So the old GHG measurement train…. have you jumped on board?

It’s been fashionable for quite a while to measure an event’s greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs). Problem is, hardly anyone knows what you should include, and exactly what you should do with the figures once you have them.

These days any responsible event is going to do some GHG measurement. Most events are going to be doing the measurements themselves, rather than using a GHG measurement specialist. But going it alone can be nerve-wracking. There’s all sorts of carbon-botherers out there waiting to pounce on you with their over-zealous “you-should-have-measured-this-or-that” or “tell-me-what-your-emissions-factor-source-is-then”…trying to catch you out.

But there’s not really an easy to follow rule-book which neatly shows you what an event should include in it’s GHG inventory. The event industry doesn’t have common measurement protocols, we don’t have a system to accurately and independently assess claims and there’s no-one our industry needs to report or justify their claims to.

Even if you’re using one of the existing GHG calculators, an essential step is to critically consider what to include in your scope of measurement in the first place.

The Carbon ‘Footprint’

I’ve seen wildly different scopes and dramatic GHG measurement claims coming from events. Some events, often those with GHG consultants or carbon offsetting retailer involvement, will measure every whiff – down to the embedded energy in the full life cycle of every last hot dog. Others are just measuring the GHGs created from the electricity used in a function room and declaring it the event’s ‘carbon footprint’.

The reason it all becomes murky is that while ‘Scope 1’ (e.g. diesel in generators) and Scope 2 (e.g. mains electricity in buildings) are valid and necessary inclusions, they’re inadequate to properly cover what common sense would say should be within an event’s actual GHG inventory – it’s true footprint.

Relevance and Justification

Each event has a certain set of circumstances which make it unique and that makes creating a one-size-fits all directive or methodology difficult for our industry. 

The trick is to make sure your GHG inclusions are relevant to your circumstances, and that you can justify your choices.

The National Carbon Offset Standard (Australia) has set down the following principles and I encourage you to underscore your GHG inclusion decisions with them:

• Relevance: ensure the GHG inventory appropriately reflects the GHG emissions attributed to the event.
• Completeness: account for all GHG emissions within the defined boundary. Disclose and justify exclusions.
• Consistency: ensure methodologies from event to event are consistent to allow for meaningful comparisons.
• Transparency: ensure collation of GHG emissions data can be evaluated by auditors. Disclose assumptions, reference methodologies and data sources.
• Accuracy: Ensure quantification is accurate.

Rules of Thumb

While this all is great advice, it still hasn’t really taken the heavy-lifting off a stressed out event producer has it?

I realised this and I thought I’d pull together some rules of thumb and put those into a checklist document that you can sit down with once, track through and finally come up with a robust and justifiable decision of what to include or exclude when you tackle GHG measurement for your event. The key questions you need to ask are:

• Does the supplier take responsibility for the GHGs?
• Do you estimate that these GHGs make up more than 1% of total?
• Do you have financial or operational control?
• Can the event control or influence GHG reductions?
• Is the GHG impact a result of an activity that is integral to event operations?
• Do event stakeholders deem it a critical aspect to measure?
• Is it technical feasible, practicable or cost effective to measure?

Calculators?

There have been many attempts at creating greenhouse gas emissions calculators for events, and we hope that as we progress, one is developed that is useable across many event types. Currently the calculators that have been created are too top-level and too full of assumptions, not country specific etc, rendering them unusable for most circumstances.

I will continue to keep a keen eye on any calculators and update this article accordingly!

Boundary Decisions?

For now, you have to do the heavy lifting yourself, in order to create a robust GHG inventory assessment for your event. You must be able to justify and validate your choices for inclusion or exclusion.