Carbon footprinting - a case study

We have an Environmental Policy which requires us to calculate and keep up to date our carbon footprint, and to take all reasonable measures to reduce that footprint to its minimum.

In calculating our carbon footprint, we adopted a 4 stage approach, following so far as possible guidance in the GHG Protocol:

1. Operational Boundary

Firstly, we established our operational boundary as our Birmingham and London offices. Our affiliated law firms in our international networks were ignored for this purpose.

2. Scoping

Secondly, we decided to limit our carbon footprint to carbon dioxide emissions, and thought about the extent to which we would include in our footprint carbon emissions associated with our various business activities. We settled on:

• Scope 1 - our direct carbon emissions (own boilers, own vehicles etc)
• Scope 2 - carbon emissions associated with our energy usage (electricity, gas and oil)
• Scope 3 - carbon emissions associated with our business travel (road, rail and air), our waste IT equipment, waste paper, archiving and courier services.

We excluded staff commuting at this stage until we are able to gain a better understanding of our staff commuting habits.

3. Data Collection

Thirdly, we looked at how we could extract the relevant raw data from our business. This represented possibly the biggest challenge, especially in relation to scope 3 emissions. In relation to each, data was derived from the following sources:

Scope 1 emissions

We have no partnership vehicles. Our scope 1 emissions are therefore confined to emissions associated with our gas fired boilers in our two premises.

Data: We looked at our gas bills from our landlord, and took an average annual cost over the last 2 complete years. We used this cost to derive a kWh consumption. One issue we found is that, because we share occupancy of our buildings with other tenants and our gas usage is not separately metered, our bills - and hence our usage calculation - are apportioned to us based on floor area.

Scope 2 emissions

Our scope 2 emissions are confined to the electricity we purchase from our landlords.

Data: We treated our tenanted floor areas and common areas separately. For our tenanted areas, we are separately metered and hence were able to derive our kWh consumption based on single year meter readings. For common areas, we looked at electricity bills from our landlords apportioned by floor area, and took an average cost over the last 2 complete years, and used this to derive a kWh consumption.

Scope 3 emissions

Of our scope 3 emissions, we chose to include:

• business travel
• waste IT equipment
• wastepaper
• archiving
• document couriers

and chose to exclude

• staff commuting
• private use of cars
• water usage
• catering
• stationery
• post/DX
• off-site staff/partner events

Data:

• Business travel: we derived yearly data from staff expense claims/itineraries from our travel agent and credit card receipts, via our accounts system, broken down into air, rail and car.
• Waste IT equipment: we estimated the quantity of waste equipment collected by our contractor during a year.
• Wastepaper: we estimated the quantity of wastepaper collected by our contractor during a year (ignoring quantities sent for recycling).
• Archiving: we estimated the number of collections made by our contractor in a year.
• Document couriers: we looked at the invoices received from our courier during the year with a view to ascertaining an indicative value for road miles assuming a pence/mile rate. 

4. Conversion Factors

Finally, we took the collected data, and applied a variety of conversion factors as recommended by Defra.

Next Steps

The outcome of this process has given us an indicative carbon footprint, based on a variety of assumptions. We have chosen to present this on a “per employee” basis.

Next steps are:

• to identify, and prioritise, the key areas for achieving emission reductions
• to identify and implement appropriate reduction initiatives
• to achieve a high level of employee engagement to the process
• to better understand staff commuting habits with a view to extending our footprint in this and other scope 3 areas not currently included
• to work with the Legal Sector Alliance member firms to align methodologies and agree a process for disclosure
• to identify options for offsetting.

Martineau

February 2008