Most businesses established today, generate carbon and GHG (greenhouse gases) emissions which are key catalysts to global warming, and environmental imbalances. Today, global powers seek to reduce the negative effects caused by GHG emissions by imposing carbon taxes.
Doing so, sets a threshold on the amount of GHG emissions an organisation is allowed to emit. Therefore, more and more organisations seek to reduce their emissions to avoid the consequences related to carbon taxes. Above avoiding carbon taxes, emission offsetting allows an organisation to promote the wellbeing of our global environment and mitigate the effects of climate change.
Organisations who seek to offset or reduce their overall emissions would first need to define and account for the green house gasses that they emit. Once this is done, offsetting actions can be taken.
The most efficient method to assess the carbon footprint of the Client is to perform an “emissions audit" which calculates both its direct and indirect emissions. Following various and globally accepted approaches and standards, this method focuses on investigating the emissions of organisations to better understand the causes of their carbon and GHG production.
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The audit studies 3 different types of emissions, classified under 3 General scopes:
Scope 1: Direct Emissions
These emissions are generated from within the organisational operations. They are usually controlled by the organisation.
These generally include across industries emissions from the following activities:
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Generation of electricity, heat, or steam. These emissions can be a result of combustion of fuels in stationary sources such as boilers, furnaces and or turbines.
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Physical or chemical processing that may lead to the production or disposal of harmful chemical waste.
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Production of fugitive emissions (pipelines, compressors, storage containers, etc.)
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Transportation of materials, products, waste, and employees. These types of emissions can be a result from the combustion of fuels in mobile combustion sources such as trucks, trains, ships, airplanes, buses, and cars.
Scope 2: Indirect Emissions
These types of emissions encompass the indirect emissions of the Client which mostly consist of the energy bought to run facilities or to manufacture products.
These generally include the indirect emissions resulting from the purchase of electricity, heat and steam.
Scope 3: Emissions
This scope refers other indirect emissions that cannot be controlled by the Client. This scope in most cases, relates to other indirect emissions generated by the Client that cannot be included in Scopes 1 or 2.
These emissions are generally caused by the purchase of other materials and services for the business, the use of fuel transportation and waste disposal, overall travels arranged through a third party, and or the use of the products manufactured and sold.