What is your footprint?
"I have great optimism about the future of capitalism and the future health of the economy – not in spite of the energy transition, but because of it." Larry Fink, 2021
What is your footprint? What is your organization’s footprint? What is this obsession with feet? If you’ve been following my Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Reduction Strategy development series, we have covered boundaries, base years, scopes, and why you need a GHG Reduction Strategy. Still, we haven’t calculated our emissions yet.
Let’s spend a little time talking about the process of calculating emissions. First of all, in our inventory, we need to account for all seven major GHGs: CO2, CH4, N2O, HFCs, PFCs, SF6, and NF3. These emissions are organized into the scopes covered in this previous article.
More automated methods, such as Conservice’s S2 Platform, will automatically calculate your greenhouse gasses for your entire portfolio. However, a simple Microsoft Excel workbook from the EPA can be used for a relatively small portfolio or individual building. This tool is called the EPA Simplified GHG Emissions Calculator, and the link for the excel workbook is here: (LINK TO TOOL)
This is a multiple-step process, but the first step is to pull down an ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager report. This means, of course, that your data needs to be in the ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager platform.
To transfer the correct data from Portfolio Manager to the Calculator, the organization should log in to Portfolio Manager, navigate to the Reports tab, and create a new report template. After naming the report template, select all facilities in the portfolio that fall within the organizational boundary. Then select a single year for the report timeframe, indicating the last day of the reporting calendar year. You will now select the information and metrics to include in this report. They should include those outlined in Table 1.
After you have selected all of these metrics, click Apply the Selection, then Save the template. Once saved, the template may be used as often as needed to generate the report. Reports may be viewed directly and downloaded as an Excel file.
Once the report has been generated, the organization should input the data into the Calculator as follows:
For direct emissions resulting from fuels combusted onsite, and for each fuel type:
Open the Stationary Combustion section of the Calculator.
Enter a Source ID number.
Under Source Description, enter “Portfolio Manager Report.”
Under Fuel Combusted, select the appropriate fuel.
Input the amount of fuel use under Quantity Combusted. If the fuel use is in units of kBtu, divide by 1000 to convert to MMBtu.
Select the appropriate units of measure for indirect emissions resulting from the purchase of electricity, steam, or heat.
Open the Electricity or Steam sections of the Calculator.
For each building to be reported, enter a Source ID and Source Description.
For electricity, determine the building’s eGRID subregion using the map in the Calculator or from the facility’s summary page in Portfolio Manager.
Input each building’s Electricity Use – Grid Purchase in kWh under electricity Purchased.
Input each building’s steam or heat (District Hot Water) use in MMBtu under Steam Purchased. If the steam or heat use is in units of kBtu, divide by 1000 to determine use in MMBtu.
Companies can then add data from sources not included in Portfolio Manager, such as vehicle fleets, to the Calculator and complete their organization-wide GHG inventory.
Something that can help in this process is to create a GHG Inventory Management Plan (IMP). An IMP provides a mechanism to accurately document the processes used to collect the GHG inventory data. Once in place, this IMP serves as your recipe for managing data collection year after year.
There are seven major components of an IMP plan:
Organization Information: organization name, address, and inventory contact information.
Boundary Conditions: organizational and operational boundary descriptions.
Emissions Quantification: quantification methodologies and emission factors.
Data Management: data sources, collection process, and quality assurance.
Base Year Adjustments: adjustments for structural and methodology changes.
Management Tools: roles and responsibilities, training, and file maintenance.
Auditing & Verification: auditing, management review, and corrective action.
While the organization information section is self-descriptive and we covered boundaries in this article, the Emissions Quantification requires a little more explanation. This section provides the specific methodologies and emission factors used to estimate all of the organization’s GHG emissions. A credible GHG inventory requires accurate data and verifiable quality assurance procedures. As the EPA provides Greenhouse Gas Inventory Guidance Documents based on the GHG Protocol and default emission factors, which are based on U.S. and international standards, it is my recommended source/method. It should be noted; these protocols require the collection and reporting of the seven major GHG emissions. In nearly all GHG emission calculation schemes, all seven emissions mentioned above are reported as CO2e based on each gas’s global warming potential (GWP) value.
