In our previous articles, we've laid the groundwork for understanding the complex landscape of decarbonisation. Now, it's time to translate knowledge into planning. A well-defined roadmap provides a structured path for companies to follow, ensuring that decarbonisation efforts are strategic, measurable, and effective.
Mapping emissions: How Greencorp set its carbon baseline
Let's revisit our fictional company Greencorp to establish a baseline. Understanding where an organisation stands regarding emissions is crucial for developing effective strategies.
Step 1: Understanding your emissions
The first step in creating a decarbonisation roadmap is to develop a comprehensive understanding of your emissions. This involves building a GHG emissions inventory, which essentially means identifying and categorising all sources of emissions within your organisation. Greencorp, our fictional company, employs carbon accounting to measure its GHG emissions, categorising them into direct (scope 1) and indirect (scope 2 and 3).
By understanding these categories, companies can gain a clear picture of their emissions profile, identifying the key areas that require attention.
Step 2: Quantifying emissions
Once you have identified your emissions sources, the next step is to quantify them. This involves measuring the emissions from each source to determine their scale and significance. Companies typically focus on their most significant emissions sources, often referred to as "material" emissions.
Material emissions are those that have the greatest impact and therefore offer the most significant opportunities for reduction. Quantifying material emissions allows companies to prioritise their decarbonisation efforts, ensuring that resources are directed toward the areas that will yield the most substantial reductions.
Moreover, Greencorp ensures data quality and accuracy by incorporating validation techniques and quality control processes. These practices help verify the accuracy, completeness, and consistency of emissions data.
- Use data profiling techniques to detect inconsistencies and errors.
- Collaborate with a third-party auditor for external validation of the initial carbon footprint.
- Follow recognised standards like the GHG Protocol Corporate Standard for emissions inventory preparation.
- Demonstrate accountability and transparency to build stakeholder trust in emissions management efforts.
Step 3: Establishing a baseline
Now that Greencorp has identified its emissions sources and understands the amount of emissions they create, they can establish a baseline year.
The baseline represents the company's carbon footprint at a specific point in time. It serves as the reference point against which future reductions are measured.
Typically, a company's first complete carbon footprint assessment becomes its baseline. However, some organisations may choose to spend a few years refining their understanding of emissions before declaring a baseline year.
The baseline year is essential because it provides a clear starting point, allowing companies to track progress over time and assess the effectiveness of their decarbonisation strategies.
If Greencorp has limited historical data, using estimates (e.g., spend data) is acceptable as a starting point, as long as data quality improves over time.
In this instance, let’s say that they choose 2021 as their baseline, even though comprehensive digital records only started in 2023. Using the 2021 data provides a starting point to track future progress, though any sustainability reports must note the relative lack of data for that year.
Baseline years also don’t have to be fixed for all time. Where companies have undergone significant changes, they may choose to re-baseline. They update their emissions inventory, recalculate emissions and declare a new baseline year. Re-baselining typically happens in the following situations:
- Updates or improvements in calculation methods or emission factors that significantly impact historical or base-year emissions data.
- Structural changes like mergers and acquisitions that affect base-year emissions.
- When companies reach a significant milestone or set point in their emissions reduction journey.
The goal of this approach is for companies to establish an internal reference point that guides their emission reduction efforts, ensuring that all subsequent actions align with their overall sustainability objectives.
With more comprehensive digital records now available, Greencorp might choose to re-baseline to 2023. From that point forward, all of their targets, metrics and benchmarks would reference the more accurate (and therefore more useful) 2023 data, rather than the 2021 historical records.
Step 4: Set a target (optional)
At this stage, companies may opt to take an additional step by setting an emissions reduction target. While there are several methods to establish these targets, the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) is the most widely used. Setting a target before having a detailed decarbonisation plan is possible, using SBTi or referencing industry peers as a guide.
This approach can be powerful, providing a clear goal to work towards. However, it carries some risk, as you may set a target without fully understanding what is achievable.
Alternatively, target setting can be done in tandem with decarbonisation planning. As you gather more information, it will inform what is feasible, allowing you to set realistic and attainable targets. This method ensures that your goals are rooted in the real-world considerations of your company's strengths and assets.
Scenario planning for decarbonisation.
