KIT’s College of Engineering, Kolhapur 2020 CARBON FOOTPRINT REPORT ABSTRACT There is, at present, no single definition for product carbon footprinting. Each study into product carbon footprinting provides a slight variant on the definition of what a product carbon footprint is, this definition is normally dependent on the sector i n which the study is based. In this paper a definition of product carbon footprinting is provided which is sector independent. The different methods for product carbon footprinting are then discussed – the process method, the input - output method, and a hybr id of the two – as well as their advantages and disadvantages. Issues of data availability are then discussed, both in terms of data required to create a model, and data required by the model to produce the carbon footprint of a product. It is discussed ho w the carbon footprinting is validated and how uncertainty is used to as a metric for accuracy. The state - of - the - art of carbon footprinting is explored and it is concluded that product carbon footprinting is still in its infancy and requires work to provid e a clear definition of what it is, as well as how it is calculated. HIGHLIGHTS Table of contents 1. INTRODUCTION 1 1 .1 INTRODUCTION 1 2 HISTROY OF CARBON FOOTPRINTING 2 2 .1 HISTORY OF CARBON FOOTPRINTING 2 3 BACKGR OUND 3 3 .1 WHAT IS CARBON FOOTPRINT? 4 3 2 WHAT IS CARBON FOOTPRINT FOR? 4 3 .3 CLASSIFICATIONS AND METHODS 5 3.4. ASSESSMENT STANDARD OF CARBON FOOTPRINTS 7 4. ORGANIZATIONAL CARBON FOOTPRINT AND ASSESSMENT STANDARDS 8 4.1. ORGANIZATIONAL CARBON FOOTPRINT 8 4.2. ASSESSMENT STANDARDS OF ORGANIZATION 9 5. PRODUCT CARBON FOOTPRINT AND ASSESSMENT STANDARD 11 5.1. PRODUCT CARBON FOOTPRINT 11 5.2. ASSESSMENT STANDARDS OF PRODUCT 12 6. EMISSION 14 6.1. EMISSION 14 7. HOW TO CALCULATE OUR CARBON FOOTPRINTS ? 15 7.1. THE METHOD 15 7.2. HOUSING 15 7.3. ELECTRICITY 16 7.4. FUEL 17 7.5. WASTE AND WATER 17 7.6. ANYTHING ELSE ? 18 7.7. VEHICLES 19 7.8. PUBLIC TRANSPORT 20 7.9. FLYING 20 7.10. FOO D 21 7.11. WHAT ABOUT STORGE,COOKING AND WASTE EMISSION ? 23 7.12. LAND USE CHANGE 23 7.13. PRODUCTS 23 7.14. SERVICES 24 7.15. GOVERNMENT AND CAPITAL 25 8. WAYS TO SHRINK CARBON FOOTPRINT 26 8.1. FOOD 26 8.2. CLOTHING 27 8.3. SHOPPING 28 8.4. HOME 28 8.5. TRANSPORT 29 8.6. AIR TRAVEL 31 9. CONCLUSION 32 9.1 CONCLUSION 32 10. General Questions 34 10.1 General Questions 34 FIGURES FIGURE 1 : CARBON FOOTPRINT 3 FIGURE 2 : BOUNDARIES OF PERSON,PRODUCT,ORGANIZATION AND COUNTRY 6 FIGURE 3 : APPLICATI ON AND CORRESPONDING METHODS OF CARBON FOOTPRINTS 7 FIGURE 4 : ASSESSMENT PRODUCES OF THE ORGANIZATIONAL CARBON FOOTPRINTS 9 FIGURE 5 : ASSESSMENT PRODUCES OF THE CARBON FOOTPRINTS 12 FIGURE 6 : EMISSION SOURCES AND EMISSION SINKS 14 FIGURE 7 : FOOD PYRAMI D 26 FIGURE 8 : CARBON FOOTPRINT IN TEXTILE 27 FIGURE 9 : CARBON FOOTPRINTS AT HOME 29 FIGURE 10 : CARBON FOOTPRINTS IN TRANSPORT 3 0 REFERENCES 38 KIT’s College Of Engineering, Kolhapur 1 INTRODUCTION Global warming is a fact, and evolves into a full range of issues of politics, economy, society, technology, environment and ecology on a global scale from a single scientific problem. It becomes one of the tremendous challenges for human being. Global warming and a series of problems have aroused intense concerns of the international community. The Kyoto Protocol (1997), Bali roadmap (2007), Copenhagen Agreement (200 9), Paris Agreement UNFCCC ( 2016 ) were signed, which reflect the determination and efforts by the government in response to global warming. According to consensus, countries have made commitments to emission reductions and action plan. Thus, the innovati ve concepts of low - carbon economy, low - carbon city, low - carbon life, carbon trade, carbon tax, means to reduce carbon emissions become the important development strategy of the whole world. Related research studies were carried out by governments, organiza tions and researchers on the economic, social and other aspects, and all the stakeholders are trying to find a low - carbon development path. Current research studies on the low - carbon issue, focused on emissions accounting and reduction, carbon emissions tr ading platform, carbon tax and carbon emission policy, have made a lot of achievements. The carbon footprint and assessment standard is one of the most basic and crucial research in low - carbon research. However, due to this issue consistent results have no t been achieved yet, and hence, concerned research were greatly affected. Research on the carbon footprint and assessment standards has become a hot topic for governments and researchers. This paper focuses on the research methods and steps involved in car rying out studies on different types of carbon footprints. Furthermore, a comparative study of different carbon footprint assessment standards was carried out to identify their similarities, differences and deficiencies. 