Categorization of scope 3 emissions for streamlined enterprise carbon footprinting

Abstract

Many organizations look to carbon footprint protocols for guidance on measuring their greenhouse gas emissions, or carbon footprint. Existing protocols generally require estimation of direct emissions (Scope 1) and emissions from direct purchases of energy (Scope 2), but focus less on indirect emissions upstream and downstream of the supply chain (optional Scope 3). Because on average more than 75% of an industry sector's carbon footprint is attributed to Scope 3 sources, better knowledge of Scope 3 footprints can help organizations pursue emissions mitigation projects not just within their own plants but also across their supply chain. In this work, Scope 3 footprints of U.S. economic sectors are categorized using an Economic Input-Output Life Cycle Assessment (EIO-LCA) model to identify upstream emission sources that are likely to contribute significantly to different sectors' footprints. The portions of the upstream footprint captured by the sector's top-10 upstream suppliers are estimated at 3 different levels of specificity: general economy-wide, industry specific, and sector specific. The results show that enterprises can capture a large portion of their total upstream carbon footprint by collecting full emissions information from only a handful of direct suppliers, and Scope 3 footprint capture rates can be improved considerably by sector-specific categorization. Employee commuting and air transportation may be more important (7%-30%) for the services industries, but should not be a focus of detailed Scope 3 footprint estimates for the manufacturing industries (<1% of the total analyzed footprint). Protocol organizations should actively make more specific Scope 3 guidelines available for their constituents by developing sector-specific categorizations for as many sectors as they feasibly can and create broader industry-specific protocols for others. © 2009 American Chemical Society.