Pledge to Net Zero, an environmental sector program that promotes greenhouse gas emissions action, released a resource (September 23) detailing practical ways for environmental and engineering professionals to estimate greenhouse gases in their designs and advice.
Currently, the design and advice provided by the environmental and engineering sector has the largest impact on greenhouse gas emissions in the sector – in fact, the United Nations Environment Programme reports that the building and construction sector is responsible for 37% of global emissions – however, these emissions are outside the scope of the Greenhouse Gas Protocol for Scope 3 emissions and are therefore effectively not included in current science-based targets.
This paper aims to fill this gap and ensure effective action is taken in support of the report entitled ” Accelerating Climate Action: The Role of Specialist Service Providers in Delivering a Net Zero Future ” It outlines three methods that companies can use to estimate the greenhouse gas impacts of their operations, each with different levels of detail and purpose.
The first, a “Fee-based Rapid Assessment”, helps categorise the proportion of fees earned during the year that support, are neutral or are opposed to the net-zero transition.
The second, “Project Portfolio Estimation Based on Fees/Design Activities,” estimates the total carbon emissions from projects and allocates them to project teams based on their roles and involvement.
The third and final approach, “project-wide carbon-based attribution,” involves conducting detailed project assessments and allocating project-wide greenhouse gas emissions across all stakeholders and stages of project implementation based on the scope of impacts.
These approaches have been provided in draft form for comment and we welcome all businesses to provide feedback and suggestions to help us improve them over the coming months.
David Symons, chair of WSP’s Pledge to Net Zero and global lead for Future Ready, said: “It’s great to have some practical guidelines and methodologies to help industry estimate the carbon impact of our work. Much of our industry’s work supports climate action, but not all of it. This paper shows, for the first time, a practical way of estimating this, in a similar way to how we measure a company’s carbon emissions. This is real progress and we look forward to seeing industry feedback on this work.”
Ramiro Fernandez, Campaigns Director at Climate Champions Team, said: “It’s great to see the professional services sector stepping up to act quickly to embed climate action in its advice. I welcome this document from Pledge To Net Zero and commend the Environment and Engineering sector for being a leader in supporting Race To Zero’s work.”
Lewis Barlow, ICE carbon and climate director, said: “This practical approach to estimating the carbon impacts of our designs and advice is a major step forward for the industry’s sustainability efforts. It aligns with the Institution of Civil Engineers’ mission to foster sustainable and resilient infrastructure and promote best practice in whole lifecycle decarbonisation, such as PAS 2080: The use of Carbon Management in Buildings and Infrastructure. We encourage all professionals in the sector to adopt these guidelines and provide us with feedback.”
Ida Namur, vice president and global leader of ScopeX at AECOM, said: “Industry collaboration is essential in our efforts to achieve a net-zero economy by 2050. This paper marks an important step toward a unified approach to estimating carbon emissions resulting from the work we deliver. By advancing this work collaboratively, we will be able to better serve our clients and the communities in which we work. We look forward to expanding our collaboration with other companies in the industry to accelerate our efforts toward carbon reduction.”
Chloe Fiddy, IEMA’s Climate and Energy Policy & Engagement Lead, said: “Many of IEMA’s members work in the environmental and engineering sectors and have made a public commitment to reducing the carbon impact of the advice and designs they provide to their clients. IEMA is proud to be one of the contributors to this guide, which provides an easy-to-understand methodology and practical examples for estimating emissions associated with their services, helping to support these organisations (and their clients) in reaching their decarbonisation targets.”
Nigel Tonks, building decarbonisation expert at Arup, said: “Advice from our industry to governments and businesses can have a huge positive impact on reducing global carbon emissions – but you can’t manage what you can’t measure.”
“This joint industry effort to validate the impact of our advice is another important step towards reducing our climate impact. It is a step towards consistency in carbon measurement, which is essential to achieving the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global average temperature increase to well below 1.5°C.”
You can download the paper here: Report | Pledge to Net Zero or view the PDF here.
