Submission of Greenhouse Gas Reports and Helpful Tips on Using the PCC Reporting Tool
As most of you are aware, September 15 marked an important deadline for the ACUPCC - it was the due date for charter signatories to report their greenhouse gas inventories for the most recent year available (previous years were submitted on a voluntary basis). Given that the website housing the new reporting tool was launched only in August, schools did a great job of getting their reports in. To date, 241 reports have been submitted by 172 schools, with one school, the University of Vermont, submitting all the way back to 1990! However, a number of Charter Signatories have not yet submitted their reports or requested an extension of the deadline. If you are one of these schools, please don't hesitate to contact me so I can help. Below are a few hints that might make it easier for you to use the reporting tool:
· The reports are live documents that can be updated at any time. The two-month reports that schools are asked to submit two months after signing the commitment have an important and little understood function: they serve as the Implementation Profile and contain the key school information used to contact Implementation Liaisons and analyze school information. Look for this report to be renamed soon, and please help us keep the information up to date! Similarly, the greenhouse gas reports can be updated at any time with additional or more accurate information.
· Time-out feature and saving drafts. Those of you who may have lost drafts when the reporting tool timed out will appreciate that the time-out period has been increased. The tool will time-out now after two hours of inactivity, as compared to the previous period of 24 minutes. Please make sure to save drafts as you are entering information to avoid losing it.
· Instructions! Many of the questions schools have been asking can be answered by referring to the Instructions for Submitting a Greenhouse Gas Report which is linked to on the first paragraph of the submittal page. This is a helpful step-by-step guide explaining the fields and data required for each field.
· Passwords. ACUPCC signatories who are also AASHE members have two passwords, one for the AASHE resource center and one for the ACUPCC reporting tool. Future website development plans include providing a single sign-on and password for both sites; look for information on this development in the IL newsletter and on the websites. For the time being, users may set their own password for the ACUPCC reporting tool by using the password reset tool. Just click the "Forgot your password?" link under the login boxes (shown here) and follow the instructions.
· File size. Please remember that any document you upload for your report must be less than 7 MB. If you have two documents whose total size exceeds 7 MB, please upload each document separately.
· File size. Please remember that any document you upload for your report must be less than 7 MB. If you have two documents whose total size exceeds 7 MB, please upload each document separately.
