Monitoring and reducing carbon

We offer a competitively priced service to help you monitor and manage your carbon emissions from your operations. By helping you set up and achieve energy reduction targets, we enable you to minimise your organisation's energy bills and emissions, going beyond the requirements of the national indicator. There is an on-going obligation on councils and some businesses to report emissions from their operational activities, and we can compile energy use and emissions data and prepare a report as required under the greenhouse gas monitoring arrangements. Local authorities that have used our services include: Watford Borough Council, Three Rivers District Council, Aylesbury Vale District Council and Cherwell District Council. 

Key features of our carbon management service:

• Gathering monthly data from all your emission sources.
• Providing monthly reports on your total energy consumption and emissions.
• Helping you set targets in energy reduction and helping you measure your performance against your target.
• Tracking your emissions against the baseline emissions.
• Assisting you in forecasting your emissions at the year-end.
• Providing guidance on measures to enable you to reach expected levels of emissions.
• Providing quarterly reports and frequent recommendations to improve data quality and achieve year-on-year reductions.

Carbon footprinting

Carbon footprinting measures your emissions and gives you a baseline for your emissions reduction. We can help you calculate your total emissions, split these down into key emission sources and highlight areas of possible carbon reduction.

We work on carbon footprinting and greenhouse gas inventories for a wide range of private and public sector clients. Our methods follow the Greenhouse Gas Protocol Corporate Standard for establishing emissions inventories. We can tailor our support to your requirements but our services will normally include the following steps:

Identifying why carbon footprinting is needed

We will work with you to agree the main reasons for calculating a footprint. These might include wanting to:

• Measure and report carbon footprint internally and externally.
• Control carbon emissions in line with best practice.
• Work towards gaining external certification such as the Carbon Trust Standard.
• Work towards becoming carbon neutral in line with PAS 2060.
• Obtain points towards the Carbon Disclosure Project.
• Implement a wider ISO 14000 Environmental Management System.
• Meet customer demand.

Selection of appropriate carbon footprinting methodology and factors

By default, our work is in line with the Greenhouse Gas Protocol and follows the UK DECC/Defra calculation and reporting methodology. We can also undertake preliminary calculations in line with the Carbon Trust Standard or ISO 14064-1, and offer verification services under ISO 14064-3.

Identification of boundary and scope

The boundary of the project defines which parts of your organisation will be included in the footprint. It might be restricted to a single building or factory, but more often it will comprise a division or company. However, the boundary may also include emissions from joint ventures and subsidiaries. The scope looks at what sources of emissions should be counted within the boundary. These might include direct emissions from burning fossil fuels, indirect emissions from sources such as electricity and transport, and the carbon equivalents of emissions of other greenhouse gases. Although there are three main scopes defined by the internationally recognised Greenhouse Gas Protocol Corporate Standard, many UK companies (including those reporting under the Carbon Trust Standard) use a slightly different scope more closely matched to end-use energy consumption.

Calculation of your carbon footprint

Once the methodology, factors, scope and boundary have been agreed, the actual calculation is often quite easy. We can assist in tracking down incomplete or missing data elements, or provide informed estimates where firm data is unavailable. We can also review the results to assess accuracy and compliance against protocols.

Managing your carbon footprint

We can also help with the management of the footprint once it's known. We have experts in energy and carbon management who can help you identify reduction opportunities and develop a carbon management plan. We also run training courses for employees and can help you set up behavioural change programmes. In addition, we can help you benchmark your performance and set targets for reduction.

Verification of your carbon footprint

We can provide a formal greenhouse gas verification service under ISO 14064-3 for those organisations requiring an independent review - for example, to gain additional points towards the Carbon Disclosure Project.  

You might be able to undertake some of these stages yourself but if you need help with any part of the process, please contact us to discuss your requirements.

Carbon labelling of products

We can also help organisations create carbon labels for products, using the British Standards Institute/Carbon Trust PAS 2050 methodology.