If you’re reading this, you’ve likely been asked what your company’s carbon footprint is. 

And with only 10% of companies measuring their carbon footprint in 2022, your google search is extremely common as more and more companies are getting asked what their CO2 is.

So if you’re one of the 90%, this guide is for you. We’ll walk you through the basics of carbon footprint measurement, breaking down the three scopes and providing practical steps for how to get accurate assessment.

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What is a Company Carbon Footprint?

A company's carbon footprint is the total amount of greenhouse gases (GHGs) emitted directly or indirectly by its activities. 

(Note, just like businesses, we each have our own carbon footprint too. Work out your own here using our Individual Carbon Footprint Calculator)

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What are Scopes in Carbon Reporting?

A company’s carbon carbon footprint is broken down into 3 categories (known as ‘Scopes’). These scopes are defined by the GreenHouse Gas Protocol who are the primary reporting standard for carbon reporting. If you’re confused, it’s like reporting your financials in a P&L, only this time you report your carbon to scopes.
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• Scope 1: These are the ‘direct emissions’ from your owned or controlled sources, e.g. such your company vehicles or facilities onsite that use fuel combustion.
  
  

• Scope 2: These are the ‘indirect emissions’ from the generation of purchased electricity, steam, heating, and cooling consumed by the company. E.g. the energy you purchase you heat or power the office you rent in.
  
  
• Scope 3: These are all other ‘indirect emissions’ in the value chain, including both upstream and downstream emissions. E.g. employee commuting, business travel, or what happens to your products when they are bought. This scope can account for 90% of a company’s total carbon footprint because it covers so much of what they do.

You can read more about the scopes by downloading our Free Carbon Footprint Guide

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How to Measure It?

There are typically 2 ways to measure your carbon footprint; Activity based (calculating your carbon from a total of all activities you produce as a business) and Spend based (calculating your carbon from a total of all how much you spend as a business). Whilst Spend based is easier, Activity based is always recommended as it gives a more comprehensive figure.

Measuring your carbon has 3 steps:
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1). Collect data from sources:

Gather activity data across all business sources that create a carbon emission. This includes:

• Buildings: The energy, water, waste you produce (find this in usage bills)
• Vehicles: How many vehicles, how much fuel, how much distances (find this in receipts or use company surveys)
• Home-working: How many employees WFH, what energy do they use (use employee surveys to find out)
• Business Travel: What type of business travel, how much distance (find this in receipts or company travel apps)
• Purchases: Who do you buy from, how much do you buy (find this from your accounting software)
• Products: What products do you make, how are they shipped, what happens to them after use (find this from your inventory system)

If you’re stuck, use our Free Business Carbon Calculator to get started (and watch this video to help)

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2). Use emission factors to convert activity data into a CO2e data:‍

For each bit of data, apply standard emission factors to convert your activity data into GHG emissions.

Emission factors are available from resources like the EPA, Greenhouse Gas Protocol and DEFRA.

These emission factors will convert an activity (ie 200 km in a petrol car) into a carbon emission total (ie 32.34 kg CO2e). 

(Note: CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalent) is used to express the impact of different greenhouse gases in terms of the amount of CO2 that would have the same global warming effect.)

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3). Calculate total emissions for your company: ‍

Total up all your CO2e emissions from all your sources for the year and... ta-da!... you now have your total carbon footprint. 

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What to Do Once You Have Measured Your Carbon Footprint?

Once you have your total, it’s recommended you do 3 things:

1) Start Reducing:

Identify the largest sources of emissions and implement reduction strategies. This might include improving energy efficiency, switching to renewable energy, and changing suppliers so your products have less distance shipped.

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2) Report on It:

Transparently report your carbon footprint and reduction efforts in your sustainability reports or annual reports. This can build trust with stakeholders and demonstrate your commitment to sustainability (and likely win the work from the customer who has asked you for this).

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3) Monitor and Improve:

Continuously monitor your emissions and update your strategies. Setting targets and tracking progress is key to achieving long-term reductions.

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Need Help Measuring Your Carbon Footprint?

For a quick carbon estimation, use our Free Business Carbon Calculator to get started (and watch this video to help)

For a complete calculation footprint total, join the hundreds of companies using Futureproof to manage and report their carbon footprint.

Our platform simplifies the process of measuring, reducing, and reporting your carbon footprint.

Get started today