0 1 22 INTRODUCTION KIT’s College Of Engineering, Kolhapur 2 HISTORY OF CARBON FOOTPRINTING Carbon footprinting is a relatively new field. The predecessor to carbon footprinting, ecological footprinting (Wackernagel and Rees, 1996) is a measure of resource use, and determines how much land area is required to maintain a given population indefinitely. The phrase carbon footprinting, however, did not appear in literature until later, as described by Wiedmann and Minx (2008), when it was universally agreed that emissions of greenh ouse gasses needed to be reduced to prevent excessive warming. Life Cycle analysis (LCA) is a predecessor to product carbon footprinting and has historically been used to compare products. Literature on LCA dates back as far as the 1960s, as described by G uinee et al. (2011). LCA has always been used as a method for comparing sets of similar ́ products based on benchmarks, such as cost of manufacture, energy consumption, water consumption etc. However it was not until carbon footprinting first became popula r that greenhouse gas emissions were included in such analyses. An example of an early study into LCA was Hunt et al. (1974) in a report to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, in which several beverage containers were assessed and compared. In 1988 t he Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was formed by the world meteorological organization and the united nations environment programme. The goal was to address the issue of climate change and in 1990 the first working group of the IPCC was he ld. They compiled and assessed available literature on climate change and published the First Assessment Report (FAR) (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 2000). This was a major milestone in carbon footprinting as it was the first global eff ort towards the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. The panel met again in 1995 and produced the Second Assessment Report (SAR), the Third Assessment Report (TAR) in 2001, and the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) in 2007. These reports further discussed t he state of atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations, as well as likelihood of potential climate change caused by greenhouse gasses. They also enacted legislation to facilitate the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. 02 22 HISTORY OF CARBON FOOTPRINTING KIT’s College Of Engineering, Kolhapur 3 BACKGROUND A carbon footprint represents the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with the activities of an entity or individual. The carbon footprint attributable to an investment portfolio measures the pro - portionate emissions associated with companies held by that portfolio. In this report, we disclose the carbon footprint of the public equity holdings within the Pension and Endowment portfolios. The greenhouse gases in our analysis are those covered by the in ternationally recognized GHG Protocol and include, where available, carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrogen trifluoride (NF3), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs) and Sulphur hexafluoride (SF6). All gases are con verted to CO2 equivalents (CO2e) to calculate the carbon footprint. Carbon emissions are typically divided into three scopes, as outlined in the diagram below. However, because of data limitations and the lack of a consistent standard for measuring Scope 3 emissions, in this report the carbon footprints of the Pension and Endowment portfolios are based solely on Scope 1 and 2 emissions. This approach is consistent with how the majority of Montreal Carbon Pledge signatories report their footprints. FIGURE 1 : CARBON FOOTPRINT 0 3 22 BACKGROUND KIT’s College Of Engineering, Kolhapur 3 .1. WHAT IS THE CARBON FOOTPRINT? A carbon footprint is the total amount of greenhouse gases (including carbon dioxide and methane) that are generated by our actions. The average carbon footprint for a person in the United States is 16 tons, one of the highest rates in the world. Globally, the average is closer to 4 tons. To have the best chance of avoiding a 2°C rise in global temperatures, the average global carbon footprint per year needs to drop under 2 tons by 2050. Lowering individual carbon footprints from 16 tons to 2 tons doesn’t happen overnight! By making small changes to