Carbon Footprinting: Drivers, Approaches and Opportunities

What is a Carbon Footprint?

Carbon Footprinting: Drivers, Approaches and Opportunities

What is a Carbon Footprint?

A carbon footprint can be defined as a measure of the impact that a person, organisation or product has on the environment in terms of the amount of greenhouse gases produced. It is now a commonly used term, which embraces a vast number of approaches and scopes. There is no one formally agreed standard or methodology for conducting a carbon footprint; the approach may vary according to the type of organisation carrying out the assessment and its desired outcomes.

Organisations can be flexible in shaping and streamlining the footprint in a way that best supports their wider carbon strategy. International guidance exists to ensure that the process is conducted in a credible way.

This article will not act as a step by step guide to carbon footprinting. Instead, it aims to demonstrate how carbon footprinting should not be considered as a burden, but as an opportunity to reduce environmental impact and improve efficiency and cost savings.

What are the drivers?

There are a number of business drivers for carrying out a carbon footprint, and some of these are outlined below.

Cost cutting: Carbon footprinting should not be considered simply as a marketing tool, but should be used to assist in the planning and development of a robust climate change/carbon reduction strategy. Increasingly, organisations are realising the benefits of understanding and quantifying their carbon emissions; not only does this communicate positive messages to stakeholders but it can be an effective way of identifying areas where real cost savings can be made.

Carbon footprinting should not be considered simply as a marketing tool, but should be used to assist in the planning and development of a robust climate change/carbon reduction strategy. Increasingly, organisations are realising the benefits of understanding and quantifying their carbon emissions; not only does this communicate positive messages to stakeholders but it can be an effective way of identifying areas where real cost savings can be made.

The majority of greenhouse gases (GHG) are emitted through the burning of fossil fuels for energy and transport and these emissions can occur at every stage of the product/business life cycle. A carbon footprint can highlight those key areas where inefficiencies exist and where ‘quick win’ energy saving solutions can be implemented. This, when accompanied by a formal carbon strategy, can result in a reduction of carbon emissions, cost savings and an improvement in the overall efficiency of the business.

Legislation: Legislation is another major driver. Many larger organisations will now find themselves eligible for the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC), a UK focused cap and trade scheme which will commence in April 2010 (link to Directives Timeline). In preparation for this scheme, participants should ensure that a robust process for measuring GHG emissions is in place. This will support the reporting and forecasting requirements specified under this new scheme. Furthermore, as financial penalties can be incurred through failing to reduce GHG emissions year on year, carbon footprinting can be used as part of a wider carbon reduction strategy to identify areas where abatement measures should be implemented.

Reporting: In addition to disclosing carbon emissions as part of internal sustainability reporting, many companies are now participating in the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP). This is a voluntary initiative established in 2000. Every year the CDP issues information requests to a variety of companies and public sector organisations to enable them to publically declare annual carbon emissions. The CDP questionnaires have been structured based on the GHG protocol, and aim to encourage participants to engage with their supply chains to understand their indirect emissions as well as the emissions over which they have direct control (refer to section below).

In addition to disclosing carbon emissions as part of internal sustainability reporting, many companies are now participating in the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP). This is a voluntary initiative established in 2000. Every year the CDP issues information requests to a variety of companies and public sector organisations to enable them to publically declare annual carbon emissions. The CDP questionnaires have been structured based on the GHG protocol, and aim to encourage participants to engage with their supply chains to understand their indirect emissions as well as the emissions over which they have direct control (refer to section below).

Risk within the supply chain: Communicating with suppliers and working with them to understand and reduce the carbon emissions associated with their operations can result in cost savings across the supply chain.

Communicating with suppliers and working with them to understand and reduce the carbon emissions associated with their operations can result in cost savings across the supply chain.

Approaches to Carbon Footprinting

Traditionally, the term carbon footprinting has been confined to the measure of ‘direct’ GHG emissions i.e. those emissions produced on site and for which an organisation is directly responsible.

Recently, however, carbon footprinting has taken on a wider scope: extending further to incorporate all emissions across the life cycle of the business or product, including ‘indirect’ sources such as those associated with the supply chain. These emissions are considered to be outside the influence and control of the organisation but may still form a significant part of the carbon footprint. For example, the carbon footprint of a can of soft drink comprises the total amount of carbon equivalents emitted for the manufacture, packaging, distribution, use and disposal of that single can.

Carbon footprinting based on a life cycle approach can be performed either at a product-specific or company level:

• ‘Product’ carbon footprinting, as illustrated by the soft drink example above, is a useful tool for enabling forward thinking companies to assess the potential for developing new low-carbon products.
• ‘Company’ carbon Footprinting is a useful tool for obtaining an overview of the company’s emissions across all its products and services and thus highlighting key priority areas for inclusion in a climate change/ carbon strategy.

Collecting data to support these assessments can often seem like a daunting task. Whereas the data required to calculate direct emissions often already exists within the organisation (e.g. electricity bills, environmental reporting forms) data for indirect emissions may be more difficult to source. In order to overcome this barrier, organisations can perform initial carbon measurement using available high-level, generic information. Whilst this approach would not be sufficiently robust for product-specific carbon labeling, it allows, as a first step, for the identification of key impacts and reduction focus areas.

Following this, the organisation may wish to pursue more detailed assessments, focusing on these key areas.

Standards and methodologies

There is currently no formally agreed standard or methodology for conducting a carbon footprint. There are, however, many publicly available documents that provide guidance on how to approach such an assessment. Two of the most well respected specifications include:

• The Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol:The GHG protocol has published a Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard, which provides a step by step guide for companies in quantifying and reporting GHG emissions. A number of cross-sector and sector-specific calculation tools are also available on the GHG protocol website, which provides guidance on how to calculate GHG emissions from specific sources or industries.
• BSI PAS 2050: At the request of Defra and the Carbon Trust, BSI has established a Publicly Available Specification (PAS), which outlines a method for measuring the embodied greenhouse gas emissions from goods and services using a whole life cycle approach. The Carbon Trust has already piloted PAS 2050 with 75 product ranges across a wide range of UK companies including PepsiCo, Boots, Innocent, Tesco, Cadbury, Halifax, Coca Cola, and The Co-operative Group with positive results with respect to carbon reductions. Based on PAS 2050, BSI is currently working on developing an ISO standard for carbon footprinting.

Conclusion

In summary, Carbon Footprinting is a tool that can be applied in a number of different ways. The chosen approach should be ‘fit for purpose’ and the level of detail applied should be appropriate in view of the desired outcomes. Carbon footprinting aims to identify risks and opportunities across the life cycle of the business or product.

Many businesses will find that the best opportunity for achieving carbon savings is through implementing measures to improve energy efficiency. Implementing these measures as part of a wider carbon strategy will not only enhance a business’s credibility but will also lead to positive bottom line results.

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