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Measuring your C footprint

What?

Calculations for assessing your baseline situation should take into account emissions that are both directly and indirectly emitted by your organization. These are typically referred to as Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions:

  • Scope 1: Direct emissions from owned or controlled resources (eg. company vehicle usage and combustion of fossil fuels)
  • Scope 2: Indirect emissions from purchased energy (purchased electricity, steam and heat)
  • Scope 3: Indirect emissions occurring in a company’s supply chain

How?

Depending on financial, technical and human resources at hand, you can either choose to make your own carbon calculations or to engage a specialized consultant.

During our SME Round Table Session of November ‘21, a lack of financial and human resources appeared to be returning obstacles for SMEs to shift gears in the implementation of their climate ambitions. Engaging an external consultant is not always among the financial possibilities of a small or medium sized company. Fortunately, there are a series of robust carbon footprinting tools available that can help you get started.

Consultant

A few important considerations when you measure yourself:

  • Start with determining which information is needed to accurately measure your carbon footprint. This might imply appealing to other services within your organization.
  • It is more than warranted to spend a little more time and effort to making sure that your data collection is accurate. On the longer run, this will enable credible and clear reporting of your progress.
  • It might also help to set a baseline year (dating max. 2 years back).
  • Map out the collected data and analyse your main emission posts as well as low hanging fruit (ie. emission posts that are easy to reduce)

Should you wish to engage a consultant...

... we’d be happy to provide you with a list of trusted consultants that are part of our network upon request (note: this is provided that you are a BACA member).