Carbon Footprint Measurement and Challenges: A Case Study

The following is part of a series of articles from Cuningham's experts for Sustainable Brands, a global community that is at the forefront of making the case that embedding environmental and social purpose into the core of a brand is the future of business. To read the full article, visit Sustainable Brand's site.

Cuningham was commissioned to estimate GHG emissions for a company with $6.6B in annual sales and operations in 14 states, with 305 locations comprising more than 4M square feet. Companies’ real work begins when their GHGs are known and they can decide how to respond to newfound knowledge about their impacts.

As companies increasingly take up the challenge of measuring their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, many have realized how complex an undertaking this can become. Such measurements are often a first step toward reduction and offsetting GHG emissions at a corporate level, and a large number of Fortune 500 companies have committed to aggressive GHG reductions. A few corporate commitments are:

• Apple: carbon neutral in all product lines and supply chain by 2030

• Amazon: carbon neutral in all operations by 2040

• Microsoft: offsetting all GHG from past operations (from founding of company to present) by 2050

While not all companies have the resources to commit to such ambitious targets, most companies can measure or estimate their GHG emissions and begin the process of reductions immediately. In fact, not doing so exposes a company to financial, market and potential legal risk.

Cuningham is an international design firm with decades of experience in sustainable design. As a result, we have become quite expert at calculating GHG emissions from real estate development and operations. To that skillset, we have recently added expertise in estimating GHG emissions from vehicle fleets. Our combination of knowledge of both real estate and vehicle fleet carbon-related issues makes us ideal for assisting many companies in calculating their GHG emissions.

Given this skillset, Cuningham was commissioned to estimate GHG emissions for a company with $6.6 billion in annual sales and operations in 14 states. Having completed the analysis, the company must determine where reductions can be made, whether offsets should be considered, and costs for the entire program. In this article, we share results of the analysis we performed for this company, though the company itself will remain anonymous.

Continue reading the full article.