The Correlation between Budget and the Greenhouse Gas Inventory

In response to Sonia's question about the correlation between Ohio University's budget and the actual Greenhouse Gas Inventory, I contacted Jennifer Schroeder, Campus Program Officer at Clean Air-Cool Planet and with a prompt reply she said this:

"That budget information is really just a way to provide you for
different normalizing factors, ways to look at your carbon intensity.
So everything you collect in the section of demographic information
(budget, building square footage, population) allows you to see if there
are correlative factors for your emissions data: emissions per building
square foot, emissions per student, emissions per energy dollar, etc.
None of that data is absolutely necessary, it is just to provide
context.

As for research dollars (and research square footage), the assumption is
that the more research-oriented you are, the more energy intensive labs,
equipment, etc. that you will be running. Operating dollar, similar
philosophy: it's interesting to track whether a bigger budget translates
to more or fewer emissions on your campus.

Again, what data you collect in this section is discretionary - just
gather whatever is most useful for your own campus.
Hope this helps.
Best,
-Jenn"

This seems to solve the question as not only does this financial information provides us with a context within to work, but also to see if there is correlation between high research dollars and high carbon emissions, etc. I will contact Ron in the near future about our other budgets required for the greenhouse gas inventory.