Net Zero Barnsley baselining resource tool

Welcome to Net Zero Barnsley.

This project aims to support SME businesses in the Barnsley area in their journey to Net Zero, via a combination of Seminars and 1-2-1 sessions to allow all participants to design their roadmap towards Net Zero by 2045.

To do so, we will look at the 3 Scopes of Greenhouse Gas emissions (GHG) and how your business adds to them.

A part of this journey will be to understand the key areas of Scopes 1, 2, & 3, and where these arise within the business, with a view to reduce them as much as possible. The boundary of applicability in this project will be your business, so some Scope 3 categories will not be considered as part of this project (such as downstream leased assets, etc.).

Key to the success of this project will be factual data. As such, records will be crucial to the success of the project.

To give businesses in the project a good start, we’ve created a guide to likely sources of data to support you in putting the data into the calculator, which we’ll be using.

Scopes 1 & 2 are reasonably self-explanatory. However, Scope 3 Emissions come from a variety of sources, some which will not be considered as part of this project. The areas within the scopes we will be looking at can be broken down as follows.

Scope 1 –            Emissions by the business. These typically include Emissions from vehicles owned by the business, Natural gas consumed for heating purposes and other assets such as Air conditioning units.

Scope 2 –            Emissions because of purchased Electricity to site.

Scope 3 –    

• Upstream Transport & Distribution (deliveries controlled by the business, including purchases)
• Business Travel, including rail, rental car, taxi, and flight
• Employee commuting
• Downstream Transport & Distribution (from deliveries not controlled by the business)
• Waste from business, including where applicable, Waste water.

Now we know what the Scopes and categories include, you may be wondering where you could find the supporting info for this. To make the process as easy as possible, we’ve listed some of the typical data sources for a range of businesses.

Scope 1 –

• A register of air conditioning units on site and their gasses used.
• Leak test records from your service provider who maintains the units.

REMEMBER: The emissions from greenhouse gasses that need to be reported are only limited to the gasses lost over a 12-month period. If you don’t have any leak testing records, it is generally accepted methodology to use an assumed loss of 8% unit.

• Gas Bills or metering system (if you have one). Alternatively, if you record the meter read out monthly, this may also be used. It is important that any meter read outs are converted from m³ to kWh.
• Mileage of vehicles owned by the business, such as lorries, pool cars, etc. Records on mileage could come from the mileage sheet a business may hold or fuel card statements.

Scope 2 –

• Electricity Bill,
• On-site metering systems (digital or records of meter readings)

Scope 3 – Employee Commute

• You may wish to conduct a staff survey.
• Check through Postcodes of staff members and assess the general radius/ distance using tools such as https://www.freemaptools.com/radius-around-point.htm . If you have different levels of distances, you could group some of them together, e.g., if 10 staff live within 5 miles 40 staff within 15 miles, then make sure you calculate the total mileage based on the split. In this case, 10 staff x 5 miles x 2 journeys a day x 250days per year. Then do the same for the 40 staff members and add the total mileage up. There may be a variation of cars and fuels used, but unless an electric car is used, it is acceptable to use a set conversion rate by UK Gov.
• You could also use the handy calculator here to establish how much carbon you generate on your weekly commute https://carboncalc.targeted.agency/

Scope 3 – Business Travel (including Staff using their own vehicles)

• Accounts records to assess frequencies.
• Use the above tool to determine the distances, alternatively check Google Maps.

Scope 3 – Waste

• Internal records of Waste and the type (e.g., Cardboard, Plastic, etc.)
• Weighbridge tickets

REMEMBER: You need to check with your waste service provider whether any of the material ends up in landfill, as the emissions for these materials carry different values.

Scope 3 – Upstream Transport (controlled and paid for by your organisation, including couriers)

• Mileage that all purchased goods travel. You could use the same approach as that under the “Employee Commute” section.
• POD Documents submitted to you.
• Transport which is organised by your customers to collect materials from your site.

Scope 3 – Downstream Transport (organised by the customer with no control by your business – Ex Works)

• Sales records and delivery addresses
• Packing Lists
• Delivery Notes

We have found that the best website to check the distances for transport, particularly for those where items arrive from or are shipped to bases outside of the UK, is https://www.pier2pier.com/Co2/

We hope this quick guide to give you hints and tips where the information, which will feed into the calculator, is beneficial to you. Remember, we will go through all the above as part of the Project. We realise that no two businesses are the same. Our consultant will be happy to help you on this journey.