How to offset CO₂ emissions

ACS has been measuring its CO₂ emissions since 2019, and working with Anthesis to calculate its carbon footprint each year.  When calculating a footprint, it is important to define the organisational and operational boundaries, which then relate to which emissions should be included in the footprint. There are guidelines for measuring the different emissions under the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol Standards. This GHG Protocol uses 3 scopes to distinguish between direct and indirect emissions.

Scope 1, includes direct emissions from sources that are owned or created by us. These emissions are seen as being generated by us, from ‘our own chimney’, for example if we burn gas to heat our buildings.

Scope 2, includes indirect emissions from the generation of purchased energy, such as electricity. These emissions are generated elsewhere (i.e. at the energy supplier), but are directly related to your company. This scope also includes the energy used to power our fleet of electric vehicles.

Scope 3, includes all other emissions from within your value chain; including business travel (flights, hotels and cars), employee commuting. There are also upstream and downstream emissions in the supply chain. Upstream and goods and services coming into the company and downstream are goods and services leaving the company, which mainly includes transportation & distribution.

Once we established which emissions should be measured, we started to collect the data. This data included how many litres of diesel/petrol was used, the amount of kWh of electricity used across the year, and how many KMs were flown. This data was uploaded to the Anthesis (Climate Neutral Group) online programme, where the date was checked and our total emissions for the year were calculated. Anthesis then created a CO₂ emissions footprint report, which showed how many tCO2e (tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent) we used in 2023.