Article

Why failing to accurately track emissions is the biggest threat to decarbonisation

  • Home
  • Insights
  • Articles
  • Why failing to accurately track emissions is the biggest threat to decarbonisation
  • linkedin icon
  • twitter icon
  • facebook icon
  • youtube icon
  • instagram icon
Dan Carter
President, Decarbonisation

Since the Paris climate agreement in 2015, nations across the globe have embraced targeted carbon legislation in a united effort to incentivise decarbonisation road mapping across all industries.

However, despite this sharp increase in efforts being made to reduce emissions on a macro level; time after time companies fall short of making effective deep cuts to their carbon footprint. Ineffective emissions tracking is most likely the reason for this, with many mappings out decarbonisation strategies which see them running before they can walk. Ultimately, you cannot manage what you can’t measure, and with countless numbers of stakeholders involved throughout the industrial value chain, it can become easy to lose oversight of how much carbon is truly being emitted.

The pathway to successfully decarbonising is not linear and will vary from one company to the next, therefore taking early action will be key to implementing a sustainable strategy and not falling at the first hurdle.

Where does Wood fit in?

The journey to decarbonisation is complex and knowing where to start can be difficult. To simplify this complex process, Wood created the Decarbonisation SCORE methodology which provides a roadmap to setting and delivering emissions reduction targets. This approach allows our team to assess where clients are in their journey and then devise an actionable and implementable plan to meet individual company objectives.

Across five stages, we work alongside clients to consider how they can effectively update their practices to implement sustainable carbon abatement strategies. Starting with substitutions, considering how these companies fuel their operations. Beyond this, we explore the option of capturing the CO2 produced through the organisation's operations. Carbon capture technologies are an often-overlooked way of controlling emissions. By employing CCS/CCUS models in production and manufacturing sites, companies can substantially reduce or eliminate harmful emissions from leaking into the atmosphere.  We have seen greater adoption of this approach towards decarbonisation as the technology associated with carbon capture continues to mature.

The journey to decarbonisation is complex and knowing where to start can be difficult. It is important to apply a structured process to be able to map out how your goals will be achieved and ultimately realise them.  This rings particularly true for those companies who aren’t currently tracking their emissions.

Offsetting and reducing emissions can also be impactful routes to decarbonisation for many companies. We have already seen success through implementing nature-based solutions with a major water treatment facility based in the Middle East. Through utilising the natural wetlands surrounding a treatment facility, we uncovered a potential route for the developer to save 4000 tonnes of CO2. This low-cost approach to decarbonising can often be overlooked, but when used correctly can be key for bolstering a wide range of socio-environmental benefits.

Beyond implementing the SCORE methodology, we have worked alongside our clients who currently struggle to keep track of their emissions outputs to develop ENVision. This real-time emissions data tracking system provides governance and insight around emissions and carbon releases by streamlining and automating diverse data sets to provide a clear, auditable and accurate view of emissions from any asset, organisation or city. Through providing a clear process for manual data provision, or connected systems data collation, ENVision automates environmental reporting and, with Microsoft Azure, unlocks the value of data for an asset or portfolio of assets.

Conclusion

Much must still be done to regulate carbon emissions tracking on a global scale if we are to witness widespread successful decarbonisation.

While policy introduction is moving in the right direction, the lack of consistency across different countries and industries will stunt the effectiveness of this legislation. Through early engagement with carbon and technical advisors, organisations can understand how to feasibly introduce practical and impactful pathways to carbon reduction. While this immediate action is a key first step towards effectively decarbonising, failure to track these emissions means there is only so much that these solutions can achieve. Maintaining a united approach towards data tracking will therefore be key.

Emissions data tracking solutions such as ENVision will undoubtedly be a revolutionary approach in allowing companies to seamlessly track their real-time emissions. Accurate data is key. Assumptions will not drive certainty in our markets. Only certainty will drive the $6 trillion investment needed in the energy sector between now and 2030 to restrict global warming by 1.5 degrees.