GHG Inventory Guidance for Low Emitters
What is your carbon footprint?
For most low emitters — including office-based organizations, small businesses, and public institutions — the majority of their GHG emissions will come from their purchased electricity and vehicles. For others, especially small manufacturers, additional emissions will result from use of refrigerants, waste gases, or onsite combustion. An organization's carbon footprint has three components for purposes of developing a GHG inventory:
- Direct emissions (known as Scope 1): from onsite combustion and mobile sources
- Indirect emissions (Scope 2): from purchased electricity and steam
- Optional emissions (Scope 3): Examples include product transport, employee business travel and employee commuting.
Below are three tools designed to help low emitters develop an organization-wide inventory and establish a plan to ensure GHG data consistency as they track progress towards reaching an emissions reduction goal.
Step 1: Select an operational or financial approach to define your organizational boundaries. The Small Business and Low Emitter Guide to Greenhouse Gas Management explains how to approach measuring GHG emissions, instructions for using the GHG Calculator and how to complete the Inventory Management Plan.
- Glossary of Terms: further explanation of important terms when developing a GHG inventory.
Step 2: Calculate GHG emissions using the Simplified GHG Emissions Calculator. Additional guidance is available for measuring emissions from onsite combustion, purchased electricity, refrigeration, and air conditioning.
Step 3: Document development of a GHG inventory to ensure consistency as your organization collects data each year to track progress toward reaching an emissions reduction goal using the Simplified Inventory Management Plan Form(11 pp, 849 K,
August 2020)
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- Review free training webinars on developing an inventory and reducing GHG emissions.
What Do I Do Next?
- Access additional programs to help your company reduce emissions.
- See the Webinar Slides: Greenhouse Gas Management Resources for Small Businesses. To support small businesses and other low emitters in calculating their carbon footprint, this webinar covered the fundamentals of developing an organization wide greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory and how to ensure GHG data consistency over time to help track progress towards reaching emissions reduction goals.