Climatic Impact of Activities Series Editor Françoise Gaill Climatic Impact of Activities Methodological Guide for Analysis and Action Jean-Yves Rossignol First published 2020 in Great Britain and the United States by ISTE Ltd and John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms and licenses issued by the CLA. 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Library of Congress Control Number: 2019952941 British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978-1-78630-512-1 Contents Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvii Chapter 1. Overview of the Scientific Basis for the Greenhouse Effect and Geocycles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1.1. Greenhouse effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1.2. The additional criteria of the emissions in the atmosphere . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 1.2.1. The carbon geocycle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 1.2.2. The water geocycle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 1.3. Answers to exercises in Chapter 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Chapter 2. General Methodology for Quantification of a Climate Footprint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 2.1. Description of the problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 2.2. Identification of the greenhouse gases to be included . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 2.3. Quantification of the impact of greenhouse gases on the climate: radiative forcing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 2.4. Quantification of the relative climate impact: the Global Warming Potential . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 2.5. Climate impact of gases in relation to their quantity: the emission factor of greenhouse gases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 2.6. Impact of greenhouse gas emission processes on the climate: the emissions factor of any material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 vi Climatic Impact of Activities 2.7. Impact of an activity on the climate: generalization of the characterization of flows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 2.8. Answers to the exercises in Chapter 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Chapter 3. Quantification of the Climate Footprint of an Organization: Methodology of the Balance of Emissions . . . . . . . . . . . 33 3.1. The various methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 3.2. The broad-spectrum greenhouse gas emission balance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 3.3. The system at hand: processes and flows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 3.4. Data harvesting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 3.5. The case of the regulatory greenhouse gas emission balance in France . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 3.6. Answers to the exercises in Chapter 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 Chapter 4. Calculation of Emissions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 4.1. Emissions due to the use of energy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 4.2. Other direct emissions (excluding energy) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 4.3. Emissions due to manufacturing of inputs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 4.4. Emissions due to transport of merchandise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 4.4.1. Road transport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 4.4.2. Non-road transport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 4.5. Emissions due to movements of people . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 4.6. Emissions due to waste treatment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 4.7. Emissions due to the production of tangible assets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 4.8. Emissions due to the use of products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 4.9. Emissions due to the end of life of products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 4.10. Calculation of uncertainties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 4.10.1. Emissions due to the incineration of plastic waste (see section 6.1.3.7.3) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 4.10.2. Emissions due to transportation of sawdust supplies (see section 6.1.3.5.2) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 4.11. Answers to the exercises in Chapter 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 Chapter 5. Results Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 5.1. Recommended actions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 5.2. Interpreting balances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 5.3. Carbon dashboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 5.4. Answer to the exercise in Chapter 5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 Contents vii Chapter 6. Case Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 6.1. Case study 1: brickworks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 6.1.1. Description of the activity and challenge in the exercise . . . . . . . . . . 86 6.1.2. Activity data and emissions factors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 6.1.3. Calculation of emissions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97 6.1.4. Recap of the quantification of emissions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117 6.1.5. Recommendations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118 6.2. Case study 2: vineyard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126 6.2.1. Description of the activity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126 6.2.2. Challenge in this exercise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126 6.2.3. Specifications about the activity and questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127 6.2.4. Activity data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127 6.2.5. Answer to case study 2: winemaking industry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132 6.3. Case study 3: factory for production of animal feed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137 6.3.1. Description of the activity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137 6.3.2. Challenge in this exercise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139 6.3.3. Specific activity data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139 6.3.4. Answer to case study 3: factory for production of animal feed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163 Appendices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165 Appendix 1. For a Physical Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167 Appendix 2. Explanation of the Calculation Methods for Emissions due to Transport of Merchandise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183 Appendix 3. Accounting of Emissions due to the Production of Fixed Assets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191 Appendix 4. Emissions Related to Journeys Made Between the Brickworks and Employees’ Places of Residence: Analysis of Sensitivity to Calculation Hypotheses (Case Study 1) . . . . . . . . . . . 203 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217