If I fly on a plane from New York City to Paris and calculate the carbon emitted by my flight, I can plant an equivalent number of trees that will grow and capture that carbon. Carbon Neutral and Net Zero - Timing Also Matters True carbon neutrality, however, needs to include Scope 3 emissions too. Sometimes, when a company says it's carbon neutral, it may only mean in terms of its Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions. If your company ships products to customers via Amazon, Fedex, UPS, or the USPS, those count as Scope 3 emissions ![]() By comparison, Scope 3 emissions include CO 2e from suppliers, shipping products to customers, waste and product end-of-life pollution, and can be challenging to account for, even with carbon accounting software like Brightest. ![]() With enough effort, resources, and hunting down utility bills, Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions aren't too difficult to count unless you're a large, complex international company. ![]() Scope 1 + Scope 2 + Scope 3 = Total Emissions Scope 2 includes electricity, heat, steam, and cooling that's purchased from a power utility. Scope 1 includes emissions from owned items like vehicles and buildings. Environmental Protection Agency ( EPA) and standards body Greenhouse Gas Protocol categorize emissions as Scope 1, 2, and 3. Carbon Neutrality and Emissions BoundariesĪ second critical question to ask when someone claims they're carbon neutral is what's the boundary? In other words, what's included in their carbon calculation and what isn't? If a person or company says they're carbon neutral, it's important to ask if that includes carbon equivalents, or not.įor example, we could operate a livestock farming business that's carbon neutral in terms of CO 2, but isn't net zero because the animals emit large amounts of methane, a different GHG. By comparison, net zero means all carbon and carbon equivalents are balanced.įrom a climate perspective, net zero matters more because it represents the point where emissions aren't contributing to more global warming. If we're being scientifically precise, carbon neutral means only carbon is balanced. ![]() By using an emissions factor, we can convert other GHG like methane or nitrous oxide into an amount of carbon with the same global warming impact.Ĭarbon equivalents help standardize everything, so when we compare methane emissions from fracking natural gas versus hydrofluorocarbons from running a refrigerator - even though they're different activities and emissions - we can measure them the same way if we're working toward being carbon neutral.ĬO 2e carbon accounting helps a company count its entire GHG emissions inventory Carbon Neutral vs. Carbon equivalents are used to compare and count different emissions. The established, global accounting unit for GHG emissions measurement is "carbon equivalents", abbreviated CO 2e. It's a subtle difference, but an important one, and here's why:
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