The Greenhouse Gas Protocol: A Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard is a standard that contains all the information necessary for reporting on the calculation of greenhouse gas emissions (hereinafter referred to as GHG) for organizations. The standard specifies all reporting requirements, prescribes instructions for data collection. The main focus is on the calculation of GHG emissions by Scope 1 / Scope 1 (direct emissions of organizations).
The Russian Standard with a description of calculations for Scope 1 is presented by Order of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Ecology of the Russian Federation № 300 dated June 30, 2015 “On Approval of Methodological guidelines and Guidelines for Quantifying Greenhouse Gas Emissions by Organizations Engaged in Economic and Other Activities in the Russian Federation”
GHG Protocol Scope 2 Guidance – Standard for determining indirect energy Emissions of GHG – Scope 2 / Scope 2.
Russian Standard with methodology for calculating emissions of Scope 2 – Order of the Ministry of Natural Resources of the Russian Federation dated 29.06.2017 № 330 “On approval of methodological guidelines for quantifying the volume of indirect energy emissions of greenhouse gases”
The rules for calculating emissions by Scope 3 in GHGProtocol are issued in 2 documents:
Technical Guidance for Calculating Scope 3 Emissions calculation methods for other indirect emissions – Scope 3 / Scope 3 are collected, the issues of distribution of GHG emissions of Scope 3 between 15 categories of emission sources are worked out in detail.
Russian Standard – Russian legislation does not regulate the calculation of Scope 3 emissions.
The Corporate Value Chain (Scope 3) Accounting and Reporting Standard contains rules and procedures for reporting on Scope 3. Reporting objectives, reporting boundaries, setting emission reduction goals and monitoring their implementation are considered.
Russian Standard – Russian legislation does not regulate the calculation of Scope 3 emissions.
Scope 1, according to international standards, considers GHG emissions in 4 categories: stationary combustion, mobile combustion, technological emissions, fugitive emissions.
The categories considered often depend on the type of reporting organization. Below are 2 examples of companies and categories that are taken into account in their activities:
1. Office in the city. For such an organization, you will need information about:
2. A large manufacturing company. In this case, it is highly likely that GHG emissions will need to be calculated for all four Scope 1 categories.
Regardless of the category, the first step in calculating GHG emissions is data collection. The necessary data are, first of all, the quantitative values of the fuel used for combustion, the amount of refrigerant filled, the quantitative characteristics of the materials used, which are subjected to chemical and physical processing, as well as the waste incinerated.
Next, you need to find the coefficients that will be used in the calculation. GHG Protocol refers to the American EPA databases, in which the required coefficient can be found. You can use local coefficients, for example, to determine emissions from waste, you should refer to regional databases, where you can find emission coefficients depending on composition, humidity and other characteristics.
Calculation of technological emissions is a separate area of analysis, where different industries have their own reference books, calculation methods and emission factors.
In this case, emissions are generated only as a result of mobile fuel combustion and the use of refrigerants in refrigeration equipment.
The organization owns one passenger car.
Data on annual fuel consumption were used as input data for calculating emissions from mobile combustion. As initial data for the calculation of fugitive emissions, i.e. emissions from the use of refrigerants, data on the amount of refrigerant filled into the equipment were used.
As a result of calculations, the following results were obtained (Table 1):
Table 1 Example of calculation of Scope 1 emissions
Scope 2 includes indirect emissions that are generated during the production of energy that the company consumes. This energy can be electrical and thermal, and emissions from the production of steam and cold are also taken into account.
The first step, as in Scope 1, is to gather information. Quantitative data on energy consumption is needed, for example, if we are talking about electricity consumption, we need its quantity in kWh. Such data can be obtained from special consumption metering devices (meters) or from energy bills.
Further, before proceeding with the search for factors, it is necessary to refer to the Scope 2 emission standard, which describes that the choice of factors differs depending on the way energy is purchased. There are two accounting methods: market and regional:
At this stage in Russia, the organization’s greenhouse gas calculation has not yet become widespread, which is why many electric and thermal power plants do not have their own emission factor per unit of energy produced. Therefore, it becomes necessary to independently calculate the GHG emission factor.
For example, to calculate the GHG emission factor for a power plant where energy is produced using natural gas, the following data is needed:
* t.e.f. – tons of equivalent fuel
After calculating the coefficient, you can proceed to the calculation of the organization’s greenhouse gas emissions for Scope 2.
In this case, when calculating Scope 2, the regional method is used: in the Moscow region, electricity is produced mainly at CHPPs using natural gas.
The data on energy consumption for the reporting period were used as initial data.
The results obtained from the calculation of greenhouse gas emissions for Scope 2 are shown in the table.
Table 2 Example of Scope 2 emissions calculation
Scope 3 includes 15 Categories. 2 standards in the GHG Protocol are entirely dedicated to 3 Reach. It is the most voluminous in terms of the number and types of emissions taken into account.
With Scope 3, you need to be especially careful when defining the boundaries of the calculation. The most common and applicable to almost all types of organizations categories are:
For these categories, the GHG Protocol has provided emission factors in conjunction with the EPA. For example, in order to calculate emissions from waste processing by third-party organizations, it is enough to know information about the type of waste and the type of disposal (landfill/reuse/incineration/recycling), and then select a coefficient depending on the initial data.
In order to calculate emissions from employee travel (Category 6 and 7), it is sufficient to know the distance traveled by employees, the type of transport used and the number of trips.
During the calculations, the following emission data were obtained (Table 3):
Table 3 Example of Scope 3, Scope 4 emissions calculation
Table 4 Example of Scope 3, Category 5 emissions calculation
Based on all of the above, we can draw several main conclusions: