Rail industry tackles greenhouse gas footprinting

Article taken from the GHD website. To view article, click here
  
In December 2008, the UK upgraded its commitment to reduce its national carbon dioxide emissions, by at least 34 per cent by 2020 and 80 per cent by 2050, in comparison to 1990 levels. In anticipation of tough regulatory and other policy drivers, the rail sector sought to better understand its contribution to the national greenhouse gas (GHG) footprint and the ways in which this can be reduced.

While rail is seen by many as the low emissions way to travel (comparing favourably against air and road on an emissions per passenger kilometre basis), there is still plenty of room for improvement. For its part, the UK Rail system comprises 15,795 route kilometres and in 2007/08 was used by a total of 49 billion passengers, an increase of 41.2 percent compared to the 34.7 billion of a decade earlier.

In late 2008-early 2009, GHD, in partnership with the Centre for Sustainability Accounting (CenSA), worked with the Rail Safety and Standards Board (RSSB) and Northern Rail, a leading train operating company, to calculate their GHG footprints. Footprinting is a critical precursor to setting up any cost-effective, GHG management program. But looking 'within' to identify which emissions an organisation owns is only half the story. Supply chain emissions need to be considered - these are emissions made by immediate suppliers and their extended supply chains in the delivery of products and services. The chief advantage of this approach is that some of the most cost-effective reduction opportunities are to be found in the supply chain.

Until now, supply chain emissions have been difficult to measure, because of the sheer number of organisations and emission sources involved. GHD and CenSA overcame this problem by employing the latest technique developed by the University of Sydney and, in the UK, CenSA at the University of York. The technique is based on environmental input-output analysis, which uses financial data and national economic and environmental statistics to model whole-of-supply-chain emissions quickly and cost-effectively. Because it involves using pre-existing data from financial accounts, it eliminates any need to generate and collate new data.

GHD and CenSA combined this new technique with conventional 'bottom-up' methods focused at areas such as gas and electricity consumption where primary data were readily available, in a 'hybrid' assessment, delivering the most advanced footprint assessment method available today. Its advantages are that it is cost-effective, incorporates the entire supply-chain, identifies the most GHG-intensive activities, provides a powerful screening assessment to direct future, more detailed studies, and can easily be updated with data from other sources.

As a result, the organisations were able to get a clear and complete picture of their footprints. The importance of some of the emission sources (e.g. supply chain in relation to direct emissions) was greater than first expected, proving the value of incorporating the whole supply chain. The two UK rail organisations are now able to incorporate a fuller range of opportunities (notably those where the greatest reductions can be made for the least cost) into their environmental improvement and emissions reduction programs.

 For more information visit the CenSA website

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