Carbon Footprint: The Basics

If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it!

A corporate carbon footprint is the amount of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions emitted by private or corporate activities during a given period. Measuring your footprint across scopes 1-3 is an essential component of any ESG journey and the first building block towards setting science-based targets and devising a climate strategy to move from goals to actions.

The Greenhouse Gas Protocol establishes comprehensive global standardized frameworks to measure and manage greenhouse gas emissions from private and public sector operations and value chains.

Emissions are broken done into three categories:

• Scope 1: Direct emissions
• Scope 2: Indirect emissions
• Scope 3: All other indirect emissions

Source: Planet Positive

Benefits

If we all do our part to combat the climate catastrophe, we as a human race can succeed in saving the planet and ensuring a future worth living for current and future generations.

In addition to these benefits for us as humanity, there are also clear advantages for start-ups and companies if they keep an eye on their carbon footprint:

1. More and more customers expect companies to operate in a climate-neutral manner or to contribute to climate protection. A carbon footprint is the first step in this direction and becomes a competitive advantage.
2. This is often the first point of contact with energy management. Cost savings can also be discovered here
3. It is even mandatory for companies with more than 250 employees in the EU to calculate and publish a GHG balance. So it is no longer really nice to have, but basic requirement for good entrepreneurship.

At Pitango, we decided to use ESGgo as our management platform that includes an effective carbon calculator for Israeli companies. We highly recommend using their platform to collect and evaluate carbon emissions.