This section presents the Bilan Carbone® Clim’Foot tool, the calculation tool used during the project, in order to understand the carbon footprint methodology and to be able to use the tool and calculate the carbon footprint of your organization. The Bilan Carbone® is one of the tools that can be used for CFO and is the tool chosen for this project.

In 2004, ADEME created the first french Bilan Carbone® methodology in order to help the organisations to reduce their emissions. The Bilan Carbone® is constituted of a method, a training and a tool. It was a great success, with more than 5 000 people trained before 2010. Now, the tool is the property of the Association Bilan Carbone (ABC), who keeps developing and improving the Bilan Carbone® .

The main objective of a Bilan Carbone® is to calculate carbon footprint of an organisation (CFO), with an internal audit type of approach, in order to identify organization’s risks and opportunities regarding the low-carbon transition.

For example: energy dependency, anticipation of a carbon tax, image issues, investment in R&D, etc.

ABC shared the Bilan Carbone® tool with the Clim’Foot project in order to help developing new european policies about GHG emission reduction, and encourage taking actions. The adapted version, the Bilan Carbone® Clim’Foot tool, is a simplified Excel file, which allows the user to estimate emissions generated by their activities. The tool has been used and translated in every language of the project partners.

The tool is voluntarily transparent and adaptable: you can modify it freely to make it more appropriate to your situation.You will find spreadsheets for emissions linked to energy consumption, direct GHG emissions, input and waste, transport, etc. The tool has an emission factor dedicated spreadsheet, and two spreadsheets presenting the findings in the ISO 14069 format and in the GHG protocol format.

For easy communication, you will find some automatic graphs too.

Keep in mind that ABC is still developing the Bilan Carbone® , and offers in its last version some major improvements in comparison with the Clim’Foot version.

Beyond that, you should remember that the Bilan Carbone® methodology is not just a tool, but a process, from awareness of the global warming to implementation of an action plan to reduce emissions.

Other CFO calculators are available. The Department for Business Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) of UK has developed a tool for GHG reporting in the organizations. It is an excel file and a guide is available, “2018 GOVERNMENT GHG CONVERSION FACTORS FOR COMPANY REPORTING Methodology paper for emission factors: final report (Hill et al., 2018) (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/greenhouse-gas-reporting-conversion-factors-2018). 

Furthermore, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of US through its Resource Efficiency Programme offers a range of services, advice and guidance to businesses and institutions on reducing energy and other resources use while maintaining productivity (See www.BeGreen.ie and External linkwww.GreenBusiness.ie).

Moreover, there are a range of carbon calculator resources and carbon disclosure options available for businesses, institutions and local authorities. For micro SMEs and SMEs many of the resources are free (http://www.carbonfootprint.com/calculator1.html; http://www.epa.ie/climate/calculators/#.VYqGVxtVhHw). GHG Protocol too developed a suite of calculation tools to assist companies in calculating their greenhouse gas emissions and measure the benefits of climate change mitigation projects.

All these tools are implemented with National emission factors to calculation.

A specific document compraing the similiraties and differences between the OEF and CFO appraoches is also available.

Menu :

1. The Bilan Carbone© Clim’Foot tool

2. How to use the tool?

3. What to do with the results?

4. More recent tools to go further

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