That unless this dissertation has been confirmed as confidential, I agree to an entire electronic copy or sections of the dissertation to being placed on the e-Learning Portal, if deemed appropriate, to allow true students the opportunity to see examples of past dissertations. I understand that if displayed on the learning Portal it would be made available for no longer than five years and that student would be able to print off copies or download. The authorship would remain anonymous. 4. Greer to my dissertation being submitted to a plagiarism detection service, where it will be stored in a database and compared against work submitted from this or any other School or from other institutions using the service. In the event of the service detecting a high degree of similarity between intent within the service this will be reported back to my supervisor and second marker, who may decide to undertake further investigation that may ultimately lead to disciplinary actions, should instances of plagiarism be detected. I declare that ethical issues have been considered, evaluated and appropriately addressed in this research.
SIGNED SURVIVE RATHER (roll no: 68, 5th semester, 2012) 31 page ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I, Survive Rather, extend my deep sense of gratitude and indebtedness to the director of my institute, Dry. Assist Data, for his initiative for the preparation of this project and providing me with this opportunity to analyses Carbon Footprint. I am grateful to my mentor, Mr.. Outbreak Ray, for his continuous guidance and support throughout the term paper. Would like to thank him for directing me and providing valuable suggestions on how to proceed with the term paper. I would also like to thank the Learning Resource Centre of J. D.
Barilla Institute for providing valuable sites, data, books, magazines and journals from which useful information were acquired. I would also like to thank my friends who have helped me a lot with continuous improvement tips in writing the term paper. Last but not the least, would like to thank my Guardian and my pig mates, for being patient with me through the course of my work. 41 page ABSTRACT The term ‘carbon footprint’ has become tremendously popular over the last few years and is now in widespread use across the media. With climate change high up on the political and corporate agenda, carbon footprint calculations are in strong demand.
Numerous approaches have been proposed to provide estimates, ranging from basic online calculators to sophisticated life-cycle analysis or input-output-based methods and tools. Despite its ubiquitous use however, there is an apparent lack of academic functions of what exactly a ‘carbon footprint’ is meant to be. The scientific literature is surprisingly void of clarifications, despite the fact that countless studies in energy and ecological economics that could have claimed to measure a ‘carbon footprint’ have been published over decades.
This report explores the apparent discrepancy between public and academic use of the term ‘carbon footprint’ and suggests a scientific definition based on commonly accepted accounting principles and modeling approaches. It addresses methodological question such as system boundaries, impoliteness, comprehensiveness, units and robustness of the indicator. It compares the different emission norms and the actual CA emissions.
Despite its ubiquitous appearance there seems to be no clear definition of this term and there is still some confusion what it actually means and measures and what unit is to be used. While the term itself is rooted in the language of Ecological Foot renting (Wagering 1 996), the common baseline is that the carbon footprint stands for a certain amount of gaseous emissions that are relevant to climate change and associated with human production or consumption activities. But this is almost where the commonality ends.
There is no consensus on how to measure or quantify a carbon footprint. The spectrum of definitions ranges from direct CA emissions to full life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions and not even the units Of measurement are clear. Questions that need to be asked are: Should the carbon footprint include just carbon oxide (CA) emissions or other greenhouse gas emissions as well, e. G. Methane? Should it be restricted to carbon-based gases or can it include substances that don’t have carbon in their molecule, e. G.
NON, another powerful greenhouse gas? One could even go as far as asking whether the carbon footprint should be restricted to substances with a greenhouse warming potential at all. After all, there are gaseous emissions such as carbon monoxide (CO) that are based on carbon and relevant to the environment and health. What’s more, CO can be converted into CA through chemical recesses in the atmosphere. Also, should the measure include all sources of emissions, including those that do not stem from fossil fuels, e. G. CA emissions from soils?
A very central question is whether the carbon footprint needs to include indirect emissions embodied in upstream production processes or whether it is sufficient to look at just the direct, onsite emissions of the product, process or person under consideration. In other words, should the carbon footprint reflect all life-cycle impacts of goods and services used? If yes, where should the boundary be drawn and how can these impacts be quantified? Finally, the term ‘footprint’ seems to suggest a measurement (expression) in area-based units.
After all, a linguistically close relative, the ‘Ecological Footprint’ is expressed (measured) in hectares or ‘global hectares’. This question, however, has even more far-reaching implications as it goes down to the very decision whether the carbon footprint should be a mere ‘pressure’ indicator expressing (just) the amount of carbon emissions (measured e. G. In tones) or whether it should indicate a (mid;point) impact, quantified in tones of CA equivalents (t CA;CEQ. If the impact is global warming potential, or in an area-based unit if the impact is ‘land appropriation’.
