Trendlab/Nellyrodi

Climate change is the biggest challenge of the century. By limiting climate change, we limit the risk of food and health system failure, but also the risk of lower hygiene standards hence the probability of contamination by any virus or bacteria. It also reduces the risk of floods, forest fires, drought, heatwaves, etc. Each company has a significant role to come into play in the ecological transition and can act at its own level to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions.

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Implementing a low-carbon approach allows the company to do its part for the climate, but also has other advantages: following the regulations, preserving its competitiveness, reinforcing its employer brand, responding to the environmental demands of its customers...

There are many other good reasons to take the plunge!

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The Bilan Carbone® is a methodology that measures all the greenhouse gas emissions on which a company's activity depends: those that the company is directly responsible for (like using oil or gas), but also those generated by its entire value chain: customers, suppliers, suppliers of its suppliers, etc.

This methodology is developed by the French government via ADEME, the energy transition agency.

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Calculating a carbon footprint involves converting a company's activity over a year into a quantity of greenhouse gas emissions.

The entire activity of the company is analysed, segmented into categories of emissions: offices, travel, digital, purchasing, production, etc.

For each category, the company provides the activity data used to make the calculations. For example, the electricity consumption of the premises, reams of paper used, computers and digital equipment purchased, kilometres travelled by company vehicles, the composition of the machine fleet, quantity and type of raw materials used, etc.

The full list depends on the activity of the company.

These data are then converted into CO2 by Sami, using emission factors. If the company consumed 10 reams of paper over the year (activity data), and one ream represents 34kg of CO2 (emission factor) then the CO2 emissions related to paper will be 10x34 = 340 kg CO2e over the year.

All these results are then added together to arrive at the total carbon footprint.

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Carrying out a carbon footprint is a way of measuring and understanding the company's impact on the climate.

The results are used to identify the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions and to consider how to reduce these emissions.

They are also used to prioritise work to start tackling the most important sources of emissions.

The carbon footprint is also used to track the company's carbon emissions evolution through the years. This allows a company to monitor the emissions reduction enabled by implemented actions, and also to target the next steps for improvement.

There are different greenhouse gases, whose emissions contribute to climate change: carbon dioxide (CO2), the best known, but also methane, nitrous oxide and some others.

The warming power of these gases differs due to their chemical composition, with methane contributing 30 times more to atmospheric warming than carbon dioxide in equivalent quantities.

The tCO2e (tonne of CO2 equivalent) enables to account the effects of all these gases in a single unit.

In this way, we can have a standard and readable unit that takes into account the more or less important warming powers of all existing greenhouse gases.

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Comparing the total carbon footprint of two companies is not possible, as the amount of emissions depends on the size, location or activity of the company.

To make comparison possible, and to enable companies to benchmark themselves against others or against averages in their sector, carbon intensity ratios are used.

The company's total CO2e emissions are related to another indicator that takes into account the size of the company: in this case the number of employees and the revenues.

These ratios, expressed in CO2e per € of turnover or per employee, are comparable from one company to another.

A greenhouse gas emissions reduction pathways is a roadmap established by the company to set long-term emissions reduction targets.

The targets set and the indicators used (total carbon footprint or carbon intensity) to reach these targets differ between companies and sectors, but all have a common goal: to achieve global carbon neutrality.

The pathway defined by the company indicates the annual emissions reductions required to reach the goals, and the company can then identify actions to be taken each year to meet the reduction objective.

International standards provide the framework that sets these pathways.