Methodology

Data sources

All emissions figures come from the UC Annual Report on Sustainable Practices, published by the University of California Office of the President. Each campus submits a third-party verified greenhouse gas inventory annually.

• Primary source: sustainabilityreport.ucop.edu
• Current inventory: Calendar year 2024 (from the 2025 Annual Report); 2023 figures from the 2024 report
• Policy reference: UC Policy on Sustainable Practices (updated July 2023)
• Reporting period: Calendar year (January-December)
• Verification: Third-party audit completed by early the following year
• Refresh: Dataset updated from UC's official Google Sheets behind each campus report. Re-run python3 scripts/update_emissions.py when a new annual report is published.

What we measure

Revitalize reports total greenhouse gas emissions in metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (t CO₂e) across three scopes:

UC climate commitment

In July 2023, UC adopted a strengthened climate policy requiring each campus and associated health system to:

Reduce total Scope 1, Scope 2, and identified Scope 3 emissions 90% from 2019 levels by 2045, neutralizing any residual emissions through carbon removal investments.

Revitalize visualizes this as a linear commitment path from each campus's 2019 baseline to its 2045 target. This is a policy pace line, not a forecast of future emissions.

Calculations

2019 baseline

Total Scopes 1+2+3 emissions reported for calendar year 2019, used as the policy reference year.

2045 target

Baseline × (1 − 0.90) = 10% of 2019 emissions remaining.

Progress to goal

(Baseline − Latest) ÷ (Baseline − Target) × 100. Shows how far along the required reduction path a campus is.

Linear trend

Ordinary least-squares regression on reported emissions since 2015. Extrapolation is illustrative only, not a prediction.

Pace indicator

Compares latest reported emissions to the linear policy path for the same year. "On pace" means at or below the path; "behind" means above.

Per-student intensity

Latest total emissions ÷ fall enrollment. Useful for comparing campuses of different sizes; not a UC official metric.

Climate progress tiers

Revitalize awards each campus a climate progress tier, a shield badge with 12 ranks across four materials (Bronze → Silver → Gold → Diamond), each with three levels of increasing prestige. Your tier is earned from progress toward the 2045 goal (% of the required 90% reduction already achieved), not from STARS or other ratings.

How tiers are calculated

Progress to goal = (2019 baseline − latest emissions) ÷ (baseline − 2045 target) × 100. Each ~10 percentage points unlocks the next rank.

STARS vs. climate tiers

STARS (Platinum, Gold) is UC's separate sustainability rating. Climate tiers reflect emissions cuts only. A campus can hold STARS Platinum while still climbing the ladder.

Shield design

Shields gain detail as you level up within each material: simple crest at level I, angular shield at II, winged badge at III.

How we look ahead

To show where a campus is heading, we fit several forecasting models to its verified emissions history and choose the model with the strongest validation results. The choice is made with leave-one-out cross-validation (LOOCV). Each model is tested on years it was not trained on. When several models perform similarly, we combine them using validation-based weights.

Model selection

Lowest leave-one-out cross-validation error wins. When cross-validation isn't possible (very few points), in-sample RMSE is used as a fallback. A weighted ensemble is formed across all plausible models (weight ∝ 1/error).

Sanity bounds

Candidate models are rejected if they project physically implausible values (negative emissions or runaway growth beyond realistic year-over-year rates).

Prediction intervals

A 95% range around each projection, computed from model standard error. The interval widens the further out we project (using the ordinary-least-squares prediction formula s·√(1 + 1/n + (x − x̄)²/Sₓₓ)), so the uncertainty for 2045 is honestly larger than for next year.

Projected cut by 2045

The reduction from the 2019 baseline implied by the central projection: (baseline − projected 2045) ÷ baseline. Shown alongside the 90% goal so the gap is explicit. Because a 90% cut is much steeper than recent trends, most campuses project short of the goal under current conditions. This is a statistical extrapolation, not a limit on what is possible.

Important caveat

Forecasts extrapolate historical trends. They do not account for planned decarbonization projects (e.g., Berkeley Clean Energy Campus). Treat as statistical projections, not policy forecasts.

Data quality & limitations

• Verified vs. reported: Figures are marked as verified once third-party audit completes. Early report figures may be updated.
• Health systems: Some campuses include associated health centers in totals; others report separately. Check each campus report for scope.
• UC Merced: Scopes 1 and 2 are offset to net zero via voluntary carbon offsets; Scope 3 is reported separately.
• Historical revisions: UC revised Scope 3 accounting in recent reports (adding solid waste and business travel, backfilled to 2019). Revitalize uses the latest official figures from UC's published inventories so baselines align with current policy reporting.
• Not included: Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, UC Agriculture and Natural Resources, and some health centers are excluded from this undergraduate campus view.

Download & reproduce

All data is available as open CSV files for independent analysis:

Citations

University of California Office of the President. Annual Report on Sustainable Practices. sustainabilityreport.ucop.edu. Accessed 2024.

University of California. Policy on Sustainable Practices. policy.ucop.edu/doc/3100155/SustainablePractices. July 2023.