Corporate Carboon Footprint

Understand the carbon emissions related to your business

How to calculate a Corporate Carbon Footprint?

Calculating your corporate carbon footprint (CCF) is often the starting point when it comes to taking climate action as a business. It provides you with an overview of your company's greenhouse gas emissions, where carbon hotspots lie within your business and what targets you can set to reduce your climate impact.

Western Balkan Green Navigator is here to help you calculate and understand how you can take more ambitious climate measures.

We measure Scope 1, 2 and 3 carbon emissions across your business in compliance with the Greenhouse Gas Protocol (GHG Protocol). These can be defined as follows:

• Scope 1 are direct emissions you produce as a business (e.g. your company vehicles)
• Scope 2 are indirect emissions you produce (e.g. your building's electricity usage)
• Scope 3 covers a wide range of indirect emissions along your entire value chain, including raw materials, logistics, business travel by the team and how your employees commute to work. This category often accounts for a large chunk of your overall corporate carbon footprint.

We are here to help you gather data for each of these scope categories and to guide you during the data collection process. Once we've finalised data collection together, all of the activity data you've inputted are translated into carbon emission equivalents. Our models allow you to see how different parts of your business impact your footprint in real-time. The result is a report tailored to you as a business with a breakdown of your corporate footprint, where your hotspots are and what your carbon footprint means relative to day to day items like the equivalent number of t-shirts or flights.

What's exciting about measuring your corporate carbon footprint is the potential to use the results as a jumping board for more ambitious climate action: developing a holistic and bespoke Climate Action Strategy for example. Once you know your baseline and where you stand, we can help you set carbon reduction targets and develop a roadmap to Net-Zero.

Over time, you can also get a greater level of precision when it comes to carbon footprint analysis.

What can I expect from calculating my Corporate Carbon Footprint?

• Obtain a holistic understanding of your company's impact on global warming
• A carbon footprint report from a reputable 3rd party enabling you to report and disclose your carbon footprint externally
• Baseline data to set carbon reduction targets (ideally Science-Based), measure and report on progress
• Identification of emissions hotspots and where your investments can yield the greatest impact
• Ability to offset unavoidable emissions to make your company (and your entire product portfolio) Climate Neutral

Carbon Emissions Reduction

To avoid critical changes in our biosphere, it is crucial our planet remain under 2°C of global warming. To do so, companies need to take ambitious climate action worldwide to reduce and reverse the damage we have done.

For corporations, a strategy sets out the priorities for climate work. It provides an agreed framework for deploying resources, creating an impact and communicating results. When done effectively, the process of developing a strategy - as well as the resulting framework - can help to:

• Build buy-in amongst colleagues.
• Guide resources and investment into the areas that are most important.
• Engage external stakeholders in a meaningful dialogue.
• Drive performance

Climate action strategies will consider the following:

• If all the right data has been collected and all sustainability risks assessed
• Prioritise quick and easy reduction actions that can be actioned immediately
• Look at offsetting emissions whilst working on tougher and harder reduction initiatives company-wide
• Make business decisions based on environmental cost and progressively incorporate reduction methods when technologies and budget arise
• In the long term, invest in carbon capture technologies that store carbon out of the atmosphere for good such as soil carbon sequestration

To understand where you are at as a business today, it is important to thoroughly measure both your corporation and range of products (if any). From this point onwards, stakeholders and senior members of staff should be involved in deciding the pace at which climate action should be taken. Strategies will vary in timeline and granularity but set dates need to be defined for reaching reduction targets.

If you'd like help with drafting a climate action strategy, we help businesses of all sizes understand their roadmap to Net Zero. Feel free to contact us!

Green Energy

Green energy for all your locations and sites

Energy consumption for electricity, steam, heating, and cooling is often responsible for a large part of a company's carbon emissions. Switching to green energy, i.e., energy from renewable sources, is a key measure for companies to significantly reduce their Scope 2 emissions and thus their carbon footprint.

Western Balkan Green Navigator enables companies to convert sites to green energy. These technologies include solar, wind, hydropower, biomass and geothermal energy.

We offer full advisory support for the development of your green electricity strategy.

So, what's in it for my company?

1. Meeting sustainability targets

Your company may already have sustainability targets and switching to 100% renewables can go a long way in helping you achieve them. For example, switching will go a long way in reducing your scope 2 emissions, will shift you closer to becoming a carbon neutral business and help you fall in line with Paris Agreement targets and a net-zero future. But even if your company doesn't yet have formal targets, there is increasing scrutiny and pressure across many industries to report on sustainability standards and reduce emissions, so making the commitment and then switching to 100% renewable energy will help you accelerate your progress in this space.

