CSOL 204 · Carbon Accounting & Lifecycle Analysis
UC Berkeley · Master of Climate Solutions · Fall 2026 · 2 units
How do we know how much a product, a company or a portfolio emits, and whether its climate and nature claims hold up? This course builds the skills to measure greenhouse gas emissions and removals, assess impacts on nature, and judge the claims built on those numbers. You learn by doing: every class ends with something you build, and AI tools are part of how we work.
When and where
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 9:10–11:00
Wellman 311
Tu 10/20 – Th 12/10
Teaching team
Matthew D. Potts, instructor
mdpotts@berkeley.edu
Office hours Mon & Thu 3:30–4:30, Mulford 203 (sign up)
Catherine Acosta, GSI
Office hours: to be announced
Where things live
- This site: schedule, assignments, labs, how we use AI
- bCourses (link coming soon): announcements, submissions, grades
- Course Drive folder (link coming soon): readings, cases and slides (Berkeley login)
- Lab templates on GitHub: starter code for each lab
Start here
- Read how this course works with AI. It applies to every assignment.
- Do the setup before the first class: VS Code, Kilo Code and GitHub.
- Check the schedule, and bCourses for readings and due dates.
The course in one picture
Unit 1 teaches life cycle assessment on shared examples: a coffee cup in the first lab and concrete in the second meeting. At the end of Unit 1, teams form and each chooses one company. From Unit 2 onward, each team follows that company from its carbon footprint to its impact on nature, its climate claims and, finally, what "good" looks like for its whole sector. See the Building Assignment.