Calculating your business’s carbon footprint is your first step in helping your business accurately track and report on its progress towards a low or zero carbon balance. This guide helps businesses take the first steps towards achieving CO2 balance. So let’s look at what data you need to collect to calculate your CO2 emissions.
What is a carbon footprint?
First we must understand the Carbon Footprint: A carbon footprint is the total amount of greenhouse gases (GHG) produced directly or indirectly by an organization, person, product or service. A company’s carbon emissions relate to your business activities. This includes the energy you use for heating and lighting, company transportation and industrial and commercial processes…
What factors should be taken into account in greenhouse gas emissions?
Although carbon dioxide (CO2) is the most common GHG emission, it is not the only gas that has a significant impact on the environment. That is why carbon emissions are often expressed in carbon dioxide equivalents (CO2e).
CO2e describes the impact of different greenhouse gases in terms of the amount of CO2 that would have the same impact on global warming. In the Kyoto Protocol it includes seven GHG emissions:
◾ Carbon dioxide (CO2)
◾ Methane (CH4)
◾ Nitrous oxide (N2O)
◾ Sulfur hexafluoride (SF6)
◾ Nitrogen trifluoride (NF3)
◾ Perfluorocarbons (PFCs)
◾ Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs)
Additionally, there are three different emission ranges that can be calculated to include in the carbon footprint.
◾ Scope 1: Direct emissions, arising from activities that your organization owns or controls (such as Company vehicles, generator oil…)
◾ Scope 2: Indirect emissions from the organization's operations but whose sources are owned or controlled by another organization related to imported energy such as electricity, heat, cold, etc.
◾ Scope 3: Other indirect emissions from the organization's operations but whose sources are owned or controlled by another organization (such as transportation of raw materials/finished products, loss of electricity…)
Steps to determine basic CO2 footprint:
1. Identify business activities
First, you must identify all of your business activities that emit GHGs into the atmosphere. For example, the fuel used by transport vehicles, the electricity used for operations, the refrigerant added to air conditioning systems, etc. are all sources of GHG emissions. You should choose a metric to determine how much your organization is doing with each business activity. For example, transporting products emits GHGs due to the use of fuel. Metrics such as liters or gallons can be used to calculate your fuel consumption. Electricity consumption can be measured in kilowatt hours, etc.
2. Data collection
Collecting the data needed to calculate your carbon footprint over a 12-month period, as mentioned earlier, companies emit greenhouse gases through direct and indirect activities, and indirect activities can account for the majority of greenhouse gas emissions in some sectors. Therefore, you will likely need to collect data from outside sources to accurately calculate the carbon footprint associated with your company.
3. Find emission factors that characterize the activity
To calculate your carbon footprint, you need to know the emission factor per unit, for example, the amount of GHG emissions generated per kilowatt hour of electricity used, per liter of gasoline consumed… To find out this information, you can use the emission factors of many organizations and governments around the world such as IPCC, EPA, Vietnamese Government…
It may be easier to work with a consulting firm or use cloud-based tools to determine specific emission factors for your operations. Alternatively, such alternatives can provide a more in-depth look at your company’s carbon footprint. A consultant will help a business determine which emission factors are appropriate for its own operations, as there may be cases where quite a few different indicators are required for different sources of emissions.
4. Calculation and interpretation
The final step is to calculate your company’s carbon footprint and explain it. Through the inventory, businesses will identify the sources of emissions that account for a large proportion, thereby creating a plan and reduction targets in line with the company’s commitments as required by the local Government and customers around the world.
