Know your carbon
12 April 2023
Advice on understanding the challenges in determining an organisation’s carbon footprint and implementing a strategy for making reductions was given in a recent webinar held by the Supply Chain Sustainability School (SCSS).
The ‘Measuring and Managing Carbon’ session was presented by Charles Naud, Head of Product with Sustainability Tool which is operated by the Action Sustainability consultancy and is an SCSS partner.
He said that it was important to adopt strategies that are meaningful and quantifiable without being daunting. Discussions could be held with stakeholders to discuss areas to target and potential opportunities for reductions, and then priorities could be determined.
In measuring carbon reductions, four basic elements were key: determining goals; setting targets; deciding what exactly requires measurement; and the metrics, or data, needed to demonstrate results.
Naud said that measuring carbon resembled accounting with accepted rules and procedures in place. These were set out in documents such as greenhouse gas (GHG) reporting protocols; the PAS 2080: 2016 standard ‘Carbon Management in Infrastructure’; and PAS 2050: 2011 ‘Specification for the assessment of the life cycle of greenhouse gas emissions of goods and services’.
It was important to realise that ‘carbon’ was often used as an umbrella term for all GHG emissions, including methane, nitrogen oxide and carbon dioxide. Hence the expression CO2e was often used in carbon measurement discussions to express total GHG levels, with the ‘e’ standing for ‘equivalent’).
Naud also clarified the various Scopes under which emissions were categorised. Scope 1 emissions are created directly by an organisation’s activities such as using fuel in vehicle fleets or operating a furnace; Scope 2 relates to the electricity purchased from the grid; and Scope 3 effectively covers everything else, including emissions throughout the entire supply chain, from products and the materials used in their manufacture, to packaging and transportation.
In some cases calculations could be simplified by using accepted conversion factors to determine carbon equivalents. For example, a carbon value can be applied to each kilowatt hour of electricity consumed. Figures for other parameters like vehicle mileage and different materials used can be found in accepted sources such as a database created by the University of Bath.
Finally, Charles Naud said it was important to remember that there were no right answers; it was more a case of determining an individual organisation’s specific situation and the most appropriate actions.
Picture: Alan Frijns