our actions, like eating less meat, taking less connecting flights and line drying our clothes, we can start making a big difference 3 .2. WHAT IS THE CARBON FOOTPRINT FOR? The calculation of the carbon footprint is more than GHG emissions data, it allows to identify the main GHG emission sources of an organisation and to have a global image of its impact on climate change. Furthermore, it constitutes a necessary base to address and continue over time actions to reduce this impact. Therefore, although the calculation of the carbon footprint by an organisation is voluntary, its assessment has an important strategic aspect and involves a large number of environmental, economic and reputational benefits: • Knowledge about the environmental impact of an organisation and its contribution to climate change is enriched. • It allows to know and identify the energy consumption and th e main GHG emission sources of an organisation, which is a point of reference to design strategies aimed at a better management of the energy used and to prioritise reduction actions with the application of more efficient techniques. • It allows to identify the company’s activities with a greater potential for reducing GHG emissions and to set specific objectives for them. 0 4 22 BACKGROUND KIT’s College Of Engineering, Kolhapur • It facilitates the assessment of the choice of raw materials, selection of suppliers, manufacturing methods and production options according to their associated GHG emissions. • It favours the application of more efficient techniques in different activities, thus assuming cost savings. • It is an advance to future regulations and policies on climate change. A clear example is that the EU is already working on how to introduce the calculation of the carbon footprint in the green public procurement. • It means more transparent communication about the company’s commitments to sustainable development and, more sp ecifically, the reduction of GHG. To achieve these objectives, it is necessary to work with the greatest accuracy, covering the maximum possible amount of emissions for which the organisation is responsible. Additionally, verification by an independent en tity is necessary to confirm that the methodology (see next section) has been properly applied and that the results obtained are correct based on the data entered. 3.3. CLASSIFICATIONS AND METHODES The carbon footprint mainly applies to personal, products, organizations, cities and countries, etc. A personal carbon footprint is carbon dioxide emissions caused by each person's clothing, food, housing and traffic of daily life. A product carbon footprint measures the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions ov er the entire life of a product (goods or services), from the extraction of raw materials and manufacturing right through to its use and the final re - use, recycling or disposal. An organizational carbon footprint measures the GHG emissions from all the act ivities across the organization, including energy used in buildings, industrial processes and company vehicles. A country carbon footprint focuses on carbon dioxide emissions in the entire country generated by the overall consumption of materials and energ y, vegetation and other carbon sequestrations, as well as the indirect and direct emissions caused by import and export activities, to analyse the carbon dioxide emissions of the entire country. Different footprint boundaries of pers on, product, organization and country are illustrated in Figure 2 . Meanwhile, there are some crossovers among the four types. 0 5 22 BACKGROUND KIT’s College Of Engineering, Kolhapur For example, the production process itself is part of the product life cycle, but would also be included in the organizational foo tprint. FIGURE 2 : BOUNDARIES OF PERSON,PRODUCT,ORGANIZATION AND COUNTRY The methods used to determine the carbon footprint should not be specified in the definition. It is only necessary that the method satisfactorily meets the requirements of the definition. So a carbon footprint can be analysed for various different functional units at different scales and u sing different methods. There are three principal methods to calculate carbon emissions: input – output (IO) analysis ,life - cycle assessment (LCA)and IO – LCA. The method depends on a functional unit via scale in practice Figure 3 . Consumer products prefer bo ttom - up LCA, while studies at the national level would apply top - down IO analysis. Hybrid methods which combine the strength of both LCA and IOA are an active area of research and are being increasingly used in practice. UPSTREAM