Many of these questions have been discussed in the disciplines of ecological economics and lifestyle assessment for many years and therefore some answers are at hand. So far, however, 81 page they have not been applied to the term carbon footprint and thus a clear definition is currently missing 1. 1 Management Area “Carbon Footprint” lies under the Environmental Management area of management. This is because the measure of carbon footprint signifies the amount of Shag’s being released y an organization, event, product or person, therefore this carbon footprint’s control will lead to a sustainable development I. Without harming the environment. Moreover carbon footprint if shown by the companies will lead to customer awareness. Several organizations have calculated carbon footprints of products. The US Environmental Protection Agency has addressed paper, plastic (candy wrappers), glass, cans, computers, carpet and tires. Australia has addressed lumber and other building materials. Academics in Australia, Korea and the US have addressed paved roads. Companies, nonprofits and academics have addressed mailing letters and cages.
Carnegie Mellon University has estimated the CA footprints of 46 large sectors of the economy in each of eight countries. Carnegie Mellon, Sweden and the Carbon Trust have addressed foods at home and in restaurants. The Carbon Trust has worked with UK manufacturers on foods, shirts and detergents, introducing a CA label in March 2007. The label is intended to comply with a new British Publicly Available Specification (I. E. Not a standard), PAS 2050, and is being actively piloted by The Carbon Trust and various industrial partners. As of August 201 2 The Carbon Trust state they eave measured 27,000 certifiable product carbon footprints.
Evaluating the package of some products is a key to figuring out the carbon footprint. The key way to determine a carbon footprint is to look at the materials used to make the item. For example, a juice carton is made of an aseptic carton, a beer can is made of aluminum, and some water bottles either made of glass or plastic. The larger the size, the larger the footprint will be. 1. 2 Objectives of the research: The basic objective of this research is to find out: ; ; ; A solution to reduce the carbon emissions without it affecting the profits and nominative edge of an organization.
The process, methods and effort required to be implemented in order to achieve a carbon efficient economy. The importance of reducing carbon emissions and why is it so necessary to be in the system now. 2. LITERATURE REVIEW 91 page A literature search in June 2007 for the term “carbon footprint” (I. E. Where these two words stand next to each other in this order) in all scientific journals and all search fields covered by Scopes (1) and Science Direct (2) for the years 1 960 to 2007 yielded 42 hits; 3 from the year 2005, 8 from 2006 and 31 from 2007.
Most articles deal with the question of how much carbon dioxide emissions can be attributed to a certain product, company or organization, although none of them provides an unambiguous definition of the term carbon footprint. In most cases ;carbon footprint’ is used as a generic synonym for emissions of carbon dioxide or greenhouse gases expressed in CA equivalents.. Some articles, however, discuss the implications of precise wording. Geoffrey Hammond writes (Hammond 2007): She property that is Often referred to as a carbon footprint is actually a ‘carbon weight’ of kilograms or tones per person or activity.
Hammond argues ” … That those who favor precision in such matters should perhaps campaign for it to be called ‘carbon weight’, or some similar term. ” 2. 1 MEANING Table 1: Definitions of ;carbon footprint’ from the grey literature Source Definition BP (2007) “The carbon footprint is the amount of carbon dioxide emitted due to your daily activities – from washing a load of laundry to driving a carload of kids to school. ” British Sky Broadcasting (Sky) (Patella 2006) The carbon footprint was calculated by “measuring the CA equivalent emissions from its premises, company-owned vehicles, business travel and asset to landfill. (Patella 2006) Carbon Trust (2007) a methodology to estimate the total emission of greenhouse gases (UGH) in carbon equivalents from a product across its life cycle from the production of raw material used in its manufacture, to disposal of the finished product (excluding in-use emissions). A technique for identifying and measuring the individual 101 Page greenhouse gas emissions from each activity within a supply chain process step and the framework for attributing these to each output product (we [The Carbon Trust] will refer to this as the produces ‘carbon footprint). Carbonates 2007, p. 4) Energetic (2007) ‘ . . The full extent of direct and indirect CA emissions caused by your business activities. ” TAP (2007) “… The ‘Carbon Footprint’ is a measure of the impact human activities have on the environment in terms of the amount of greenhouse gases produced, measured in tones Of carbon dioxide. ” Global Footprint Network (2007) Grub & Ellis (2007) “The demand on opacity’s required to sequester (through photosynthesis) the carbon dioxide (CA) emissions from fossil fuel combustion. “A carbon footprint is a measure of the amount of carbon oxide emitted through the combustion of fossil fuels. In the case of a business organization, it is the amount of CA emitted either directly or indirectly as a result of its everyday operations. It also might reflect the fossil energy represented in a product or commodity reaching market. ” Filamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST 2006) “A ‘carbon footprint’ is the total amount of CA and other greenhouse gases, emitted over the full life cycle of a process or product.
