This report presents the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions assessment, or carbon footprint, for the University of Pennsylvania Health System (UPHS). It was commissioned by the UPHS Director of Sustainability, in support of multiple climate initiatives across the system, and builds on the carbon footprint prepared for the hospitals of the main campus in 2015, which follows the same protocols as the carbon assessment for the University’s other campuses. As outlined in the climate neutrality pledge signed by President Amy Gutmann in February of 2007, “a comprehensive inventory of all greenhouse gas emissions,” is the first step to “an action plan for becoming climate neutral.”
The scope of this GHG emissions account includes buildings directly owned and operated by UPHS and for which utility data was available. There are many leased facilities that will be included in the next phase of this project. Across the region, there are 153 buildings in the scope, which account for over 15,000,000 sf. These include 232 electric accounts, 118 natural gas accounts, 12 steam accounts, 1 chilled water account, 121 waste accounts and 2 propane accounts. The complete list is in Appendix A.4.1 and is available as a spreadsheet. There are another 124 buildings which are operated but not owned by Penn Medicine and not included the scope, for which there are 31 electric accounts, 26 natural gas accounts, and 75 waste accounts.
As for most organizations with a significant physical campus, the majority of the emissions were associated with energy use in the buildings, though commuting is also a significant source of emissions, as are the anesthesia gases. Initial benchmarking of the energy use intensity (EUI) helps identify buildings whose performance can be improved, though it also reveals the challenge of connecting energy accounts with specific buildings and the remaining gaps in the data. An important step in the development of the carbon action plan will be to confirm the data needed for benchmarking and prioritizing building performance improvement.
The footprint outlines the strategic priorities for the action plan—electricity, natural gas, commuting, steam, anesthesia gases—each of which will involve operational decisions at multiple facilities. The University has already mapped out strategies for electricity and steam, so a first task will be to develop a similar transition plan for natural gas. Commuting is a different kind of challenge, especially for the suburban hospitals, but vehicle electrification can address much of these emissions.
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