By: Ruzanna Chitchyan, Ian Marshall (Lancaster University), Scott Godfrey (Noveda Technologies Ltd) and D.C. Howard (Lancaster Environment Centre)
Abstract—At present businesses and individuals are not fully informed and don’t understand about the carbon effects of their daily activities. In particular, there is no fully reliable methodology of carbon emission calculation. In addition, there are no clear guidelines on the allocation of responsibility for different types of emissions. In this paper we propose new research to tackle these two issues.
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May 19, 2011 at 5:44 pm
Elena Pérez-Miñana
The available standards to businesses for recording/computing their Carbon emissions, e.g. ISO 14064, GHG protocol, are very relevant to this study, and I was surprised there was no mention to this particular fact. Another point worth noting, which should also be discussed, is the fact that part of the problem lies in the absence of regulation, i.e. businesses are being “advised” to count and cut down on their energy consumption levels and their emission levels, but currently are “not” required to do so, which I think is another reason why not many businesses concern themselves too much. In addition to the fact that people “don’t understand fully the carbon effects of their daily activities” the myriad of carbon calculators, together with the fact that you can compute different results with each one doesn’t help. This is a useful study but one which should include a good analysis of at least the most popular tools/standards that are currently available, e.g. the Carbon Trust calculator.
June 7, 2011 at 2:43 pm
Steffen Zschaler
I agree with Elena, the assertion that none of this can be done at the moment seems a little strong in the face of the available tools and standards. I also agree that while getting the data is important, it will not in itself make any difference unless there is appropriate governance to translate measurements into actions. These topics would make for important extensions of the work proposed.
Generally speaking, at the moment this reads very much like a proposal only. This is of course OK, but it would be even better if at the workshop you could present some initial findings or ideas as well.