“Food production is now so energy-intensive that more carbon is emitted providing a person with enough calories to walk to the shops than a car would emit over the same distance.” – Chris Goodall, Author, Environmentalist
Virtually every human activity adds a certain amount of carbon emissions into the earth’s atmosphere. Technically, carbon footprint stands for a certain amount of greenhouse gaseous emissions (GHG) that are relevant to climate change and associated with human production or consumption activities. For example, watching a plasma television for three hours on a daily basis contributes to two hundred and fifty kilograms (250 kg) of carbon each year. Studies at the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) reported that carbon footprints during the festive Christmas season, including food, travel, lighting and gifts, amounted to six hundred and fifty kilograms (650 kg) per person – an amount equivalent to the weight of “one thousand Christmas puddings” per individual!
In recent times, there has been much public debate and concerns raised over the subject of global warming and carbon emissions. Being fully aware that allowing emissions to continue at the current rate could induce dramatic changes in the global climate system, carbon footprint calculations are in strong demand. Individuals and businesses, the world over, are adopting policies to reduce their own carbon footprint as well as those of the products they represent. Innumerable approaches to measure a carbon footprint have been proposed, ranging from basic online calculators to sophisticated life-cycle analysis or input-output-based methods. But some researchers point out that there is no clear-cut analysis on how to quantify it.
ITC Limited, India
ITC - one of India’s most valuable corporations with a market capitalisation of US$14 billion and turnover of US$5 billion (2008-09) – is a ‘Carbon Positive’ corporation that consistently strives to minimise the direct and indirect environmental impact resulting from its business operations. Today, the company is in the unique position of being able to create ‘Certifiable CO2 Credits, thanks to its social forestry programme that helped transform former wastelands belonging to small and marginal tribal farmers, into dense plantations.
The programme covered 19376 beneficiaries, 42 mandals, 480 villages and rejuvenated more than 31,120 hectares of wasteland by planting nearly over 100 million multi-species plantations along with inter-crops. The programme thus made a substantial contribution to India’s green cover. Plantations of 31,120 ha created a wood asset value of Rs. 1137 crores (US$ 197 million), provided employment for 14 million person days and unravelled the potential to sequester 4 million tonnes of carbon, reducing 14.6 million tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere. The project has contributed to an increase in green cover with conserving in-situ moisture, groundwater recharge and increase in soil fertility.
Nike, Europe
The leading international sportsware brand, Nike’s, goal is to reduce the global carbon footprint of its logistics by 30 per cent by 2020. As a first step, Nike Europe sought a detailed overview of the emissions arising from its logistics activities from Damco, an independent business activity within the A.P. Moller - Maersk Group.
Damco used the Supply Chain Carbon Dashboard (a graphical representation that allows businesses to keep track of carbon footprint throughout the supply chain) to review the emissions from Nike Europe’s supply chain and provided quarterly reports on a part of the supply chain. The reports measured the carbon footprint of all inbound and outbound transportation via Nike’s European warehouse, including ocean transport, aviation, trucking, rail, barge, port operations and consolidation. Damco’s project team also enabled Nike to see its total carbon footprint, carbon dioxide emissions per activity, per product group and per trade lane.
Nike is now working strategically to reduce its carbon footprint.
Tata Chemicals (TCL), India
India’s largest player in the chemical industry, Tata Chemicals, worked on multiple fronts to help maintain the earth’s fragile ecological balance and is still remembered for its major role in fighting the war against global warming.
The process for mapping the company’s carbon footprint across all its units began in 2007. The first step was to quantify CO2 equivalent emissions across manufacturing locations and measure the size and scope of its carbon footprint. With the help of Ernst & Young, this exercise was done by tracking emissions from manufacturing units including captive power plants, logistics operations and staff travel.
As a result, the Babrala plant in Uttar Pradesh managed to improve energy efficiency by 10 per cent and CO2 emissions came down by 5 per cent. At Mithapur in Gujarat, the company switched to masonry cement for its buildings, bringing down carbon emissions significantly. Several new products including the low-cost household water purifier, Tata Swach and biofuel feedstock developed as part of its overall strategy for LIFE (Living, Industry and Farm Essentials) is helping the company extend its policy of enduring care for the environment.
At the end of the entire exercise, it has been found that TCL’s overall carbon footprint per metric tonne of product, matched that of leading chemical corporations and the total emissions fell below that of large-scale chemical producers. The Babrala urea manufacturing unit is now considered as a benchmark in energy efficiency and carbon footprint across the world, and the company is well on its way to a carbon-managed future.
International Retailer
The renowned environmental research organization, Trucost, has worked with innumerable companies to measure and reduce the environmental impacts of their operations, supply chains and investments. Given below are a few case studies on a few firms that turned eco-savvy, thanks to the efforts of Trucost.
A leading clothing and homeware retailer entrusted Trucost to measure the environmental impacts of its international operations and help design sustainable business practices for its customers, employees and shareholders.
Trucost collected comparable data on fuel and energy consumption, waste streams and refrigerant losses across the client’s worldwide locations. Following the analysis, Trucost was able to calculate and rank the client’s most significant environmental impacts and the financial implications associated with those impacts.
After receiving a detailed profile of its environmental impacts the retailer is now well-placed to develop environmental management programs and continue its commitment to sustainable business practices. The retailer is currently working with Trucost to measure and reduce its supply chain environmental impacts.
Conclusion
Measuring carbon footprints is vital for organizations as well as individuals. Companies can use an understanding of their environmental performance to identify opportunities in managing carbon and other environmental impacts. In the long run, only those organizations and nations who are more environmentally efficient than their sector peers will be well-positioned to attract investment and market share, given the emphasis and importance of shifting to a low-carbon economy. Companies that can demonstrate energy and carbon-efficiency in their sectors, with limited exposure to carbon costs, stand to gain competitive advantage as carbon prices rise.
CREDITS: Suresh Lulla, Founder & Mentor, Qimpro Consultants Pvt. Ltd.