What is a carbon footprint measurement for businesses?

Your carbon footprint is the total of greenhouse gas emissions caused by an organization, expressed as a carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e). It is the quantification of an organization's impact on the environment and atmosphere in regards to GHG emissions. 

Even with our best efforts at reduction, every organization emits some amount of CO2. At this point it is unavoidable. It's important to understand our environmental impact and be able to strategize moving forward. The carbon footprint measurement is important for businesses because it separates you from the competition. Profitable decarbonization is afoot and the shift into the green economy is already here.

Your carbon footprint measurement means that your environmental legacy is now quantifiable. Investors, consumers, and potential employees are now putting businesses under the microscope.

Summary of scope emissions

If you aren't familiar with the 4 emissions scopes, we have broken them down here:

Related Content

For more information about reporting scope emissions and what they are, read our related articles:

• How to Reduce Upstream Emissions With the Gold Standard Framework for Supplier Engagement
• Scope 3 Emissions: Contributing Factors, Measurement and Reduction
• Scope 4 Avoided Emissions: Everything You Need to Know

Why your carbon footprint measurement is important

As we settle into the green economy, setting benchmarks and emission targets is necessary to understand our sources of emissions to be able to control them and create proper carbon reduction strategies.  This is no longer an extra for businesses to do. It's a must-have for government compliance, reporting accurate data to ESG investors, and a competitive edge your industry.

What happens when my organization calculates its carbon footprint?

Out of 1000 SMEs polled in the UK, 40% were unsure of how to prepare for net zero, therefore, there is no way for them to be able to reduce their carbon emissions properly. It is possible to cut out the obvious things such as reducing business flights when a video conference is sufficient for a meeting. However, there are ways that you can substitute necessities that you don't know about to be able to do business efficiently, continue earning profits, save money, and save the planet and please stakeholders at once. Only calculating your carbon footprint and measuring it over time will enable companies to prepare for net zero at scale. 

Net0's simulator tool empowers organizations to know what to expect in terms of their carbon footprint when adding a substitute source of energy or fuel for instance, or even how their carbon footprint would change if they were to remove certain sources or materials from different aspects of the supply chain completely. This takes the estimation out of doing carbon accounting yourself and gives a more hopeful picture to investors about the future.

How do you calculate a carbon footprint?

Calculating scope 1 emissions includes the emissions we have direct control over such as electricity generation, heating and cooling, and refrigerants. All emissions scopes are easy to track in Net0's platform because they can be entered through custom factor input fields with raw data you provide. The platform will itemize and categorize all scopes for you in the reports. 

Scope 2 emissions involve indirect emissions from energy from steam, electricity, and chilled water. They can also be manually input or, use automation to upload the data straight into the input fields to record your emissions from utility bills and invoices directly. Automation will simplify the process and remove wasted efforts and expenses doing your own carbon measurements.

You can start managing scope 3 indirect emissions by collecting suppliers' data. Since scope 3 emissions make up about 80-90% of supply chain emissions, collecting all of the activity-based data you can from outside of your organization but inside your supply chain, is the most accurate way to calculate your carbon footprint. Net0 will automatically convert your raw data into emissions data in the custom emissions factors fields. Lastly, you can use the spend-based approach to calculate any emissions for the data that has not been collected from the others in your supply chain. These steps will give you the most accurate calculations. 

Not only can you incorporate colleagues from inside your organization, but you can integrate anyone you choose to input their own emissions from suppliers and vendors in your value chain.

Next, calculate any of your colleagues' emissions by allowing them to input data directly into Net0's platform. This works wonders for business travel so they can participate in recording their own commutes, business trips, or even home working (scope 4) emissions. 

As you begin to see your carbon footprint appear on paper, it will be time to take action. Using progress cards, build up motivation within your team to not only measure your carbon footprint but create actionable strategies that everyone can get involved in when you onboard multiple team members responsible for their data input and achievements. Using Net0's progress cards will empower your team to see what actions have been taken and their progress, what have been achieved already to see how far you've come, and what plans they have to look forward to in the future. 

In conclusion

Net0 is the best automated solution to measure your business' carbon footprint to get you on the path to net zero. Calculating your carbon footprint has never been easier, faster, or cheaper than it is with climate technology. What decisions you make going forward are what will reduce your carbon footprint towards a carbon-free world. Book a demo with Net0 today and find out more so you can start strategizing and taking control of your carbon footprint.