comes under voluntary reporting.

Emission from business air travel
Emission from air travel is included in the GHG inventory as a voluntary source of scope 3. Data is collected from PRO office from all travelled destinations in 2018. First we convert the destination data in to the miles travelled for which we used the onlince calculator https://www.greatcirclemapper.net/en/great-circlemapper.html?route=OPKC-OPLA&aircraft=&speed= and then we categories the type of trip in short (<300 miles), medium (300-2,300 miles) or long haul (>2,300 miles). Hamdard University air travel lies in the medium-haul flights and long-haul flights.

Emission from Medium-Haul flights
Hamdard University employees travelled 42766 miles in medium haul flight category in 2018. Medium-haul emission factors of CO2, CH4 and N2O for air travel is 0.168 kgCO2/passenger-mile, 0.0008, 0.0053 g/passenger-mile respectively. 14 100-year GWP of CH4 and N2O is 25 and 298 times that of CO2. 15 Emissions from greenhouse gasses CO2, CH4 and N2O in tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent are estimated as follows:

Emission from Long-Haul flights
Hamdard University employees travelled 12288 miles in long-haul flight category in 2018. Long-haul emission factors of CO2, CH4 and N2O for air travel is 0.193 kgCO2/passenger-mile, 0.0008, 0.0062 g/passenger-mile respectively. 16 100year GWP of CH4 and N2O is 25 and 298 times that of CO2. 17 Emissions from greenhouse gasses CO2, CH4 and N2O in tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent are estimated as follows:

Conclusion
Hamdard University carbon emission was 1786.2019 tonnes of CO2-e in 2018. Which is 0.000547% of Pakistan 2014's GHG emission. Scope 1 direct emission which accounts for 54.14% is the major part of our total GHG emission followed by scope 2 emission which accounts for 45.32% which is caused by the consumption of electricity. Scope 3 emission which is a consequence of official air travel is only 0.54% with respect to our total GHG emission of Hamdard University.
Scope 1 emission consists of fuel combustion in transport followed by combustion of natural gas, and refrigerants which is 57.02%, 19.81%, and 18.29% of total scope 1 emission respectively. Scope 2 emission entirely consists of purchased electricity from K-Electric. Scope 3 emission is negligible and consists of only official air travel of varsity.

Future Research
The next part of this research is to mitigate the existing carbon emission of Hamdard University in the near future. To make Hamdard University a carbon neutral or a green university, we will offset the remaining emission from the green initiatives in the next part of our research in the future. The green university will contribute to the green economy.