Sustainability Dashboard shows downward trends in utility use, greenhouse gas emissions

Have you ever wondered how much energy PSU uses? Or whether or not the University is making progress to meet our climate action goals? There is a new tool available to help answer these questions - version 2.0 of the interactive PSU Sustainability Dashboard! Brought to you by the Campus Sustainability Office (CSO), the Dashboard provides access to PSU’s sustainability data, including many visualizations showing trends over time and progress towards goals.

The Sustainability Dashboard was first launched in 2019 with electricity, gas, and water data. With the 2020 update, we have expanded on that foundation. Specifically, the updated Dashboard was designed to include:

• new data modules, including energy efficiency, energy use intensity, and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
• utility data from several additional years, which helps to show trends in campus operations;
• new types of visualizations, including benchmarking and progress tracking comparing utility usage and GHG emissions overtime as compared with PSU’s baseline data;

Through the process of creating the new dashboard, CSO learned a lot about energy and water use on campus, and how GHG emissions have changed over time. To begin, we are using 2011 as the baseline year for electricity, water, and gas data, and 2008 as a baseline for GHG emissions. The 2011 baseline data comes from PSU, while the 2008 GHG baseline was measured by a consultant during the creation of the 2010 Climate Action Plan. Let’s explore a bit of what we found.

First, all data for Fiscal Year (FY) 2020 (July 1, 2019 through June 30, 2020) is affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Many buildings were and are still shut down or scaled back due to ongoing limited campus operations. To realistically understand long-term trends, we need to look at pre-COVID data, and eventually, post-COVID data.

In general, PSU’s utility consumption has fallen across all categories (electricity, gas, and water) from the 2011 baseline. Looking at both FY19 for pre-COVID trends and FY 20, we find the following reductions. You can find these data in the “Utilities” section of the dashboard.

Electricity (see above) and water show a continual decline trend, but natural gas consumption, while lower, appears to have plateaued in recent years.

Greenhouse gas emissions have declined significantly since 2008, by approximately 20,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MTCO2e). The Dashboard also shows the nuance in our GHG emissions data. When we account for all of PSU’s emissions, including emissions from purchased goods and services, our progress towards campus carbon neutrality appears stalled; however, when we look at emissions excluding for purchased goods and services, our progress is much more clear. You can find these data in the “Greenhouse Gas” section of the Dashboard.

In the “Buildings & Efficiency” section of the Dashboard, we can see that PSU’s Energy Usage Intensity (EUI) for campus fell significantly since 2011, by 27.9%. The reduction in EUI demonstrates the impact of  energy efficiency work across campus, as well as improved operating efficiency.

View the data behind these trends and much more in the Dashboard. Visit the Sustainability Dashboard page (www.pdx.edu/sustainability/sustainability-dashboard), and use the ⤢ icon to go full screen. Once you are on the Dasbhoard, click the various buttons, filters, and hover over data points to view trends, review figure descriptions, and more. You can also download all the data in the dashboard for your own exploration and analyses.

An overwhelming result of CSO’s work on the dashboard to date is this: reduction in utility use and GHG emissions are coming despite PSU having increased its square footage over time. This is great news for the work done to date and for our potential progress in the future.

The Sustainability Dashboard is managed by the sustainability data analyst position within CSO. Maoloud Dabab built the first dashboard and this newest version was developed by Rob Hemphill. If you have questions about the dashboard, including how Maoloud and Rob used Microsoft Power BI to create it, contact sustainability@pdx.edu.