The Rights and Wrongs of Carbon Accounting About life cycles and footprints in the carbon world Carbon Accounting Conference Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh - 11 March 2009

The Challenge – “Counting Emissions” Methods Case studies Conclusions Contents

Forum for the Future (2008) Getting to Zero: Defining Corporate Carbon Neutrality GHG Protocol – Boundary Setting

Direct GHG emissions Indirect GHG emissions (supply chain) n4 n3 (…) n5 (…) n1 (…) n2 tC0 2 ·eq Production layers

System completeness vs truncation Product 1 Product 2 Carbon footprint (t CO 2 -e) Production layer

The Challenge – “Counting Emissions” Methods – Process LCA + IO-LCA Case studies Conclusions Contents

Method 1: Process LCA Table 1. Flows of products between unit processes Production of Steel Electricity Production Production of Toaster Use of Toaster Disposal of toaster Steel (kg) Electricity (kWh) Toaster (unit) Toast (piece) Waste disposal service (kg disp.) 0001 Table 2. Flows of environmental intervention by unit processes Production of Steel Electricity Production Production of Toaster Use of Toaster Disposal of toaster CO 2 (to air, kg)

Process LCA Model Process specific StrengthsWeakness Truncation,laborious Method 1: Process LCA

Method 2: Environmental Input-Output Analysis INDUSTRIES. Agric. & raw mat. Manuf. ind. Electricity gen. Transport sectors Service sectors PRODUCTS Food, minerals, fuels Manufact. Goods Electricity Distribution Services GHG emissions

Input-OutputLCA Model Complete, less resource intensive StrengthsWeakness Aggregation not specific Method 2: Input-output LCA

A hybrid of Process & EIO: Hybrid-LCA

Process LCA Input-OutputLCA Model Process specific Encompassing system boundary StrengthsWeakness Truncation Aggregation HybridLCAHybridLCA Process specific Encompassing system boundary Process specific Encompassing system boundary Process specific Encompassing system boundary Process specific Encompassing system boundary Why a hybrid approach?

Further information

The Challenge – “Counting Emissions” Methods Case studies Conclusions Contents

Carbon Footprint of a food company

HIE – Internal & External Expenditure

Carbon footprint by production layer

Sector benchmarking t CO 2 -e / £

Structural path analysis (SW H&C sector)

The Challenge – “Counting Emissions” Methods Case studies Conclusions Contents

Save money and time – start with a top-down analysis to identify hot spots in your total carbon footprint Follow-up hot spots on site and in your supply chain On site: reduce energy use, emissions and costs Supply chain: help (urge) others to reduce their carbon footprint In-depth Hybrid LCA only if major insights & savings can be expected Communicate your findings and experiences Rights…

Don’t get lost in too detailed an analysis – keep the bigger picture in mind Be aware of and manage uncertainty – don’t search for the last gram (of carbon) Avoid presenting results (labels) without explanation Do not leave out services – the impact of service activities is often underestimated … and Wrongs of Carbon Accounting

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