For many small and medium-sized businesses, measuring a carbon footprint can sound complicated. In practice, the first step can be relatively straightforward because much of the information you need probably already exists within your business.
Start by defining your boundary.
Determine which operations, facilities and activities will be included and select a consistent reporting period—typically your most recent fiscal or calendar year.
Identify your Scope 1 emissions.
These are emissions from sources your company owns or controls. Examples include natural gas used to heat facilities, fuel consumed by company-owned vehicles, propane used in equipment and other fuels burned in your operations.
Much of this information can be found in utility bills, fuel invoices and accounting records.
Then calculate Scope 2 emissions.
Scope 2 generally covers emissions associated with purchased electricity. Electricity consumption can be converted into CO₂-equivalent emissions using appropriate emission factors.
Consider Scope 3.
These are emissions occurring throughout your value chain—including purchased materials and services, transportation, business travel, employee commuting and waste. Because Scope 3 can be considerably more complex, an SME may initially focus on the categories most relevant to its operations.
Convert the information into CO₂e.
Fuel, electricity and other activity data are multiplied by recognized emission factors to express greenhouse gases in a common measure: tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO₂e).
The result becomes your carbon baseline.
Where can an experienced carbon and sustainability advisor help?
While businesses can undertake much of this work internally, an experienced carbon and sustainability advisor can help ensure the exercise produces reliable information that management can actually use.
An advisor can help establish appropriate organizational and reporting boundaries, identify emission sources that might otherwise be overlooked, select credible emission factors and determine which Scope 3 categories are most relevant to the business.
They can also establish a consistent methodology and documentation process so the carbon footprint can be updated and compared from year to year—rather than becoming a one-time exercise.
Just as importantly, an experienced carbon and sustainability advisor can bring an independent perspective to the results.
Where are the largest emissions occurring? What is driving them? Where are the practical opportunities to reduce both emissions and costs? Which initiatives make financial and operational sense?
This is where carbon measurement can move beyond simply calculating a number.
The objective shouldn’t be a report that sits on a shelf. It should be to develop information that helps management make better decisions and provides the foundation for a realistic carbon-reduction roadmap.
Don’t let the pursuit of perfect information prevent you from starting.
Measure what you can. Document your assumptions. Identify the gaps. Improve the information over time.
A well-developed carbon footprint isn’t simply an environmental number. It can become a valuable management tool for reducing energy costs, responding to customer requests, evaluating investments and preparing your business for increasing sustainability expectations.