Environmental footprint of organisations

DG Environment is now working together with the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC IES) and other European Commission services towards the development of a technical guide for the calculation of the environmental footprint of organisations (including carbon).

The methodology will be developed building on the Reference Life Cycle Data System Handbook (ILCD Handbook), as well as other existing methodological standards and guidance documents (Global Reporting Initiative, WRI GHG Protocol, CDP Water Footprint, ISO 140064, DEFRA guidance on GHG reporting, ADEME Bilan Carbone, etc).

Testing the methodology

The technical guide developed by JRC IES will be tested using a limited number of pilot studies representing a wide variety of sectors. Due to time and resource constraints, the number of pilot tests will be limited to 10. The sectors covered through the testing include: retail, food, energy production, water supply, feed, public sector, ICT, mining, chemicals and paper manufacturing. The results of the testing will be used for the development of the final technical guide.

DG Environment and JRC IES are working in parallel on the methodological guide on product environmental footprinting. Tests are carried out in parallel for both methodologies.

Consultation on the harmonised methodology (1st draft)

The first draft of the methodology for environmental footprint of organisations is now available

here. The methodology has been discussed in details during a workshop that took place in Brussels on 29-30 November 2011. All the comments are currently being analysed by DG Environment and JRC IES. Please notice that due to the tight timeline, there will be no written feedback to the comments provided. The comments gathered, together with the results of the pilot tests, will be taken into account for the next revision of the methodology, when relevant.

The video recording of the meeting and the slides presented are available:

DG Environment and JRC IES are also working in parallel on the methodological guide on corporate environmental footprint. The two methodologies are tightly interlinked and will have many elements in common.

Expected timeline

After the testing phase and a further prioritisation process JRC IES will carry out an in-depth analysis of the results of 3 of the pilot studies and will take the findings into account in the revised version of the technical guide. The results of the other pilot tests will also be used for further refinements of the methodology as a reference for future further improvements. See below the indicative timing for the initiative.

	Deadlines
	March 2011
	September 2011
	13-15 July 2011 and 19-20 October 2011
	28-30 November 2011
	28 February 2012
	January 2012 - April 2012
	Fall 2012

Background

In its conclusions on the Sustainable Consumption and Production Action Plan the Council invited the Commission "taking into account Member States' experience, to start working as soon as possible on common voluntary methodologies facilitating the future establishment of carbon audits for organisations and the calculation of the carbon footprint of products".

As a follow-up to the Council conclusions, the European Commission conducted a study on Company GHG Emissions Reporting, which analysed

existing leading methodologies and initiatives,
costs and benefits related to GHG reporting based on existing information and on interviews,
a range of possible policy scenarios and how methodologies might relate to these.

In order to take into account wider environmental impacts, and thereby better reflect the environmental performance in all sectors including where GHG emissions are not the main impact, the European Commission decided to extend the work to other environmental aspects. Thus, the Corporate Environmental Footprint project was initiated with the aim of developing a harmonised methodology for environmental footprinting of companies that can accommodate a broader suite of relevant environmental performance criteria.

The recent publication of the Resource Efficiency Roadmap has further strenghtened and defined the future role of the environmental footprint methodologies by explaining that the Commission will:

Establish a common methodological approach to enable Member States and the private sector to assess, display and benchmark the environmental performance of products, services and companies based on a comprehensive assessment of environmental impacts over the life-cycle ('environmental footprint') (in 2012);
Ensure better understanding of consumer behaviour and provide better information on the environmental footprints of products, including preventing the use of misleading claims, and refining eco-labelling schemes (in 2012).

Environmental footprint of organisations

Testing the methodology

Consultation on the harmonised methodology (1st draft)

Other documents

Expected timeline

Background