Thought-provoking stuff Lloyd, thank you. I saw a company today claiming they had reduced their emissions by 15% but that was a combination of scope 1, scope 2 and scope 3 - combining the three of the, to my mind, makes the number absolutely meaningless because I don't know if they actually did anything (it is a paper manufacturer and recycler) or if it was their customers who used recycling bins more and therefore drove the scope 3 emissions down? Meanwhile their scope 1 and 2 emissions might have gone up!
If we baseline everything as being expected to be 0 or net0 emmisions it is so much more straightforward.
In this framework scope 3 is double counting. Even scope 2, if the emmisions are scope 1 for the generator.
This framework pairs well with a significant carbon price. Then price also reflects embodied emmisions,.which makes choosing lower scope 3 products easier, without needing direct accounting. But the producer would have primary responsibility still.
Some of the carbon accounting doesn't make sense to me. Suppose you are a washing machine company--scope 3 would include all the electricity that your washing machine uses over its lifetime, regardless of the owner and their behavior.
Scope 3 would also include your business travel. But, as a company, you might choose to constantly send your employees afar, rather than use, say, videoconferencing. But, you don't have to count this as a direct set of emissions. And, as we know, a single flight is a large chunk of one's carbon footprint.
Equating these two sets of emissions as the same seems absurd. In the first case, you are charging the company for the behavior of someone else. In the second case, you're absolving the company of responsibility for direct emissions.
It seems to me there's an upper-middle-class conspiracy to ignore flight emissions--and I think Lloyd is part of this too.
I was wondering Lloyd if there isn’t a “scope 5” carbon cost focused on replacement of bio resources, often referred to as biogenic carbon. That is the carbon required to replace bio resources. Eg. it is not good enough to sequester carbon in wood from a tree in a forest to a building in a city without including the carbon cost to plant more trees for future use. It would be the cost of renewing the resource so it is also available in the future.
Thought-provoking stuff Lloyd, thank you. I saw a company today claiming they had reduced their emissions by 15% but that was a combination of scope 1, scope 2 and scope 3 - combining the three of the, to my mind, makes the number absolutely meaningless because I don't know if they actually did anything (it is a paper manufacturer and recycler) or if it was their customers who used recycling bins more and therefore drove the scope 3 emissions down? Meanwhile their scope 1 and 2 emissions might have gone up!
If we baseline everything as being expected to be 0 or net0 emmisions it is so much more straightforward.
In this framework scope 3 is double counting. Even scope 2, if the emmisions are scope 1 for the generator.
This framework pairs well with a significant carbon price. Then price also reflects embodied emmisions,.which makes choosing lower scope 3 products easier, without needing direct accounting. But the producer would have primary responsibility still.
Some of the carbon accounting doesn't make sense to me. Suppose you are a washing machine company--scope 3 would include all the electricity that your washing machine uses over its lifetime, regardless of the owner and their behavior.
Scope 3 would also include your business travel. But, as a company, you might choose to constantly send your employees afar, rather than use, say, videoconferencing. But, you don't have to count this as a direct set of emissions. And, as we know, a single flight is a large chunk of one's carbon footprint.
Equating these two sets of emissions as the same seems absurd. In the first case, you are charging the company for the behavior of someone else. In the second case, you're absolving the company of responsibility for direct emissions.
It seems to me there's an upper-middle-class conspiracy to ignore flight emissions--and I think Lloyd is part of this too.
I was wondering Lloyd if there isn’t a “scope 5” carbon cost focused on replacement of bio resources, often referred to as biogenic carbon. That is the carbon required to replace bio resources. Eg. it is not good enough to sequester carbon in wood from a tree in a forest to a building in a city without including the carbon cost to plant more trees for future use. It would be the cost of renewing the resource so it is also available in the future.