A common mistake that companies are making is trying to achieve 100% accuracy with their environmental calculations. Its also influenced by that there are many platforms appearing that offer this level of accuracy.
At Zero Pro we believe that this is a mistake and achieiving 100% accuracy is not only technically unachievable it opens the company up to a range of unmanageable risks.
Whilst some aspects of enviromental impact are straight forward, others are not. Calculating the power or fuel consumption of equipment used during the value add process is relatively straight forward, as long as the time study is accurate across a enduring time period. For most manufacturing, this should be achievable.
Others, such as transportation, is not so straight forward. Sea and rail frieght are easier to calculate as the distance travelled is quite constant over time. Air frieght, however, is a very different story. Distance can be impacted by air traffic, weather conditions and airport conjestion. The variable can be as much as 10% of the distance between the shortest and longest routes over a two week period. As air frieght is the most pollutive method of transportation, a 10% variance on distance can be affect carbon calculations significantly.
Road transportation is also more complex that it first appears. Whilst the distance travelled may be relatively constant, traffic and weather conditions can significantl impact the fuel consumed. Also, whilst distance may be similar, it doesn’t guarantee that the route followed was the same. A route with a significantly larger gradient will use a lot more fuel.
On the issue of gradient, we consulted with the service provider Tom Tom use and asked whether gradient was a data point they could provide. Currently it isn’t available and after consulting with the other providers, it appears that this is a common gap.
There are no logitics providers that can provide more accurate data for transportation which means we have to take a point in time calculation that is representative at the time but may be less accurate over time.
If we are striving for 100% accuracy, we will require regular reviews and iterations of the activities carried out in the supply chain. This will be expensive, time consuming and will require a lot of resources to carry out. It is also likely that the data will not be available in a timely manner, which means that the data will be out of date by the time it is used.
When we were originally designing Zero Pro, one of the advising companies told us that their biggest concerns were making public carbon claims that were inaccurate and didn’t stand up to scutiny.
Given the complexity of the data and the gaps with some areas, publically saying that your company has saved ‘x’ grams of carbon carries a risk. For businesses listed in North America, the risk of being sued for making false claims is very real. The risk is that a company could be sued for making a claim that they cannot substantiate, and this could result in significant penalties.
We must realign our expectations with what is achievable and how we manage the risks assocated with making public claims. The way we should approach this is to advertise environmental impact in a broad sense, rather than trying to achieve 100% accuracy.
It should be a directional statement, and one that identifies change on a singular basis. For example, “we have reduced our carbon emissions by 250 grams per unit of product produced and we have achieved this by changing our transportation method from air to sea freight”. This is a clear statement that can be substantiated and is not open to the same level of risk as a claim that states “we have reduced our carbon emissions by 10%”.
When more data becomes available, we plan to introduce functionality to Zero Pro that will allow for variances over time to be calculated and the underlying activity to be regularly updated with more accurate average data. Today this is not feasible but we will continue to monitor and react accordingly.