Setting scope
Calculating your carbon footprint means gathering data, so it is helpful to start with a manageable or meaningful task or existing data sources. Plan and scope your work carefully. It may be easiest to focus on your use of electricity, for example, or a particular aspect of your digital preservation activities such as integrity checking. Even if your organization is required to report formally on its entire carbon footprint (including other areas of impact such as staff travel), begin from a realistic and manageable starting point rather than trying to map and measure everything at once.
Defining goals
Before you start, it is important to clarify your goals and think about how you plan to use your carbon calculation. Here are some possible options for you to consider:
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Informal, high-level scoping – “we just want a sense of the scale of our carbon footprint, and which aspects of our service or organization generate most carbon”.
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Corporate reporting – “we want to work towards reporting our carbon footprint in a way that is aligned with the Greenhouse Gas Protocol so that we can report on our Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions”.
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Scope 1 – direct emissions – emissions your organization is directly responsible for. These are the ones you have most control over.
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Scope 2 – indirect emissions – e.g., electricity use
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Scope 3 – everything else in your supply and value chain – These include upstream activities such as purchased goods and services, including cloud storage, fuel and energy purchases (petrol), transportation of goods or hardware, business travel, employee commuting. Also downstream activities such as processing of finished goods, use of your services, end-of-life treatments.
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Product/service reporting – “we want to report to depositors/users/stakeholders on the carbon footprint of our digital preservation services; for example, so that a particular donor or depositor we work with understands the carbon footprint of preserving their content”.
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Target setting – “we’ve established our current carbon footprint, and now want to set reduction goals and then recalculate our carbon footprint periodically to monitor whether we are achieving our goals”.
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Modelling impact of change or decision – “we are exploring potential operational changes and want to assess what effect a particular change would mean in practice for our carbon footprint”.