Since the GHG inventory involves collating information that spans across departmental and sometimes organizational boundaries, the lack of infrastructure and readily available data can result in omissions or assumptions which increase the uncertainty in the results of the GHG inventory. Moreover, due to the diversity of campus operations and strategic drivers of different universities, we expect variations in the methods institutions use to create their GHG inventory. This will make comparisons among different institutions difficult.

Without a proper, credible and reliable GHG inventory, meaningful GHG reduction targets and cost-effective GHG mitigation strategies will be difficult to develop. Thus, OES is investing considerable effort to improve the quality of our GHG inventory and management systems which feed information and data to the inventory.

However, we will adhere to some key attributes:

1.		A GHG inventory that complies with generally accepted protocols and principles. E.g. World Resources Institute (WRI) Protocol and The Climate Registry’s (TCR) General Reporting Protocol.
2.		Identify distinct GHG inventory scopes –   Scope 1: Emissions resulting from direct combustion of fuel from sources owned by the university.   Scope 2: Emissions resulting from the generation of purchased energy such as electricity.   Scope 3: Emissions resulting from university activities but arise from sources not owned or controlled by the university. These activities include commuting to and from campus, solid waste production, and the use of sold products and services.
3.		Creating an ‘institutional’ memory to facilitate the updating of the GHG inventory in future
4.		Projection of a BAU (Business As Usual) emission trend for the university in the absence of any GHG mitigation plan.

Eventually, our NUS GHG inventory should inform and help senior management prioritize on appropriate, cost-effective GHG mitigation opportunities. GHG reduction targets will then be set and a GHG emission reduction plan will be developed and implemented across NUS campus. Progress will be tracked and reviewed regularly.

A preliminary analysis of NUS’ GHG inventory reveals that energy usage in buildings contributes the bulk of NUS GHG emission, followed by air miles and fleet emission.