Written in collaboration with Shine, a professional account for businesses and freelancers.
What is at stake?
Understanding the different scopes is crucial when conducting a carbon footprint assessment:
- Scope 1: Direct greenhouse gas emissions emitted by the company.
- Scope 2: Indirect emissions related to energy use: these are emissions generated during the production process of a product.
- Scope 3 : toutes les autres émissions (souvent activités en amont et en aval de l’activité de son entreprise).
Why is it important?
There are three key reasons to consider carbon footprint assessment:
➡️ It currently serves as the benchmark tool for calculating greenhouse gas emissions.
➡️ We are witnessing a rapid evolution of regulations in this field, and being ahead of the curve can provide a significant competitive advantage. By 2023, more than 50,000 EU companies with over 250 employees will be required to disclose their Carbon Footprint if they operate within the BEGES framework.
➡️ Urgent action is needed: By 2025, 8% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions will come from the digital sector, surpassing civil aviation emissions (ADEME).
We conducted our first carbon footprint assessment after two years of existence. While we were convinced that we were heading in the right direction and making the right decisions to reduce our footprint, in reality, we had nothing to guarantee it. Therefore, we wanted to measure our carbon footprint to understand where we truly stood and identify the primary sources of CO2 emissions in order to mitigate them.
Nicolas Reboud - CEO of Shine
We are convinced that measuring your carbon footprint as early as possible (after 1 or 2 years of operation) is very important to take the right actions as soon as possible. It's easier to implement things or change habits when you're a team of a few or a few dozen people rather than when you've had habits for 5 years and the team has grown to several hundred people. By doing so, it also helps avoid emitting many tons of CO2 during those years.
3 key steps to take action
1️⃣ MEASURE: Conduct a comprehensive diagnosis of CO2 emissions to identify key issues by mapping your activity
- Budget: Numerous solutions are available on the market (Greenly, Hello Carbon, Samy, etc.).
- No budget: Use free online calculators (such as GoodPlanet) or train a team member.
- Seek subsidies, especially through ADEME.
- Determine activities with the highest greenhouse gas emissions, potential changes, risks, and opportunities (competition, regulations, costs, etc.) to prioritize actions.
Measuring its impact takes time and resources, so it often happens as a second step, but that's what will lend credibility to your approach. We did it fairly quickly ourselves with a carbon assessment, thanks to the Ademe grant, to validate a figure on the product's life cycle analysis. Now we have a number we can share with our community: 5kg less waste per household.
Thomas Arnaudo, Cofounder @ 900.care
2️⃣ REDUCE: Establish a concrete action plan with reduction objectives and key milestones
- Examples of potential strategies: reducing travel and promoting sustainable mobility, eco-designing your website, overhauling your supply chain, changing suppliers.
- Appoint an internal focal point, allocate a budget, and create a roadmap.
- Incorporate carbon impact as a criterion for selecting suppliers.
- Implement eco-design actions, particularly for your website/application.
3️⃣ COMPENSATE: Offset the remaining CO2 emissions with a "carbon contribution" plan
- The carbon contribution should only be considered after taking necessary steps to reduce emissions. It addresses the "residual" emissions that cannot be avoided.
- Engage in initiatives like "1% for the Planet."
📚 Resources and further reading
⚖️ Presentation of the Carbon Footprint Assessment® (or Regulatory GHG Assessment) by ADEME
The Agency for Ecological Transition (ADEME) defines the Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory as the evaluation of the total volume of emissions and removals of greenhouse gases induced by the activities of the Legal Entity (LE), expressed in equivalent tons of carbon dioxide.
📖 Carbon Footprint Calculation: How to Estimate Your Company's CO₂ Emissions?
Article written by Carbo, a SaaS solution for measuring the carbon footprint.
📖 Toolkit - Achieving Net Zero (Tech Zero, 2022)
Tech Zero is a group of tech companies committed to fighting the climate crisis. This document aims to demystify climate jargon and simplify the definition of a carbon neutrality plan for companies.
📣 Example: Shine's Carbon Footprint (2022)
We've also chosen to make our carbon footprints public and explain the points that seemed most important each time. The goal is not to show whether we are good students or not, but to be transparent with our stakeholders and share our learnings, in the hope that they can benefit other companies.
✍️ They helped us write this page
Shine, professional account for businesses and freelancers.
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