CO2 footprint
As soon as you’ve decided what you want to make climate-neutral: the entire organisation, a service or a product, you start making a greenhouse gas inventory, using our CO2-calculator. More complex organisations can get help with collecting this data and making the calculation. Only by into gaining insight the CO2 emissions of your organisation can you take responsible action.
What does this process entail?
To make the calculation we always use the workflow described in the UN’s Greenhouse Gas Protocol (Ref. 1). The following steps are essential:
1. Setting the boundaries, i.e. what precisely is becoming climate-neutral. This must be a consistent choice with sensible boundaries and documented choices. We check these choices to determine whether they are too selective or perhaps lead to other environmental problems.
2. A complete CO2 footprint includes all Scope 1 and 2 emissions and a selection from Scope 3. Scope 1 defines direct emissions, Scope 2 indirect emissions due to e.g. imported electricity or heat, while Scope 3 refers to the emissions resulting from the use of raw materials, commodities or products.
3. Finally, the calculation is made.
To become climate-neutral according to our definition, a complete inventory of Scope 1 and 2 is needed. Scope 3 emissions must be evaluated and potentially significant factors must be taken into account when calculating the CO2 footprint (assuming that these Scope 3 components can be influenced).
* All scopes are defined in the GHG protocol
There are several CO2 calculators on the web. In recent years several international and national institutions have done research on CO2 footprint calculations. Based on this research and our own experience we designed our own calculator.