TITLE:
Development of Carbon Dioxide Emission Assessment Tool towards Promoting Sustainability in UTM Malaysia
AUTHORS:
Isiaka Adeyemi Abdul-Azeez
KEYWORDS:
Assessment Tool, Carbon Emission, Energy Use, University Campus Sustainability
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Energy Efficiency,
Vol.7 No.2,
June
25,
2018
ABSTRACT: Universities
are challenged to play a leadership role in addressing unsustainable practices
that are exacerbating global warming. Basically, many assessment tools have
been suggested for measuring emission scenarios and achieve sustainability
within university campuses. However, majority of the existing tools consider
greenhouse gas emissions outside the campuses upon which universities have no
control. This study identifies energy as a major driving force for Carbon
Dioxide (CO2) emission and a universal variable for the assessment
of CO2 emission in university campus. It proposed the Malaysia
University Carbon Emission Tool (MUCET) to estimate Carbon Dioxide from the
sources of energy use within the campus and assess the CO2 emission
scenario within Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM). The result was compared to
that of similar carbon emission inventory initiated by the UTM in 2009, a total
emission of 46,000 Mt CO2 was observed in 2011 using
MUCET compared to 82,578 Mt CO2 given as the total CO2 emission value for the campus in 2009. Also
MUCET presented 74% CO2 emission for electricity and 26% in the
transportation sector in variance to 78% and 20% offered for electricity and
transport respectively in 2009 using the contemporary method of assessment. The
difference in values was attributed to the contribution of the indirect and
off-site emissions (i.e. Scope 3
emissions) from external sources. The study showed that MUCET presents a more
realistic emission value and would promote sustainability on the campus.