What is Carbon Accounting?
Carbon accounting determines a company’s contribution to climate change by calculating the number of greenhouse gases it emits.
Carbon accounting has been around for decades, but it has lately gained popularity due to the necessity for businesses to be better prepared for carbon laws such as those established by the EPA. Carbon accounting estimates greenhouse gas emissions from various parts of a company, such as production processes and transportation patterns (like driving cars).
It’s significant because it allows you to see how your company can make a difference in the world—and what that impact looks like.
What is GHG?
The measurement and monitoring of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, and perfluorocarbons are known as carbon accounting.
Carbon dioxide is the most common greenhouse gas released by human activities such as electricity generation, industry, and transportation. It is released into the atmosphere, where it traps heat during the Earth’s natural temperature cycle, known as the “greenhouse effect,” which keeps us warm on Earth but may potentially cause global warming if it remains in our atmosphere for an extended time.
The amount of CO2 emitted per person has increased considerably since 1990 due to the global usage of fossil fuels; however, this level has been falling since 2005 due to the worldwide implementation of higher-efficiency technologies, which have cut emissions.
Why is carbon accounting important, and should your company consider it?
Carbon accounting assists businesses in determining how to assess their environmental consequences. A carbon footprint, for example, allows a corporation to quantify the quantity of carbon dioxide absorbed through corporate processes such as energy use and personnel commuting. This metric is essential for identifying areas where a corporation may reduce emissions or improve efficiency to reduce costs or boost revenues.
Carbon accounting also assists investors in understanding how companies affect the environment and how those impacts affect shareholder value, which is a crucial component of any sustainable investing plan.
Carbon accounting is a method of calculating an organisation’s or project’s carbon impact. This can be accomplished by examining the entire supply chain or particular projects inside that supply chain.
This doesn’t just apply to individual projects. Carbon accounting also covers procurement policies and supply chains to find weak points that could cause damage when broken down over time.
Carbon accounting can be broken down into four main categories:
- Energy consumption. The materials used in the production of your company’s goods and services. This encompasses everything from the plastic used to package your items to the materials required to manufacture them, as well as everything from the electricity utilised in your business to the transportation methods used by staff, suppliers, and customers.
- Waste management techniques. Suppose you have workers who travel for work. In that case, this category covers the number of miles travelled per employee each month (the amount of gasoline used) and any trash disposal expenditures related to these excursions.
- Transportation modes utilised by your company’s customers and clients include car emissions from trips to your facility, air pollution levels at airports near where they travel, local train tracks, and more.
This is the first step in ensuring that your money goes toward products that are good for the environment. To ensure you’re buying sustainable products, it’s important to know what they are before buying them.
Carbon accounting measures how much carbon dioxide (CO2) has been emitted from all activities that contribute to climate change. It helps companies track their impacts on global warming, find ways to cut back on these emissions and reduce their impact on society overall.
How can Faradai help you?
Faradai Sustain is focused on additionality and maintenance, allowing you to track the progress of your project. For transparency and verifiability, the project certificates are available for viewing, downloading, and sharing at any time.
In addition to different properties, Faradai Sustain helps businesses with all things sustainability, including accurate and up-to-date emission calculators, data management for Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions covering 2000+ activity data such as waste, water, transport, and supply chain, target setting in line with Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi), progress tracking and more.
To learn more about how Faradai Sustain can support your organisation’s Net Zero journey, start free now at https://sustain.faradai.ai!