2. A positive public perception

They say all publicity is good publicity, but there are many examples of this not ringing true when it comes to companies failing to work towards a low-carbon future. Demonstrating progress towards carbon neutrality is likely to garner favour with consumers, employees and investors who, now more than ever, expect companies to commit to a sustainable future. Plus, it's a good look to either beat or match what your competitors are doing in this space.

3. Affordable Energy

Renewable energy is the cheapest energy source to build in the majority of the world, and increasingly these savings are being passed on to consumers. If your company is able to enter into renewable energy production directly, to produce a certain amount of energy at a fixed price over a longer period such as seven to 10 years, this can help your company lock in your energy prices and avoid the volatility of the energy market, allowing for more accurate forecasting. This is known as a Power Purchase Agreement or PPA.

For many companies, switching to 100% renewable energy is not just about the benefits to their business, but also about supporting the broader economy's transition to renewable energy. Overarchingly, making the switch is an investment in your business' future, as well as a win for the planet and the economy, so what are you waiting for?

Carbon Offsetting

How to make your products and company carbon neutral?

Carbon offsetting is an internationally recognised instrument to take responsibility for unavoidable carbon emissions. Western Balkan Green Navigator helps organisations take responsibility for their climate impact by originating, developing, financing and managing carbon reduction projects across Western Balkan countries.

Carbon offsetting in a simple terms

Offsetting one tonne of carbon means there will be one less tonne of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than there would otherwise have been. To offset your emissions you must purchase the equivalent volume of carbon credits (independently verified emissions reductions) to compensate for them. The payments you make to purchase these carbon credits is what makes the emissions reductions projects which created them, financially viable and sustainable. These projects can then continue to reduce global carbon emissions by improving technologies, changing awareness and behaviours in a community. Every carbon credit sold represents one tonne of emissions reductions that has been delivered by a project, independently audited to internationally agreed standards. They are all certified by third parties and go through a rigorous system of checks and balances to prove they are real, measurable, permanent, additional, independently verified and unique.

How to offset your carbon footprint

Carbon offsetting is just one of the tools in global toolbox to tackle climate change and should not be considered as a stand-alone action. Offsetting carbon emissions is a continuous process starting with measuring your carbon footprint, setting a strategy to decarbonise your organisation and offsetting residual emissions while you transition to a low-emission operating model.

Climate reduction projects which can help you offset company's emissions

Climate reduction projects can range from nature-based solutions, improved household technology to renewable energy solutions. Carbon avoidance projects prevent carbon emissions entering the atmosphere, such as those that replace devices using fossil fuels with cleaner technology (cleaner cook stoves, building insulation or heat pumps).

Carbon removals projects take CO 2 out of the atmosphere, such as planting trees to sequester carbon.

Alongside actions to reduce your emissions, offsetting what remains is best practice. And choosing to offset through Western Balkan Green Navigator means you'll support high quality carbon reduction projects that deliver value for the environment, your business and local communities.

Funding emissions reduction projects by purchasing carbon credits helps provide necessary finance to sustain the project. We are synergizing with leading international organizations to create and scale the right mix of carbon reduction projects, which resonate with the objectives of your organisation.

Communications

How to celebrate your climate action

When calculating your carbon footprint, Western Balkans Green Navigator always assists you with communicating your climate action. We help you celebrate the steps you're taking towards measuring and reducing your carbon emissions to your clients and stakeholders. Our team will be here to help you use correct terminology, avoid greenwashing and help you transparently express your climate commitments.

We provide you with a range of marketing materials you and your team can use across your social media channels.

How we boost your climate communication?

Depending on the sector you operate in, here are what we offer along with our carbon footprinting service:

• Texts and photos of your carbon offset projects
• A marketing package with Climate Neutral logos, text templates, images and customer brochures
• Help with producing customised marketing brochures
• Text templates and graphics for your website and other social media channels
• Help with press relations
• CO2 and Climate Neutral certificates for your products and services
• Registration on our platform as a provider of climate-neutral services and/or products
• Support with internal communications, from newsletters to sales training delivered by our consultants

Other types of support are available depending on your business needs.

Supply Chain Solutions

We can develop climate neutral solutions for procurement across your supply chain. This is especially relevant if you have several suppliers you source from. Our solution enables you to purchase all of your products in a consistent, climate neutral manner - all according to recognised calculation standards, with uniform traceability across all individual products and SKUs.

This is suitable for manufacturers, traders and processors of consumer goods as well as those in retail.

Example supply chains include procurement of packaging, printing supplies, advertising material, office supplies, etc.

Our services

• You define the product category - for example, packaging, printing supplies, or advertising material.
• We determine the carbon emissions of the products with your current suppliers and compensate for the emissions they have emitted. We are happy to audit any internal carbon calculations they've already measured.
• We estimate the cost of climate neutrality across your purchases.
• During this process, we lead the communication with your suppliers.
• We support your suppliers if they've not undertaken carbon footprinting before or have data gaps.

If you have any questions about this particular service, drop us a message!