Imagine you've established your baseline emissions and set ambitious targets. Now what? Scenario planning helps you explore different routes to reach those targets, considering:
- Benefits and challenges: Each decarbonisation pathway unlocks unique opportunities and obstacles. Scenario planning paints a holistic picture, helping you make informed decisions.
- Adaptability in a changing climate: Scenario planning prepares your business to be flexible and adjust as circumstances evolve.
What scenarios reveal
Each scenario acts as a potential roadmap to a low-carbon future, tailored to your industry or business. Scenario planning helps you:
- Visualise decarbonisation across your company: Explore how different strategies impact various departments and divisions.
- Identify industry-specific actions: Get general recommendations for decarbonisation efforts relevant to your sector and location.
- Brainstorming different futures: Considering factors like technological advancements, energy demand, policy frameworks, and societal preferences.
- Projecting emission trajectories: Visualise how emissions change over time in each scenario, tracking progress towards net zero.
- Evaluating technological solutions: Assess the role of renewable energy sources and other innovations in meeting your emission targets.
- Building resilience through uncertainty: Scenario planning incorporates sensitivity analysis and risk assessment to identify scenarios best suited to handle unforeseen circumstances.
These goals are essential for any organisation to monitor. Yet, depending solely on internal sustainability teams or consultants to achieve these results can often be both costly and time-consuming.
To address these challenges, BraveGen offers tailored solutions for decarbonisation scenario planning that align with your unique business operations.
With BraveGen's approach, organisations effectively visualise various decarbonisation pathways and assess their potential impacts. This allows for more informed decision-making in navigating the complexities of climate change.
For example, a manufacturing company could utilise BraveGen’s platform to simulate the effects of transitioning to renewable energy sources, evaluating both the cost implications and environmental benefits.
Similarly, a retail chain might explore scenarios involving the adoption of sustainable materials, assessing how these changes could improve their overall carbon footprint and brand reputation.
By leveraging advanced scenario planning tools, organisations can better prepare for the uncertainties of climate change while identifying actionable strategies that drive meaningful progress toward their sustainability goals.
Prioritising mitigation strategies.
Once you've pinpointed various relevant scenarios for your company, it is crucial to prioritise mitigation strategies. Mitigation involves implementing actions to reduce or prevent emissions, thereby minimising your company's carbon footprint and contributing to global sustainability efforts.
Consider factors like how effective each strategy could be, how feasible it is to implement, its overall cost-efficiency, and any additional benefits it might offer.
Here are some key factors to consider:
Maximising emission reductions
Timeframes: Every unit of emissions emitted today compounds over time as GHG accumulate in the atmosphere. The focus will be larger emissions opportunities, but don’t overlook smaller wins that might have a more immediate impact. These projects can also help provide momentum and proof to stakeholders of your intent while larger and often slower projects eventuate. Your strategies need to balance out these demands.
Financial: It is easiest to consider projects on a cost-per-unit basis for emissions reduction. This will maximise reductions, but sometimes projects are not financially feasible. Other considerations include the likely cost of offsets or the potential for increasing regulatory or compliance costs. Ideally, emissions reduction should be considered alongside other strategic investments to maximise potential gains.
Technology factor
The maturity of available technology is also a key factor. Strategies utilising existing or near-term technologies are generally easier to implement early on. Consider factors like technology availability, infrastructure needs, scalability, and potential for future advancements.
Assessing each mitigation strategy
The practicality and realism of each mitigation strategy are essential considerations. Evaluate the feasibility of implementing each strategy within your desired timeframe, as this directly impacts prioritisation. Some mitigation strategies offer additional benefits beyond emission reductions, such as improved air quality, public health enhancements, job creation, energy security, and increased resilience to climate change impacts.
Policy frameworks
Finally, ensure your chosen strategies are in line with existing climate policies. This alignment can often boost prioritisation due to the broader contribution to overall climate goals.
Taking into accounting these factors and conducting thorough scenario planning, your organisation can select mitigation strategies that deliver maximum emission reductions, align with broader goals, and unlock the full potential of your decarbonisation efforts.
Creating a decarbonisation roadmap.
