BIFAlink
Policy & Compliance
www.bifa.org
7. Is it accredited by a recognised independent standard? As mentioned above, there is a range of methodologies out there for measuring emissions, which means that it is sometimes difficult to know which climate partner to choose from. That is why it is worth checking whether it is accredited by a recognised independent body, which verifies that its calculations are accurate. 8. Can you sign-up and get started straight away? One of the benefits of using a climate tech partner is the speed at which you should be able to get started. The onboarding process and general user interface should be effectively set up to guide you in using the platform. 9. Is it easy to integrate and share data? If you have an in-house team of developers, an application programming interface (API) would probably be your best option, as it allows you to embed emissions estimates into your customer journey. But if you are a smaller company with no in- house technical support, you may prefer a basic data import such as a CSV file. This method is also useful if you want to trial the platform before committing to long-term use. 10. What happens when we cannot reduce our emissions further? Reduction of emissions is crucial in every company’s sustainability journey. But most companies reach a point where their carbon emissions cannot be reduced any further using conventional carbon reduction methods. Offsetting is a viable solution for addressing any residual or unavoidable carbon emissions and this is where many companies reach out to third parties that partner with offsetting projects around the world. To avoid duplication, check that you can track your offsetting in the same platform in which you measure your emissions.
identifier for ships, is useful for emissions calculations, particularly when it comes to filling in missing data. If your partner uses IMO numbers, it will be able to retrieve any data about a given ship, including its type and weight, which are important factors for accurately calculating emissions. It can also correct any mistakes in an imported data file. All of this means that the measurement produced will be far more accurate. For airfreight, airline and aircraft codes can be used to accurately identify an aircraft model and its corresponding layout. Having access to these plane specific details is important as it impacts how the aircraft load factor and fuel consumption is derived. This allows your climate partner to use calculation methodologies that go beyond the GHG protocol baseline and do not rely on average emission intensity factors. In addition, flight numbers can be used to retrieve the actual distance flown by the aircraft to give a more accurate output. 6. Do they offer routing and distance calculations? Maintaining a good level of accuracy is very important in emissions measurement, particularly when you do not have any primary data to hand. As mentioned previously, most formulae include the distance travelled, the weight carried and the emissions factor. With Google Maps and similar road mapping tools, land transport is relatively easy to estimate if you know the start and end points of each journey. But shipping and rail are not covered by widely used routing services. It is important to ask your climate partner how it manages its routing and distance calculations, as it is relatively easy to obtain a highly inaccurate estimate. The direct distance (as the crow flies) between a sea carrier’s starting point and its end destination will be widely different to the true distance that it needs to travel to avoid land mass.
With a vast range of sustainability consult - ancies and
software solutions
now on the market, it is important to
complete your own checks
14
April 2023
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