The following page highlights some of the key items that can dramatically influence the emissions levels associated with different materials and activities.
The data shown below is based on current published emissions factors, the values come from national and global bodies as well as indepedent groups focussed on developing the most robust emissions factor estimates.
When estimating emissions for current or future activities its important to understand the ranges of uncertainties and the expected ranges in values. The data below should give you as a sense of the ranges of emissions values to expect for different materials, processes and activities.
Many factors can significantly affect the emissions related to different activities and products. Here we highlight some of the more common ones, which include:
The examples below show a 5 to 10 times variation in emissions for similar or even identical activities.
This infomation can be used to select more carbon efficient activities to deliver better business outcomes.
It can also highlight key questions to ask when evaluating the robustness or uncertainties associated with emissions estimates being developed, provided or shared.
The data below may well provide insights or ideas relating to which areas you can focus on to drive decarbonisation pathways for your business, your products or your supply chain.
The following shows emissions estimates (hover over the data to see the data sources) for common materials widely used in many parts of our global society and across many business activities.
Recycled materials can often be produced with dramatically lower emissions than primary production. Recycling and using recycled products can represent a low cost and easy way to reduce emissions.
Many products, such as metals, plastics and glass are often produced with a blend of both primary and recycled materials. The blend value is important to understand in order to be able to evaluate the final materials likely emissions intensity (as is the liklihood of recycling at the end of the products life).
For the same product there can be a very large variation in embedded emissions depending on the country and company (plant and process) of origin.
Many businesses have large emissions footprints associated with transport and distribution.
The chart below shows the substantial variations associated with freight transport associated with different modes of transport.
Typically, the most sustainable sequence (from best to worst) is:
Very large variations in emissions are present due to the mode of transport used.
Typically, the most sustainable sequence (from best to worst) is:
Orders of magnitude variations in emissions occur between different electricity production methods. Switching your source of supply can be the easiest and cheapest initial step to start decarbonizing your business and your businesses supply chain.
Note that most electricity grids around the world are rapidly decarbonising, with many aiming for net zero electricity between 2030 to 2040. It maybe for your country that the grid is already decarbonizing or will soon so you may automatically benefit from their efforts.
Most grids in the world are blends of these different types of electricity generation methods. Grids that are dominated by fossil fuel power generation will have very high average emissions, whereas grids dominated by renewable and/or nuclear generation will have dramatically lower average emissions.
For many businesses (and individuals) large reductions in emissions can be achieved by making relatively minor modifications in material and activity choices. The data above highlight the potentially large emissions uncertainties present in a companies current or future planned emissions pathway if high accuracy emissions life cycle assessments are NOT available for all the major emission related activities. There are many free public and paid for emissions factor databases. These contain 10,000's of different materials and activities commonly used in business.
A number of the more common data sources are show below: Add links to:link add hereFree public data sources include: IPCC, BEIS, CBM, EPA, EU: Add links to: Paid for services: X, Y, Z The GHG Protocol recently recommended using public emissions factor datasets to estimate your emissions. Directly measured, or so-call primary emissions values, can be hard and costly to acquire and can, in some circumstances, provide misleading information. It was for this reason that the head of the GHG Protocol recommended at least starting with secondary or emission factor data from reputable databases (such as the IPCC's).
For businesses starting out on their decarbonization journey the above data will hopefully stimulate ideas about areas to evaluate for future decarbonization strategies. The huge range in values shown above for similar and even identical products will also highlight the importance of assessing the likely uncertainties in any estimates provided, generated or shared through your value chain. The data above highlights that when trying to build robust decarbonization pathways and strategies its critical to focus on the major impactful emissions items and not become overly concerned with items that have a low absolute emissions value (almost regardless of the size uncertainty of those estimates (e.g. a 200% error on a tiny value is still a tiny value)).
We are keen to work with organisations to allow them to build and implement robust and cost effective decarbonization strategies.
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