Climate Action Planning Tools
Randy Lacey, Cornell University
Is it possible for a campus, community, or other major facility to become climate neutral? What areas of climate impact should the facility focus on to have the greatest impact? Is energy conservation more effective than purchasing renewable energy? Guidance on these questions can be obtained from a new online tool available from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). The Climate Action Planning Tool (CAPT) allows the user to input the components of a greenhouse gas inventory for a campus, community, or a single building. Various climate actions can then be selected from a series of pull-down options. Based on selected climate actions the future carbon impact chart for the campus is plotted which includes a "Baseline" (business as usual) and the climate impact reductions from each measure graphed as a "wedge diagram."
Biography:
Randy Lacey is a university engineer and the director of facilities engineering at Cornell University, where he manages a staff of 50 engineers and project managers. Mr. Lacey has bachelor's and master's degrees in engineering from Cornell University. Mr. Lacey has designed laboratories for more than 25 years and is active in Labs21 as an instructor and presenter. Spanning three months in 2009, Mr. Lacey worked in collaboration with the NREL to create the Web-based Climate Neutral: Research Campuses resource.