Toward a Low-Carbon Economy: The Clim’Foot Project Approach for the Organization’s Carbon Footprint

Abstract

The EU Emission Trading System (ETS) represents an essential part of the European policies on Climate Change, targeting the most polluting organizations, which cover 45% of the GHG emissions. However, no common framework has been proposed yet for “non-ETS organizations.” The reduction of direct emissions in most of the cases is not enough for significantly tackling climate change, but an approach that encompasses also indirect emissions should be adopted, as promoted in the Carbon Footprint of Organisations (CFO), for achieving the ambitious targets set in the European Green Deal. The application of the CFO supports organizations in defining and monitoring the effects of mitigation actions: thanks to CFO, organizations are encouraged to innovate their management system, improve the use of resources, strengthen relationships in the supply chain, beside obtaining a reduction of their costs. In this context, the LIFE Clim’Foot project has given a contribution to foster public policies for calculation and reduction of the CFO. The project has dealt with two key aspects: (i) the need for national policies addressing GHG emissions of non-ETS organizations and the strategic role of structured and robust tools, such as national databases of Emission Factors; (ii) the relevance of organizations’ training in fostering their commitment to account for and mitigate GHG emissions. This chapter illustrates the development and application of Clim’Foot approach for promoting the calculation of the CFO and definition of mitigation actions and to highlight the results of the testing phase in Italy. The approach is described in terms of (i) the toolbox developed (national databases of emission factors, training materials and carbon footprint calculator), (ii) the voluntary program set up to engage public and private organizations and (iii) the role played by decision-makers. Strengths and weaknesses of the Clim’Foot approach are discussed, together with opportunities of replicability and transferability of the results to support the development of a dynamic European network for carbon accounting.