Carbon Management
High carbon release occurring due to corporate activities, products and services has directed enterprises towards to re – evaluate the business practices and to prefer low carbon approaches.
Corporate carbon management covers all the emissions generated through corporate activities. These include energy, water, raw material uses, industrial processes and related resource consumption, use of company vehicles, business travels etc.
For carbon management the existing situation has to be analyzed at the first stage. In the next step, monitoring has to be performed. After calculation of the emissions, processes should be examined for emission reduction and precautionary measures have to be determined and implemented. The amount of carbon emissions, which cannot be avoided, can be off – set.
Global climate change is one of the most current and important environmental problems. Therefore, a large number of companies calculate and monitor their carbon footprint in order to be able to reduce it. As a result of calculation of carbon footprint, they can observe the impacts of their activities on climate change, manage greenhouse gas risks and determine reduction potentials. Enterprises can report their carbon footprint and share these studies with public enabling them to increase their brand recognition with early and voluntary studies leading to guarantee a long term success in a competitive business environment.
Corporate Carbon Footprint
Corporate carbon footprint is the carbon dioxide (t CO2eq) equivalent of greenhouse gases released due to all of the activities performed by an organization. During calculation of carbon footprint, emission sources of an organization such as fossil fuel consumption, raw materials, waste, transportation, food/drink consumption is considered.
Importance of Monitoring of Carbon Footprint and Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Ülkemizde İklim Değişikliği ile mücadele alanında ulusal çabalarımız 2009 yılında Kyoto’ya taraf olmamız, ardınan 2010 yılı Ağustos ayında yayınlanan Sera Gazı Azaltım Sicili Tebliği ve en son olarak da 25 Nisan 2012 tarihinde 28274 sayılı Resmi Gazete’de yayınlanıp yürürlüğe giren Sera Gazı Emisyonlarının Takibi Hakkında Yönetmeliği şeklinde sıralanabilir.
National efforts regarding climate change was initiated in Turkey in 2009 with becoming a party in Kyoto Protocol. Latterly, in August of 2010 a written notice on reduction of greenhouse gases is published and then the regulation on Monitoring Greenhouse Gas Emissions was published and came into force on April 25th 2012. Then, it is revised on May 17th 2014 and got its recent form. Following this regulation the related technical guidance is published on July 22nd 2014.
This regulation is an important move in climate change combat. It covers the methodology and principles in monitoring, verification, and reporting of greenhouse gases caused by industries such as electricity and steam generation, oil refining, petro – chemistry, cement, iron – steel, aluminum, brick, ceramic, lime, paper and glass production, which contribute to greenhouse gas generation to a large extent.
With the help of this regulation, following issues will be enabled:
– Monitoring of greenhouse gas emissions at plant level and regular reporting to the ministry of urban planning and environment
– Calculation of greenhouse gases on country level on a more clear basis
Through the employment of the verification system created within the scope of the regulation, the emission reports will be verified through controls and on site examination. With the help of this regulation implementation transparent, accurate, compatible, complete and consistent information on greenhouse gas emissions will be generated at plant level.
The plants within the scope of the regulation need to undergo monitoring, verification, reporting processes every year. The annual report will include greenhouse gas emissions generated in the previous year due to the industrial activities. Therefore, the demand on carbon management services is expected to increase in coming years. According to the regulation the obligation on reporting starts in 2016 and the report will cover the period from January 1st 2015 till December 31st 2015.
Carbon Off – setting / Neutralization
Organizations, which like to become carbon neutral, calculate the carbon emissions generated as a result of their activities and they try to reduce these emissions. The amount of carbon emissions, which cannot be reduced, can be off – set through purchasing carbon credits from emission reduction projects such as Gold Standard projects.