ORGANIZATION DOWNSTREAM USE Organization Carbon Footprint People Carbon Footprint Product Carbon Footprint 0 6 22 BACKGROUND KIT’s College Of Engineering, Kolhapur FIGURE 3 : APPLICATION AND CORRESPONDING METHODS OF CARBON FOOTPRINTS 3.4.ASSESSMENT STANDARD OF CARBON FOOTPRINTS In order to make the results of carbon emissions accounting comparable, governments and international organizations, such as the Internatio nal Organization for Standardization (ISO), the World Resources Institute (WRI), the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) and the British Standards Institution (BSI), have introduced different kinds of carbon footprint assessment stan dards mainly for organizations and products through a large number of research studies since the end of the last century. After years of development, a higher awareness of assessment standards of carbon footprint, such as ISO14064, GHG Protocol, PAS2050, h as been created. Implementation of these standards played a huge role in promoting global carbon emission reduction. However, there are still many problems in the application of these standards, such as carbon emissions accounting methods are uniform. The boundary definition is unscientific, and carbon emission factors are uncertain. These issues need further research and analysis, especially in organization and product fields. 0 7 22 BACKGROUND KIT’s College Of Engineering, Kolhapur 4 ORGANIZATIONAL CARBON FOOTPRINT AND ASSESSMENT STANDARDS 4.1. ORGANIZATIONAL CARBON FOOTPRINT An organizational carbon footprint refers to the direct and indirect carbon dioxide emissions generated within the range defined by the organizations (enterprises or projects) themselves. The results o f assessment can only focus on the carbon emissions inventory of sources and information of greenhouse gas emissions can also be a complete carbon inventory report to public carbon footprints of organizations. Currently, a terminal consumption analysis met hod based on the IO analysis is the major method for organizational carbon footprint evaluation. The key steps in calculating an organizational carbon footprint are shown in Figure 4 : 1. Defining organizational boundaries: It is an important procedure to set clear, explicit boundaries on which parts of the organization are included in the organizational carbon footprint. Meanwhile, an organization may comprise one or more facilities, which usually apply control and equity share approaches to consolidate facili ty - level GHG emissions and removals at the organization level. 2. Establishing operational boundaries: The operational boundary determines which emission sources will be quantified. It should include the full range of emissions from activities under operation al control. All material Scope 1 and 2 emissions should be included, but Scope 3 emissions can be chosen to include (Scopes 1, 2 and 3 are shown in Figure 2 ). 3. Calculating carbon footprin t: The accuracy of the footprint relies on collating consumption data for all of the emission sources within the established boundary. It is important to clarify any gaps in the data and list any assumptions that have been made in calculating the footprint . The carbon footprint is typically calculated using activity data collated multiplied by standard emissions factors, although there are other calculation methods, such as calculation of the use of models or measurement. 0 8 22 ORGANIZATIONAL CARBON FOOTPRINT AND ASSESSMENT STANDARDS KIT’s College Of Engineering, Kolhapur 4. Reporting and verifying: Organizations should prepare a report to facilitate inventory verification, participation in a GHG program, or to inform external or internal users. Meanwhile, a third - party verification of carbon footprint was suggested to be carried out, to add credibili ty and confidence to carbon reporting for public disclosure. FIGURE 4 : ASSESSMENT PRODUCES OF THE ORGANIZATIONAL CARBON FOOTPRINTS 4. 2 ASSESSMENT STANDARDS OF ORGANIZATION The GHG Protocol, a collaboration of the WRI and the WBCSD in 2004, provides the foundation for sustainable climate strategies and more efficient, resilient and profitable organizations. The standards follow an inclusive, consensus - based multi - s takeholder process with balanced participation from businesses, government agencies, non - governmental organizations and academic institutions around the world. For organizations (corporate, project), they introduced The GHG Protocol: A corporate accounting and reporting standard (2004). It provides sector - specific and general calculation tools and deals with the quantification of GHG reductions, resulting due to the