A decarbonisation roadmap is your blueprint for cultivating a sustainable future for your organisation. This roadmap outlines the steps needed to reduce or eliminate GHG emissions, ultimately achieving net zero—a state where emissions released are balanced by those captured.
Here's how a company might craft their decarbonisation roadmap, drawing from diverse strategies and considerations:
Identifying strategies
The initial focus often involves readily achievable actions, known as "low-hanging fruit." Examples include:
- Resource optimisation: Implementing software and practices to minimise material waste in production processes. This could involve optimising cutting patterns for fabric or utilising recycled materials in packaging.
- Energy efficiency & renewable energy: Considering the direct link between energy use and emissions, it's essential to focus on both energy delivery and consumption. While renewable energy procurement is a clear choice for emission reduction, integrating energy efficiency measures can offer additional cost savings and emissions reduction potential.
- Circular economy initiatives: Establishing closed-loop systems for material reuse. This could involve collecting used products for refurbishment and redeployment or collaborating with other companies to create symbiotic waste-reduction strategies.
- Sustainable agriculture practices: For agricultural businesses, this could involve adopting regenerative farming techniques like cover cropping or biochar application to increase soil carbon sequestration.
- Water conservation: Implementing water-efficient technologies and irrigation systems to reduce water usage throughout operations.
Policy and regulatory considerations
Policy frameworks can provide vital support for decarbonisation efforts.
- Carbon pricing initiatives: Exploring participation in carbon cap-and-trade systems or carbon tax schemes that incentivise emission reductions.
- Supply chain transparency regulations: Adhering to regulations that promote sustainable sourcing practices within the supply chain.
- Green procurement programs: Participating in programs that favour suppliers with strong environmental credentials.
Financing and Investments
Funding your transition requires creative solutions and your organisation might explore:
- Green bonds issuance: Issuing bonds specifically designated for financing environmental projects, attracting investors seeking sustainable options.
- Impact investing partnerships: Collaborating with impact investors on projects with both ecological and financial benefits.
- Internal carbon pricing schemes: Implementing an internal carbon price to allocate costs associated with emissions, incentivising departments to reduce their carbon footprint.
Stakeholder engagement
Success thrives on collaboration. Engaging with stakeholders, including employees, customers, suppliers, and the community at large, can amplify the impact of your decarbonisation efforts. Remember, the more diverse voices and perspectives involved, the more robust and effective your sustainability initiatives will be.
- Partnerships with environmental NGOs: Collaborating with NGOs with expertise in carbon sequestration projects like tree-planting initiatives.
- Employee engagement programs: Launching internal sustainability initiatives like carpooling or green office challenges to garner employee buy-in.
- Industry associations: Participating in industry associations focused on developing best practices for decarbonisation.
Monitoring and measuring progress
Regular assessments are crucial for maintaining course:
- Life cycle assessments: Conducting life cycle assessments of products and services to identify areas for carbon footprint reduction across the entire value chain.
- Carbon footprint tracking: Implementing robust systems to monitor and track emissions from all aspects of operations.
- Impact reporting: Publishing transparent impact reports that detail progress towards decarbonisation goals and highlight achievements.
Taking action
- Strategy implementation: Your company prioritises resource optimisation efforts, significantly reducing material waste in production.
- Financial innovation: They successfully issue green bonds, attracting new investors committed to sustainability.
- Stakeholder engagement: Collaborating with local environmental groups, planting trees that offset a significant portion of their emissions.
By following these steps, decarbonisation roadmap becomes a living document, guiding their progress toward a healthier planet and a more sustainable future.
What's next?
You’ve likely heard the saying, "the grass is always greener on the other side," meaning we often envy those who seem to have it all together.
For businesses embarking on the sustainability journey, that well-maintained, eco-friendly neighbour might represent the ideal state—everything neatly in place, with a clear emissions baseline and meaningful targets set.
But let’s be real: reaching that point isn’t easy. It takes hard work, collaboration, and a solid strategy. The good news? You don’t have to go it alone.
At BraveGen, we specialise in guiding companies through the complexities of sustainability, especially when it comes to navigating the challenging terrain of Scope 3 emissions.
Ready to turn your sustainability goals into reality? Book a chat with us today, and we’ll help you take the first steps on this important journey.
