What is carbon or greenhouse gas (GHG) accounting?
Just like regular financial accounting, you can also keep track of your carbon footprint. It’s a way of calculating how much greenhouse gas (GHG) an organization emits by tracking and measuring your greenhouse gas emissions.
Greenhouse gas emissions are often categorized into 3 scopes:
Scope 1: direct emissions from the organization, including buildings and vehicles.
Scope 2: indirect emissions from purchased electricity, steam, heating and cooling.
Scope 3: all other indirect emissions that occur because of the company's activities.
Why should you measure your greenhouse gas emissions?
There are several reasons why you should keep track of your greenhouse gas emissions. Among these are:
1. You can reduce your impact on the climate.
By measuring your GHG emissions you can take action to reduce emissions and reduce your impact on the climate. The collected data is also crucial to ensure we are on the right track with reducing our demand for fossil electricity and taking more initiatives towards the use of clean energy. But besides doing your part for the climate, it's also good for your brand image as you can also inform your stakeholders about it in your CSR or ESG report.
2. You meet legal requirements
In many countries, organizations are required to take environmental actions to meet national and international energy and climate plans.
3. You save costs
Products which have a high carbon cost are often produced inefficiently. Reducing the carbon footprint often goes together with a more efficient way of producing and hence a reduction of costs.
How to get started?
Just like with regular accounting you need data first. Collect as much data as possible in order to identify opportunities and to monitor progress. After you have assembled the data you can calculate the emissions and most importantly you’ll be able to identify opportunities for emission reduction or elimination. Next, launch a strategy with clear goals and initiatives like for example energy efficiency optimization.
How can EnergyMaster help you?
EnergyMaster is an energy management system that maps the energy flows in the entire plant. It generates reports and KPI’s and visualizes potential savings. Based on the insights gained from the data, BMSvision can help you set specific energy efficiency targets and achieve measurable goals to reduce energy consumption, improve efficiency and reduce operational costs.
