Getting Started: Measuring and Monitoring Carbon Footprints 

Our cohort of small but dedicated Bristol organisations took part in the second Getting Started session on 9 June, part of three sessions helping guide them on how to start their climate action journey. Building on the learnings of fundamentals of decarbonisation gained in the first session, attendees further developed their skills and knowledge to create a carbon footprint for their business.

The initiative has been possible due to the generous backing of Redcliffe & Temple and City Centre BIDs, who are committed to supporting businesses in the BID areas with reducing their impact on the environment. And it has been developed and delivered with our consultancy partner Eunomia.

Participating organisations range in sizes and sectors, from local coffee roaster Extract Coffee, architects Spratley & Partners, nursery providers Raised In and property consultants DJ Foley.

This second session focused on how an organisation can measure and monitor their carbon footprints. By the end attendees left with a calculated footprint for their organisation, ready to inform our next session on setting decarbonisation targets and developing climate action plans.

Here are the key takeaways:

Carbon accounting principles

• It’s essential to follow the Greenhouse Gas Protocol’s guidance when calculating a carbon footprint to ensure that the baseline calculation is accurate and comparable. This involves including all greenhouse gases, using the most recent 12-month period for data reporting and being transparent on what data is included.
• Carbon footprints help organisations categorise their emissions, identifying areas that they have the most influence. The categorisations are:
  • Scope 1: Direct emissions from owned sources e.g. company facilities and vehicles
  • Scope 2: Indirect emissions from purchased electricity and heating
  • Scope 3: All other indirect emissions that occur in a company’s value chain e.g. purchased goods and services, transport and waste
• Carbon footprint requirements differ between organisation and sector. Some sectors, like the NHS, make carbon footprint reporting mandatory, while in others it is voluntary. Voluntary schemes that will provide accreditation include:
  • ISO 14001 
  • SBTi 

The footprinting process

Calculating your carbon footprint is just one stage of the footprinting process. The stages are:

1. Boundary setting. Before calculating your carbon footprint, you need to set your boundary. This identifies what you have organisational and operational control over, which will guide you on what data needs to be collected and calculated.
2. Data collection. To calculate an organisation’s carbon footprint, there are certain data sets that need to be collected, such as electricity consumption and heating fuel type and consumption.
3. Data cleaning and gap filling. Collecting the data to calculate your carbon footprint isn’t always straight forward, with difficulties including missing data sets and lack of resources to collect first-hand data. The footprinting process can account for these gaps with secondary data, but it’s important to be transparent when doing so.  
4. Greenhouse gas calculations. This is when you calculate your carbon footprint, which will collate all your greenhouse gas emissions into one carbon dioxide equivalent number.
5. Quality assurance. It’s important to ensure that your footprint is transparent about which data sources have been used or data that’s been omitted. This allows accurate comparison between your baseline calculation and future recalculation.

Interpreting footprints 

• Carbon footprints help to illustrate the split of emissions and areas an organisation has the most influence over, crucial to identifying action priority areas.
• There are different ways to split and interpret a carbon footprint. The most broad and basic spilt is via scopes 1, 2 and 3. These areas can then be further broken down to identify action areas. For example, looking at what components make up your scope 3 emissions.
• Comparing your carbon footprint against other organisations can be useful to identify how well you are performing, but for accurate comparison it is important to consider certain factors. These include: organisation size, the sector, and the data they are using – for example, consider if they are using second hand data or if certain is data missing. This is why transparent boundaries are important.
• The split of emissions can be illustrated both numerically in carbon tonnes and through a percentage. Use numbers to compare baseline calculations with recalculated carbon footprints to see progress, as well as for comparisons with organisations of a similar size to you. Percentages are more suited for scalability, for instance if you want to compare your carbon footprint with a larger organisation.

Calculating your carbon footprint

• Choose a carbon calculator that suits the needs of your organisation. There are many available on the market, ranging from user-friendly calculators aimed at SMEs, to more in-depth options requiring additional data, for organisations wanting to further breakdown climate action areas.
• A good place to start is the SME Climate Hub carbon calculator. It’s free and easy-to-use. Eunomia has their own tool which is more in-depth exploring areas such as: employee commuting, hotel stays as part of business travel and the floor areas of company facilities. 
• When calculating your carbon footprint, be sure to make note of any data attainment issues, such as take up of employee travel surveys, so that they can be overcome in the next collection and calculation period.  

Next steps: creating a climate action plan 

In the third and final session participants will put these calculated footprints to work, when they discover how to set carbon reduction targets, creating a road map to decarbonisation through their own climate action plans.

Further tools and reading

• Watch this simple breakdown of what a carbon footprint is and learn why it underpins successful climate action.
• Learn more about the Greenhouse Gas Protocol Guidance.
• Attendees calculated their carbon footprint using the SME Climate Hub carbon calculator. It’s free and easy-to-use.
• If your organisation is looking for a further breakdown of your carbon footprint to pinpoint action areas, Eunomia has created a more in-depth calculator. Contact them for more information.
• Our Climate Action Programme has loads of free, practical resources on a range of topics.

Find out more about the Climate Action Programme