The importance of measuring our carbon footprint

The effects of climate change are already evident in different destinations around the world, and it is everyone’s responsibility to contribute and collaborate to face these challenges. As organizations, we can develop strategies to reduce our greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and become agents of change and development.

The carbon footprint is an indicator that quantifies our direct and indirect GHG emissions and is presented as an amount of CO₂ equivalent (CO₂eq). This last term was created to simplify how the information is presented since, in addition to CO₂, there are other GHGs that must be considered. The CO₂eq of a greenhouse gas is the equivalent amount of CO2 taking into account its global warming potential (GWP). For example, methane (CH₄) has a global warming potential of approximately 25 times stronger than CO₂, so the impact of one ton of methane would be equal to that of 25 tons of CO₂ (25 tons of CO₂ equivalent).

Measuring the carbon footprint of our company, our services and our products, is the initial step to understanding what kind of impacts we have at the level of GHG emissions, and from there, being able to outline an action plan that will help us to reduce them. These, in addition to demonstrating our commitment towards sustainability, can have other benefits such as:

• Determining the processes or areas of our organization that generate more emissions.
• Improving our energy efficiency and optimizing the use of our resources.
• Reducing operating costs, saving energy and money.
• Increasing our competitiveness and enhancing our brand image among our customers.

There are various standards or methodologies to measure our company’s carbon footprinting, such as ISO 14064 for quantifying and reporting greenhouse gas emissions of organizations, ISO 14067 for quantifying and reporting the carbon footprint of products, the GHG (Greenhouse Gas) Protocol and the PAS standards developed by the BSI (British Standards Institute).

Although each of these standards has different characteristics, they all follow a similar procedure, which we detail below:

1. Defining the limits, the scope and the temporary space (generally one year) of our measurement.
2. Identifying direct and indirect GHG emissions sources.
3. Collecting data from these sources. For example: the amount of fuel that our organization’s vehicles have consumed.
4. Obtaining the emission factors.
5. Measuring the carbon footprint, multiplying the activity by the emission factor.

Once measured, we must outline an action plan that would allow us to reduce and offset our carbon footprint. Our measurement will help us to determine attainable objectives, define concrete actions, establish responsibilities and execution times, and trace our organization’s path to reduce its emissions and contribute toward sustainable development.

At first, measuring the carbon footprint may seem intimidating and complicated, and that’s why at Pax# Genuine Tourism Advisors we count with the staff and the experience in measuring methodologies to guide your company in this process. It is important to emphasize that sustainability requires extensive collaboration, and at Pax# we believe that by working together we can have a strong positive impact on our planet and our society.