It is expressed as grams of CA equivalent per kilowatt hour Of generation (CEQ/kHz), which accounts for the Ellipse different global warming effects of other greenhouse gases. ” Haven (2007) mentions the carbon footprint analysis of an office chair as a “life-cycle assessment which took into account materials, manufacture, transport, use and disposal at every stage of development”(3). This hints at a more comprehensive approach, rarely described in other articles.
However, there is no definition or methodological description. Cell (2007) points out that the “Assessment of a business’ carbon footprint is not just calculating energy consumption but also with increasing every scrap of data from every aspect of the business practices. ” Again, no clear scope of analysis is provided. While academia has largely neglected the definition issue, consultancies, businesses, Nags and government have moved forward themselves and provided their own definitions.
In the grey literature is a plethora of descriptions, some of which are presented in Table 1 . In the LIKE, the Carbon Trust (4) has aimed at developing a more common understanding what a carbon footprint of a product is and circulated a draft methodology for consultation (Carbon Trust 2007, see definition in Table 1). It is emphasized hat only input, output and unit processes which are directly associated with the product should be included, whilst some of the indirect emissions – e. G. From workers commuting to the factory – are not factored in.
Life-cycle thinking can be found in many other documents and seem to have developed into one characteristic of carbon footprint estimates. A standardization process has been initiated by the Carbon Trust and Defray aimed at developing a Publicly Available Specification (PAS) for LLC methodology used by the Carbon Trust to measure the embodied greenhouse gases in products DEFRAY 2007). Below, we discuss the pro’s and con’s of various methodologies. The Global Footprint Network, an organization that compiles ‘National Footprint Accounts’ on an annual basis (Wagering et al. 005) sees the carbon footprint as a part of the Ecological Footprint. Carbon footprint is interpreted as a synonym for the ‘fossil fuel footprint’ or the demand on ‘CA area’ or ‘CA land’. The latter one is defined as “The demand on opacity’s required sequestering (through photosynthesis) the carbon dioxide (CA) emissions from fossil fuel combustion. [It] includes he opacity’s, typically that of unrehearsed forests, needed to absorb that fraction of fossil CA that is not absorbed by the ocean. However, while individual documents have used such a land based definition, for example the Scottish Climate Change Strategy (see Scottish Executive 2006), it has not changed the common understanding of the carbon footprint as a measure of carbon dioxide emissions or carbon dioxide equivalents in the literature. We can propose the following definition of the term ‘carbon footprint’: “The carbon footprint is a measure of the exclusive total amount of carbon dioxide missions that is directly and indirectly caused by an activity’ or is accumulated over the life stages of a product. This includes activities of individuals, populations, governments, companies, organizations, processes, industry sectors etc. Products include goods and services. In any case, all direct (on 121 page site, internal) and indirect emissions (off-site, external, embodied, upstream, downstream) need to be taken into account. The definition provides some answers to the questions posed at the beginning. We include only CA in the analysis, being well aware that there are other substances with greenhouse arming potential.
However, many of those are either not based on carbon or are more difficult to quantify because of data availability. Methane could easily be included, but what information is gained from a partially aggregated indicator, that includes just two of a number of relevant greenhouse gases? A comprehensive greenhouse gas indicator should include all these gases and could for example be termed ‘climate footprint’. In the case of ‘carbon footprint’ we opt for the most practical and clear solution and include only CA. The definition also refrains from expressing the carbon footprint as an rear-based indicator.
The ‘total amount’ of CA is physically measured in mass units (keg, t, etc) and thus no conversion to an area unit (ha, mm , km, etc) takes place. The conversion into a land area would have to be based on a variety of different assumptions and increases the uncertainties and errors associated with a particular footprint estimate (see e. G. Lenten 2006). For this reason accountants usually try to avoid unnecessary conversions and attempt to express any phenomenon in the most appropriate measurement unit (e. G. Keening 1994;Stammer 2000).
Following this rationale a land based measure goes not seem appropriate and we prefer the more accurate representation in tones of carbon dioxide. Whilst it is important for the concept of ‘carbon footprint’ to be all-encompassing and to include all possible causes that give rise to carbon emissions, it is equally important to make clear what this includes. The correct measurement of carbon footprints gains a particular importance and precariousness when it comes to carbon offsetting. It is obvious that a clear definition of scope and boundaries is essential when projects to reduce or sequester CA emissions are sponsored.
When accounting for indirect emissions, methodologies need to be applied that avoid under-counting as well as double-counting of emissions, therefore the word ‘exclusive’ in the definition(S). Furthermore, a full life-cycle assessment of products means that all the stages of this life cycle need to be evaluated correctly (with “full” meaning “uneducated”). In the following section we discuss the methodological implications of these requirements. A carbon footprint has historically been defined as “the total set of greenhouse gas (GAG) emissions caused by an organization, event, product or person. ”
