Webinar | Carbon Accounting 101 Webinar

Key Takeaways:

Understanding Carbon Accounting Basics: Carbon accounting is crucial for tracking a company’s carbon emissions and driving sustainability. It involves measuring emissions across three scopes—Scope 1, Scope 2, and Scope 3—with Scope 3 typically being the most challenging to calculate, especially in event management.

Scope 1 and Scope 2 vs. Scope 3:

Scope 1: Direct emissions from owned or controlled sources (e.g., fuel used on-site).
Scope 2: Indirect emissions from purchased electricity or energy.
Scope 3: All other indirect emissions, including those from the supply chain, event attendees, and other third-party services. Scope 3 accounts for the largest share of emissions in events.

Mandatory Reporting and Regulatory Pressure: There’s growing pressure for businesses, especially those in larger sectors, to comply with mandatory carbon reporting. New procurement policies in Australia and elsewhere require companies to demonstrate sustainability commitment, and this trend is increasingly becoming law.

Carbon Neutrality vs. Net Zero:

Carbon Neutrality involves calculating emissions and offsetting them (by purchasing carbon credits).
Net Zero is about eliminating all greenhouse gas emissions, which is extremely challenging due to the complexity of Scope 3 emissions. Many companies are aiming for partial net zero targets in the coming decades.

Carbon Accounting as an Iterative Process: Carbon accounting is not a one-off task. It’s an ongoing, iterative process where the quality of data improves over time. Initial carbon accounting may rely on broad estimations (e.g., spend-based emissions), but more granular, activity-based data collection is the goal for accurate and actionable insights.

The Role of Technology: For Scope 3 emissions, technology platforms (like NetNada) play a vital role in simplifying and automating the process. Without these tools, accurately calculating Scope 3 emissions can be expensive, time-consuming, and impractical.

Setting Boundaries and Defining Materiality: When calculating carbon emissions for events, it’s essential to define clear boundaries and focus on what’s material (i.e., what has the greatest impact). Transparency is key in deciding what to include and exclude from the carbon account.

Emissions Data Collection for Events: Key data points to include in event carbon accounts are related to energy consumption (electricity), attendee travel (flight and local transportation), venue operations, and third-party services. Collecting accurate data for attendee travel is especially important and can be done through surveys or estimates.

The Importance of Supplier Engagement: Engaging suppliers and encouraging them to provide emissions data is essential. Many suppliers are already receiving multiple requests for this data, so encouraging transparency is both a necessary and an increasingly common practice.

Carbon Offsetting: When a company reaches carbon neutrality, they offset emissions by purchasing carbon credits. These credits represent the removal or avoidance of one ton of CO2 emissions and are recorded in a registry. This process ensures the carbon credit is retired and cannot be used again.

The Growing Focus on Sustainability: As sustainability becomes an integral part of procurement and tender processes, companies need to build data systems that can track and report emissions effectively. The first step is transparent data collection, followed by more precise measurements and actions in the future.

Questions and Answers

Q: What are some practical ways to gather Scope 3 emission data from suppliers, especially when they are unable or unwilling to provide it?

A: One of the services NetNada offers is supply chain engagement, which helps gather more granular data from suppliers. Over time, more suppliers are becoming willing to provide emissions data as they are getting similar requests from multiple clients. While it may be challenging to get data from some suppliers, this process helps open the conversation, leading to greater transparency. Even if the data isn’t provided immediately, it sets the groundwork for future engagement.

Q: Can you elaborate on what it means to retire carbon credits?

A: Carbon credits can be traded between entities. Once a carbon credit is retired, it is removed from circulation and is officially associated with a specific company’s carbon offset. This process is recorded on a registry, such as the Clean Energy Regulator, to ensure that the carbon credit is not used again. Retiring carbon credits essentially means using them to offset a company’s carbon emissions for a specific period (e.g., the 2024 financial year).

Q: How do you determine which data points to include when setting emissions boundaries for an event?

A: To determine emissions boundaries for an event, it’s important to focus on material emissions sources. Some common sources include venue energy consumption, attendee travel, food and beverage, and third-party services. The key is to focus on where significant money is being spent, as those areas will typically have the highest impact on your carbon footprint. For example, attendee travel is an important data point that can be difficult to calculate after the event, so it's recommended to gather this data in advance via surveys or estimates. Transparency about what data is included and excluded is crucial.

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