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Calculating your Carbon Footprint

A carbon footprint is the measurement of the impact of activities on the environment, expressed in the units of greenhouse gas emission.  It relates to the amount of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions caused by all of the processes associated with production, packaging, transport, consumption and waste for a given product.

All about ‘scope’

The degree of difficulty in calculating a carbon footprint will depend upon the ‘scope’ of what is included in the calculations.

There are 3 scope descriptions used by governments and businesses for carbon footprint purposes.  They were originally defined by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) and World Resources Institute (WRI) in their Greenhouse Gas Protocol and they have been adopted into the international standard ISO 14064-1 (2006).  They are:

  1. Scope 1 - emissions that occur from sources owned or controlled by the business (e.g. fuel consumption by machinery, vehicles, generators or fertilisers applied)

  2. Scope 2 - emissions that occur from sources not owned or controlled by the business but are indirect causes of emissions, such as utilities (e.g. electricity, gas)

  3. Scope 3 - emissions that occur from sources not owned or controlled by the business but are necessary for the business products in the supply chain (e.g. raw material processing, packaging, freight, warehousing, retailing, waste disposal, employee travel, services)

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answers to some frequently asked questions about carbon footprint


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a carbon footprint can be the total carbon emissions caused by a business or for comparative purposes may be expressed as carbon emissions per unit of product

The above diagram also identifies the chemical symbols for the six greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere that are covered by the Kyoto Protocol.  The table below explains what they are, their sources and their comparative global warming impacts (after IPCC 2007).

The Global Warming Potential (GWP) (i.e. the contribution of a specific gas to increased atmospheric warming) is always calculated relative to that of carbon dioxide.  For example, in the table above we can see that the GWP of a unit of methane is 25 times that of a unit of carbon dioxide - i.e. 1 tonne of methane has the equivalent GWP of 25 tonnes of carbon dioxide. When calculating a carbon footprint the GWP of GHGs need to be converted to CO2 equivalents (CO2-e) so that comparisons can be made about the carbon footprint of different products and services.

A carbon footprint is arrived at by collecting all the relevant scope data for the different types of emissions, converting them to CO2-e and then calculating how much carbon is produced per unit of product or service.

Most businesses will report on Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions because these are the processes they control and can readily gather data for.  Scope 3 is much more difficult to calculate as it requires significant supply chain research and the cooperation of supply chain partners to provide the relevant information about their processes and obtain data from supply chain participants with whom there is no direct business relationship.

What’s the difference to a Life Cycle Assessment?

There is significant common ground between Carbon Footprint and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) approaches.  However, LCA goes much further as a holistic analysis of the environmental impacts caused by a product or service from the ‘cradle-to-the-grave‘.  It includes environmental impacts other than those relating to carbon emissions.  LCAs incorporate raw material extraction, production, manufacture, distribution, use and disposal plus all intervening processes necessary or caused by the product or service’s existence.  The goal of a LCA is to improve processes, support policy and provide a basis for informed strategic decisions.

What does a carbon calculator do?

A carbon calculator is a computer spreadsheet or database tool designed to assist a business to calculate its carbon emissions and the carbon footprint of its products. Some industries and software suppliers have developed tailored carbon calculators to help businesses in a specific industry to easily calculate their carbon footprint.  These calculators identify the range of processes and emissions types for the industry and build in the conversion factors required.  All a business needs to do is gather the inventory, operational and product data relevant to the scope (usually Scope 1 and Scope 2) and enter this into the data fields of the calculator.  The calculator then works out the carbon footprint.

For the horticulture industry there are a number of carbon calculators developed that are tailored for industries, such as:

  1. Vegetable Industry Carbon Calculator

  2. Orchard Industry Carbon Calculator

  3. Wine Industry Carbon Calculator

There are various other web-based carbon calculators provided for general household or business use, such as:

  1. Carbon Neutral

  2. Future Climate

  3. PE International

The Australian Government is in the process of further development of a prototype system launched in 2005 called the National Carbon Accounting Toobox (NCAT) for the agriculture and land management sectors.  The prototype did not incorporate methane and nitrous oxide emissions as a result of changing land management practices and had software platform limitations.  A new version may incorporate these GHGs and be a web-based platform. 

Businesses can use their carbon footprint data to target areas for improvement, particularly energy management, to become more ‘carbon efficient’ in their operations.  With Australia moving in the direction of emissions trading there is new incentive to move to low-carbon operations.

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