How to measure your company’s impact on climate —From Carbon Footprint to Climate Strategy (1/2)
To address environmental climate change, a fundamental step is understanding and assessing your company’s carbon footprint. In this article, we’ll explore why this is crucial, how to do it, and the benefits it offers.
This article was written with the help of Adrien Destrez, co-founder of Magelan, and Celia Poncelin.
Your company’s impact on climate change is the amount of CO2e emissions it produces. These emissions cover all greenhouse gases actually (CO2, methane, nitrous oxide, etc…), but to make it simpler we use CO2 equivalent, also written CO2e.
1. Why and how do you calculate your carbon footprint?
WHY
👉 Why do a carbon footprint?
1- Monitor and improve
- Improve your resilience to climate change and the availability of resources
- Track excessive energy usage or other inefficiencies
- Identify potential reductions and lower unnecessary energy costs
- Gauge emissions performance over time
- Set emission reduction targets
- Implement a climate strategy
2- Report to stakeholders
- Increase your company’s transparency to your investors, clients, and the public
- Meet stakeholders expectations
- Enhance your reputation and improve transparency
- Increase accountability
3- Identify risks and opportunities
- Ensure compliance with regulations and the legislation: companies with more than 500 employees are required to carry out a carbon assessment every 4 years and to publish it on the ADEME website
- Benefit from market opportunities
- Optimize decision-making
- Develop your employer brand
HOW
List all your operations
First, take a look at all the activities needed to run your business, put a figure on each, and then you will be able to calculate the CO2 emissions related:
Examples of activities:
- Heating the offices
- Buying electronic devices
- Flying for business trips
- Sending email campaigns
- Having employees coming to the office
- But also the emissions of the products/services you sell
Put a figure on each operation
- Heating the offices => 132 000 kWh of electricity
- Buying electronic devices => 80 Macbooks produced and delivered
- Flying for business trips => 4 800 000 km traveled
- Sending email campaigns => 104 000 emails sent
- Having employees coming to the office => 200 600 km driven
Do the maths
- Heating the offices => 132 000 kWh of electricity => 11 tons of CO2
- Buying electronic devices => 80 Macbook produced and delivered => 18 tons of CO2
- Flying for business trips => 4 800 000 km traveled => 140 tons of CO2
- Sending email campaigns => 104 000 emails sent => 2 tons of CO2
- Having employees coming to the office => 200 600 km driven => 53 tons of CO2
To do that, you can use the Base Empreinte from ADEME.
Here’s Magelan Carbont Footprint as a reference.
You’ll get the amount of CO2 produced by your company and the details for each business activity. That’s what we call “carbon footprint”.
Here’s what it looks like in real-life (Basecamp example)
2. Measure your carbon footprint with/like a pro: calculation methods
Basic measurement
=> Excel Template or free calculator
🙂 Pros
- A quick overview of your carbon footprint
😕 Cons
- Too imprecise results, without proper data
- A carbon balance sheet is useful to see the positions that emit the most greenhouse gases, but with an express calculation this is not possible
- Hard to do it by yourself if you haven’t done it before
⏰ Timing: 30 minutes to 3 hours
Ask a carbon accountant
It can be an independent, a freelancer, or a consulting firm.
🙂 Pros
- A professional will be dedicated to your carbon footprint calculation and will manage the different stages
- You will have a dedicated person to speak with
- The carbon footprint is personalized to your company
- It is an opportunity to learn the process with the consultant
😕 Cons
- After the result of the carbon footprint, you need to identify someone that move this topic forward internally
- If you want to do the carbon footprint again the year after, you can be dependent on your supplier if you don’t have training
⏰ Timing: a few weeks
Examples
💰 Budget
The “decarbon’action” diagnostic can require a €10K budget, with 4K or 6K of subsidies from ADEME. Cheaper budget options exist, starting at 3K.
Use an online platform
🙂 Pros
Using an online platform is the best fit if you need to:
- Make a first assessment of your carbon footprint, in a short period of time, without having enough knowledge of the topic
- Automate calculations
- Track emissions on a regular basis
😕 Cons
- The calculation methods are simplistic
- Measurement of Scope 3 can lack precision
- You need to gather many complex data points
- There’s no accompaniment on the restitution part and on an action plan to reduce the company’s impact
- The support teams are often far from the calculation methods
- If you want to do the carbon footprint again the year after, you can be too dependent on your supplier if you weren’t trained.
⏰ Timing: a few weeks
Examples:
🛠 Greenly, Carbo… Benchmark of carbon footprint solutions available here
Train someone in your team to get your carbon footprint
🙂 Pros
- No longer expensive or complicated
- Internalize the skill
- No more dependant on a supplier
😕 Cons
- Need to have a dedicated climate manager
⏰ Timing:
=> 30 hours in 3 months with the Institut de Formation Carbone
=> 9h in 6 weeks with La Roadmap du Climat
What’s next?
Once you measure your carbon footprint, you can better understand your scope of actions (that depends on each company).
- Reduce direct and indirect emissions
- Limit future emission
- Reduce the others’ emissions
- Increase absorbed emissions
- Finance projects
- Contribute to the transition through your solution
3. Grants you can apply to
Keep in mind that the main grant for a first carbon assessment is “Diag Decarbon’action”. The rest of the amount 4 or 6 K€ has to be paid for a full accompaniment (the initiative value is 10 K€). More information here.
4. Other tools
Climate action
Understanding the Global Field of Action: Net Zero Initiative
Calculating your induced emissions: Bilan Carbone / GHG Protocol
Defining a plan to reduce its induced emissions: Bilan Carbone
Defining your climate strategy: ACT Step by Step
Defining a reduction trajectory aligned with the Paris Agreement: ACT, SBTi
Assessing climate risks: Ocara, TCFD
The regulatory GHG balance (in France)
- Every 4 years (every 3 years for communities)
- The maximum fine in the event of non-compliance: €10,000 (€20,000 in the event of a repeat offense)
- For companies with more than 500 employees and communities with more than 250 people
- On a restricted scope: scope 1, 2, and part of Scope 3
Other environmental assessments (beyond climate change)
Calculate the environmental impact of your solution: Life Cycle Analysis
Calculate its impact on biodiversity: SBTN, Global Biodiversity Score, NECi
5. Counting every emission related to your company’s business: case studies
👉 Read Part II: From Carbon Footprint to Climate Strategy — How to reduce your company’s carbon emissions (2/2)
📚 Additional Resources
ESG Toolbox — Measuring your carbon footprint
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