Creating Carbon Footprints for Organisations Communities and Nations
Creating Carbon Footprints, for Organisations, Communities and Nations (Communities) Douglas Crawford-Brown Professor Emeritus, UNC-Chapel Hill Executive Director, Cambridge Centre for Climate Change Mitigation Research
Our task today: Quantifying the carbon footprint of an entire community at a level sufficient to allow identification of the most effective strategies of reduction
Again, we might consider Scopes 1, 2 and 3 emissions • Scope 1 includes emissions “from sources that are owned or controlled by the institution” • Scope 2 includes “indirect emissions generated in the production of electricity consumed by the institution” • Scope 3 includes emissions as a “consequence of the activities of the institution, but occur from sources not owned or controlled by the institution”
We also will distinguish between production based and consumption based accounting • Production-based: we count the emissions stemming from activities, including economic activities, within a community regardless of where products ultimately are consumed. • Consumption-based: we count emissions resulting from the production of a good at the point of consumption, and therefore reflecting Tier 3 emissions.
Categories of emissions contributors in the Community Carbon Dioxide Reduction Tool Energy source: • Electricity • Natural gas • Other fuels Sector of consumption: • Transportation • Industry/Business • Residential • Government • Education (e. g. University)
The pages of the Community Tool: 1. We begin by specifying emissions factors for fuel/energy sources:
2. We use community-scale data to determine energy use in each sector:
…including for Transport:
3. We apply the emissions factors to energy use in each sector:
…including for Transport:
4. We sum these emissions across the Sectors:
5. Comparing against the national figures to be sure we are “in the ballpark”:
6. Next, we specify the percentage reduction target in each Sector:
7. Which produces the new carbon footprint for the community:
7. Which is also summarised as bar charts for Baseline and with/Policy:
As with Organisations, Communities will focus on emissions that: (i) contribute most strongly to the overall footprint, (ii) are under the control of the “actors” (iii) can be reduced in the most cost effective manner and/or (iv) are required to be reduced by either a regulatory organisation, citizens or by a “client”
- Slides: 16