Data Management is one category that seems relatively straightforward, but documenting each data source is a vital step, and it can be a little tricky. Of significance here is where you will be getting the data and how clean that data is. This means checking with your data provider to understand the quality assurance procedures and details of any normalization factors used. The KISS principle looms large here; the more sources you have to go to get data, the more complicated the data management.
When it comes to base years, it needs to be noted that when a significant change occurs that may complicate the tracking of emissions over time or progress towards goal achievement, an organization may elect to recalculate its base year emissions retroactively. This recalculation may be done for significant changes to the data, inventory boundary, methods, or other relevant factors. The organization’s best judgment is used to define the significance of any changes that might trigger a base year adjustment. Significant changes that may trigger a base year recalculation include:
Structural changes to ownership or control (e.g., mergers, acquisition, divestiture, and outsourcing and insourcing of emitting activities).
Changes in status of leased assets (ending leases or obtaining new leases).
Changes in calculation methodology or improvement in the accuracy of emission factors or activity data.
Discovery of significant errors.
Base year emissions are not recalculated if the organization makes an acquisition or divestiture of operations that did not exist in its base year. However, historical data after the base year should be adjusted. Base year emissions and any historical data, in general, are not recalculated for organic business growth or decline. The specific corporate policies for base year adjustments due to structural or methodology changes should be outlined in this section of the IMP.
So there you have it, how to set a GHG Reduction Strategy. But some organizations may have a more robust goal than just GHG Reduction Targets. You may be seeking to align with the Paris Climate Accords or align with some other carbon-neutral or net-neutral goal.
In that case, in addition to a robust, transparent, and accurate GHG inventory and an IMP in place which covers all emission sources, the organization needs to set a strategy for reducing emissions. One of the most cost-effective ways to do this is energy efficiency. Using data to benchmark and identify where energy consumption is more than expected and then initiating projects to eliminate wasted energy reduces both cost and emissions. Other opportunities to reduce emissions include installing onsite renewable energy, electrification, and not-so-apparent tactics like setting up employee commuting programs and installing electric vehicle charging stations.
This should get you a long way towards a carbon-net neutral goal, but it may not be enough. In deregulated electrical supply states, purchasing electricity supply that is generated by renewable sources is an additional opportunity, but it doesn’t work nationwide. Community solar may be another opportunity, but again this is state-specific and not available nationwide. Finally, purchasing renewable energy certificates (RECs) can be the final tactic to round out a carbon net-neutral goal after exhausting other avenues. It should be noted; not all RECs are equal. We will leave that discussion for another blog post.
Until then, you can help reduce the impact of the built environment by sharing this blog with your peers. Together we can impact the 39% of greenhouse gasses attributed to the built environment. It starts with awareness, and we succeed with teamwork.
Stay well!
Excerpts from this post have been taken from the EPA presentation, “Guide to Greenhouse Gas Management for Small Business & Low Emitters,” August 2020.
Chris Laughman is the ThirtyNine Blog author, a blog dedicated to reducing the impact of the built environment. When not blogging, Chris is helping the real estate industry minimize energy and water impact as the Vice President of Sustainability for Conservice, the Utility Experts. Whether Multifamily, Single Family, Student Housing, Commercial, or Military, we simplify utility billing and expense management by doing it for you. Our insight into your utility consumption provides an opportunity to identify risks. Leveraging innovation and experience, we ignite solutions with tangible impacts and track performance to ensure the trendline stays laser-focused on the goal. To get there, we must build relationships within our organizations and outside of our organizations building the critical mass needed to truly make a difference. We have before us a tremendous opportunity. Standing shoulder to shoulder, we will get this done. Contact me at claughman@conservice.com for more information.
Follow us at:
Twitter: @BlogThirtynine
Instragram: ThirtyNine_Blog