Putting your foot in it: measuring your impact on the environment Print this article
Despite the global downturn there is a growing urgency for individuals, organisations and governments to address the issue of climate change and peak oil, according to Paul Kilcullen and John Walsh
Some companies see this urgency as a potential driver to contribute to their economic recovery, by either reducing their own carbon footprint or by launching new products and services focused on the renewable energy or low carbon markets.
Such companies are moving to seize the opportunities that recent Governmental and EU policy changes are creating (e.g. EU 20:20, UK Carbon Reduction Commitment and Ireland’s Programme for Government).
To help companies quantify the greenhouse gas emissions associated with their operations or from the lifecycle of their products they are calculating its carbon footprint. Carbon footprinting is a relatively new discipline that has evolved over the past ten years to support the assessment and decision-making process in this new field. It has become a useful tool for managers and engineers.
What’s in a footprint?
The term carbon footprint is commonly used to describe the total amount of CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions for which an individual or organisation is responsible. Footprints can also be calculated for events or products (e.g. rock concerts or a carton of orange juice). The carbon footprint is expressed in kilograms or tonnes of CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalent), and it has proven to be an easily understood indicator of sustainability.
The full footprint of an organisation encompasses a wide range of emission sources from direct use of fuels to indirect impacts such as employee travel or emissions from other organisations up and down its supply chain. When calculating an organisation’s footprint it is helpful to try and include as full a range of emissions sources as possible in order to provide a complete picture of the organisation’s impact on the environment.
Carbon footprinting offers researchers and potential investors an invaluable tool to quantify and benchmark the carbon savings from these new technologies and their implementation. To see how a carbon footprint evaluation works in practical terms, we can look at such an evaluation carried out by the Port of Cork.
Case study: Port of Cork
The Port of Cork carried out a comprehensive review of its operations in 2009 to evaluate its carbon footprint, understand the reduction opportunities and develop a plan to achieve them.
Carbon footprinting gave the management team the ability to understand the impact of technical and behavioural change projects which in turn enabled them to evaluate their reduction opportunities, set targets and establish priorities.
The study identified opportunities to reduce the Port’s footprint by generating electricity on site using wind turbines, using bio-diesel in the cranes and gantries deployed in the port, installing low energy floodlighting, promoting an ‘eco driving’ training course and using better lighting controls in the office buildings.
Apart from reducing the direct footprint of the Port’s operations, some very interesting initiatives presented themselves to reduce the footprint of the Port’s customers, such as:
- supplying shore-to-ship electricity to the freighters and cruise ships while in port to greatly reduce the emissions from the on-board generators, which burn low grade fuel at very low efficiency while in port; and,
- installing wind turbines in the port area (which has some very suitable exposed sites) to supply wind-generated electricity to the ships while in port.
Today the port is in the process of rolling out the reduction plan and is sharing its ideas with similar-sized, like-minded ports, including Belfast.