"This might just be the world's first truly ethical offseting scheme."
John Grant, Author of The Green Marketing ManifestoHow to work out your organisation's carbon footprint
As we approach the end of the financial year, many organisations are measuring or preparing to measure their carbon footprint. If you haven't done it before, or want to double check you're on the right lines, here's an overview of how to do it. If your footprint is complex, you need advice or don’t have time, contact us and we can help.
There are six stages to calculating a carbon footprint:
(A) Determine the boundary of the organisation. If you have subsidiaries or joint ventures, you’ll need to work out whether you want to include them. At this stage, it may also be worth dividing the organisation into several parts, depending on its overall size. This will allow you to track changes in the footprint by office or department.
(B) Decide which emissions you are going to measure. Direct emissions (i.e. those released from your own operations; through using fossil fuels on-site or from company-owned cars, for example) and purchased electricity should always be included. Most organisations also include business travel (such as flights) and emissions from waste, and it is good practice to consider if you should account for any of your suppliers’ or customers’ emissions.
For stages A and B, the World Resources Institute and World Business Council for Sustainable Development have produced a standard that is broadly used, called the GHG Protocol. It divides emissions into 3 scopes:
| Scope | Description | Example emissions | Should it be included? |
| 1 | Direct emissions |
|
Yes |
| 2 | Purchased electricity |
|
Yes |
| 3 | Other emissions |
|
Business travel and waste are usually included Other sources should be examined case-by-case |
(C) Collect activity data. This describes the volume of activity for each of the sources of emissions. Electricity, for example, is measured in kilowatt-hours, while car journeys can be measured in kilometers or litres of fuel.
(D) Identify appropriate emission factors. These show the volume of greenhouse gases you can expect from each unit of activity. Defra (one of the government’s environment departments) maintains a list of factors that should cover most organisation’s requirements. You may find that you need to collect activity data in a format that fits the emission factors.
(E) Calculate the footprint by multiplying the activity data by the emission factors. Make sure you keep track of the volume of emissions in each scope and each part of the business.
(F) Once you have calculated the footprint, work out what it means for the organisation. Are there any available benchmarks that can help you understand if your footprint is good or bad? The Carbon Disclosure Project is a good source of this kind of data. Does the footprint indicate any obvious environmental initiatives that you should undertake?