adoption of mitigation methods in its project protocol In March 2006, ISO released the ISO14064 standard, which is an international standard for the determination of boundaries, quantification, mitigation and 0 9 22 ORGANIZATIONAL CARBON FOOTPRINT AND ASSESSMENT STANDARDS KIT’s College Of Engineering, Kolhapur removal, used to guide the government and companies to measure and control the GHG emissions, as well as carbon trading, and got a wid e range of global consensus 10 22 ORGANIZATIONAL CARBON FOOTPRINT AND ASSESSMENT STANDARDS KIT’s College Of Engineering, Kolhapur 5 PRODUCT CARBON FOOTPRINT AND ASSESSMENT STANDARD 5 .1. PRODUCT CARBON FOOTPRINT A product carbon footprint is carbon dioxide emissions caused by products (goods or services) in its life cycle. To achieve this, an LCA method is needed to enhance the credibility and convenience of carbon footprint calculation. ISO released ISO14040/44 standards, developed frameworks and steps for the environmental ma nagement standard assessment with the LCA method in 1996. Currently, LCA analysis is the major method for project carbon footprint evaluation. The key steps in calculating a product carbon footprint are shown in Figure 5 : 1. Product life cycle analysis: it is an essential procedure for carrying out the product life cycle analysis to identify all materials, activities and processes that contribute to the chosen product's life cycle. To perform a product life cycle analysis, start by breaking down the selected p roduct's functional unit into its constituent parts. Focus on the most significant inputs first, and identify their respective inputs, manufacturing processes, storage conditions and transport requirements. 2. Defining system boundary: the relevant boundaries for the carbon footprint analysis must be determined after product life cycle analysis had been done to determine which unit processes shall be included within the product carbon footprint study. 3. Calculating carbon footprint: The accuracy of the footprint relies on collating consumption data for all of the emission sources within the system boundary of the entire life cycle of product. The key point in collecting data include material amounts, activities and emission factors across all life cycle stages. C alculated based on the carbon footprint equation may ensure that all input, output and waste are included, without missing. 4. Reporting and communication: Organizations should prepare a report to report the results of the quantification of the product carbon footprint and the achievement of the goal and scope and to demonstrate that the provisions of this standard have been followed. Meanwhile, communication may take the form of a 11 22 PRODUCT CARBON FOOTPRINT AND ASSESSMENT STANDARDS KIT’s College Of Engineering, Kolhapur declaration, a l abel, a claim, a report or a performance tracking report based on product carbon footprint standards. FIGURE 5 : ASSESSMENT PRODUCES OF THE CARBON FOOTPRINTS 5 2 ASSESSMENT STANDARDS OF PRODUCT The British Standards Institution, Carbon Trust and Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) published a Publicly Available Specification (PAS) to specify requirements based on LCA and Product Category Rules (PCRs) for assessing the life cycle GHG emissions of goods and services in 2008 (revised in 2011). In April 2009, The Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry issued a Technical Specification TSQ0010 ‘General principles for the assessment and labelling of Carbon Footprint of Products’, after a carbon footprint trial pr oject and the criteria for developing CF PCRs were released in March 2009. The WBCSD and WRI develop a standard under their GHG Protocol Product/Supply Chain Initiative: A Product Life Cycle Accounting and Reporting Standard, meanwhile, issued a 12 22 PRODUCT CARBON FOOTPRINT AND ASSESSMENT STANDARDS KIT’s College Of Engineering, Kolhapur Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard ‘Guidelines for Value Chain (Scope 3) Acc ounting and Reporting’ as a complementary standard. Since 2007, ISO started developing an international standard ISO 14067 on the Carbon Footprint of Products (Part 1: quantification and Part 2: communication), and there is already a proposal for a standar d on the Carbon Footprint of Organizations. Businesses can use the standard to assess the carbon footprint of its products throughout the life cycle; the carbon footprint of information can be used for internal management or external announcement and excha nge. The international standard is expected to be formally promulgated in 2013. 13 22 PRODUCT CARBON FOOTPRINT AND ASSESSMENT STANDARDS