Our Carbon Footprint

Although at Ideas MedioAmbiental we like to leave a mark wherever we go, and we always leave a good impression everywhere we go, there is a part of our work that, far from leaving a beautiful memory in our environment or promoting responsible development, has a negative impact on it; It deals with greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) associated with our carbon footprint.

And although we are aware of the environmental impact of our activities, and we have acted on those most relevant and direct aspects, it has not been until recent years that our vocation has led us to worry about analyze, understand and search, with rigor and formal commitment, how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions associated with our activities.

Obviously, and given that our work has a strong field component and visits to customers and administration, we knew that the use of our fleet of company vehicles was predictably one of our weaknesses, which is why three years ago we began to analyze and plan our logistics and to internalize and control within our management system the consumption, maintenance and incidents that we were detecting.

Later, and given the opportunity provided by the Royal Decree 163/2014 In order to create a standardized and officially recognized carbon footprint record, we decided to take the step forward and start calculating our carbon footprint under this standard.

From there to our current record, there has been only one step that we are increasingly happy to have taken, now we only have to prove that we are reducing our emissions, and in the future even compensating for them.

What is the Carbon Footprint?

The carbon footprint of any organization is nothing more than the calculation of the total greenhouse gas emissions that the activities carried out by it, whether direct or indirect, release to the atmosphere, representing a first step in defining the degree of contribution to global warming of the organization and the existing possibilities for reducing and improving that impact.

For Environmental Ideas, the carbon footprint is also:

1. Una internal and external awareness-raising tool in relation to the impact of our activities on the environment.
2. A way to lead by example and demonstrate that the analysis, control and reduction of the environmental impacts of our activities can result in interesting benefits for companies.
3. A more than interesting indicator about efficiency of our activities by adopting it as an emission ratio compared to the appropriate work units.
4. One more tool for marking new objectives in reducing our environmental impact.
5. Un differentiating element, indicative of our commitment for the environment and sustainable development.

How have we calculated ours?

To calculate the carbon footprint of our organization, Ideas MedioAmbiental has taken into account the following regulatory scopes:

Scope 1:

These are the emissions directly associated with the activity.

In our case, they are those corresponding to the use of fuels in the vehicle fleet and to the use of refrigerant gases in the air conditioning systems of the same vehicles and offices.

It is the carbon footprint for which we are directly responsible and for which our actions will involve an immediate reduction of the impact by acting directly on the factors that generate it.

Scope 2:

These are the emissions indirectly associated with the activity.

In our case, they are those corresponding to the electrical energy we spend in our offices in Albacete, and although it does not involve direct generation of emissions from Ideas, it is responsible for the emission of gases by the electricity mix from which we supply ourselves.

As the basis for calculating the carbon footprint of Ideas MedioAmbiental, 2014 was adopted (it should be noted that the study is carried out and ends in 2015). Soon we will get down to work to see what we have achieved during 2015, with the actions we have started over this past year, and what we have to do to continue on the right track.

On the other hand, we do not rule out in future editions to continue working to extend the reach of our footprint to second-degree indirect factors (marked by regulations as Scope 3) consisting of indirect emissions related to factors such as travel to the workplace, use of third-party products and services, external logistics, etc.

What do we get?

Although our footprint is not particularly relevant, given the activity we carry out, for us it is as important as the most important one, so we have been very concerned about going into the highest level of detail when calculating it, defining it and marking the generation ratios that will guide us on the way to an adequate reduction of emissions.

Most of our footprint, practically 90%, as we already expected, is associated with fuel consumption in the company's fleet. This consumption is highly linked to our activity, as it depends on the volume of fieldwork and visits we carry out. Thus, during 2014, we built a total of 160,448 km and spent more than 11,500 liters of diesel to make them, generating an equivalent greenhouse gas emission of 28.5 tons.

Since there were no fugitive emissions of refrigerant gases in any of the systems, we didn't have to add this proportional part. Our equipment maintenance system allows us to “guarantee” this absence of leaks, which will be reduced in practice to field incidents that could be generated in vehicles.

Finally, there is our electricity consumption, which corresponds to the remaining 10%. In this area of the footprint, thanks to the actions already carried out by the company based on its own environmental objectives, 60% of consumption is due to air conditioning, and 23% to the use of computer equipment, with consumptions such as lighting being practically negligible. In this way, we have a total annual electricity consumption of 9,026 kWh, which has meant an indirect emission of 3.1 tons.

And now what?

We have only started working with the carbon footprint, and we have a long way to go and we are starting with the greatest of dreams.

Now it's our turn Demonstrate that our emissions reduction plan works, and that we are able to achieve, by the current financial year 2016, an effective reduction in our emissions.

To monitor our progress we have set ourselves a series of objectives, and for this purpose we use emission ratios depending on different production units (adapted to each specific case). This allows us to set milestones for effective reduction of our emissions regardless of whether our production increases.

We have clear and quantifiable objectives that will allow us to achieve a 10% reduction by 2016 in GHG emissions per kilometer traveled by our vehicle fleet, and 9% in GHG emissions per working day.

In the future, our goal will always be the maximum reduction of our associated emissions, and even to carry out actions to offset our carbon footprint. Our hope, as always, that our footprint will go from being negative to being positive for our environment.