Reporting Greenhouse Gas Emissions for Local Government - What Planet Footprint includes, excludes and why

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Summary

Learn about Planet Footprint's approach to greenhouse reporting, and how to comply with changing mandatory and voluntary greenhouse reporting programs using the Planet Footprint Scorekeeping Service.

Applies to

Local Government

Reporting greenhouse emissions for local government can be a complicated task. The most difficult aspect of greenhouse reporting is deciding on what emissions sources to include. This is made more difficult by the fact that there are a wide range of greenhouse gas reporting regimes and programs in existence that are often inconsistent in what should be included and excluded. 

For that reason, Planet Footprint has designed its Scorekeeping Service to:

a) include a fundamental Greenhouse Report that incorporates a set of logical emissions sources that are nationally and internationally consistent among Planet Footprint Councils, and

b) provide additional stand-alone reports for other emissions sources not included in the fundamental Greenhouse Report. Councils can draw on these if needed to calculate greenhouse performance incorporating these additional sources.

The fundamental Greenhouse Report referred to above is the Planet Footprint Organisation Footprint Report - Greenhouse. This Report includes emissions sources that are significant, measurable, comparable and that councils can do something about.  We also provide separate reports on individual emissions sources so that councils can easily get their hands on the numbers they need for a wide range of reporting requirements. 

Planet Footprint's decision for what emissions sources are included in the Organisation Footprint  - Greenhouse report are based on:

• Materiality - does the issue contribute significantly to greenhouse emissions?
• Measurability - Can performance be measured accurately, easily and unambiguously?  There is no point including an emissions source in the report if only a few councils can measure it, or if a measurement standard can't be agreed at all.
• Comparability - does it make sense to benchmark the emissions source at an organisational level?
• Level of Control - does the organisation have the ability to improve the performance of that emissions source?

Table 1 summarises the included and excluded sources.

Our selection of included emissions sources is, by necessity, arbitrary.  Again, there are a wide range of greenhouse gas reporting standards and programs in existence and these continue to evolve even as new ones emerge.  It is impossible to come up with one report that suits every purpose.

Whats included and why?

Stationary Energy (Electricity, Mains Gas and Bottled Gas)

Planet Footprint makes stationary energy easy for councils to measure.  Electricity and gas use account for a large proportion of council emissions.  With the exclusion of electricity used for streetlighting (see below) councils have a relatively high level of control over energy consumption.  

Fleet fuel

Planet Footprint makes it easy for councils to report fleet fuel usage using a simple annual or quarterly toolkit. Fleet accounts for a large proportion of council emissions and councils have a relatively high level of control over fleet operations.   If necessary, reported fleet emissions can be verified based on fuel purchase records.

Street lighting

Electricity used for street lighting is a large source of emissions, is highly visible to the community (no pun intended).  Planet Footprint makes it easy for councils to measure greenhouse gas from street lighting and the resulting figures are comparable based on indicators such as population and kilometres of sealed road.   So based high on high materiality,

Councils have little control over street lighting performance (to the extent that they most likely aren't accountable for it under NGER), having little or no operational control to implement environment or health and safety policies for streetlighting infrastructure.  For that reason it's tempting to exclude street lighting from the Greenhouse report.   However it's an environmental issue that local government has traditionally owned, largely because they pay the bills for the operation and maintenance of the street lighting assets and the electricity consumed.

We also provide a separate Organisation Footprint  - Streetlighting report that allows council to share street lighting performance information with stakeholders and influence policy. 

Corporate Waste

Corporate waste contributes an almost negligible amount to council's greenhouse footprint.  At present Planet Footprint simply calculates a nominal amount of emissions based on number of council employees.  There are a few councils that conduct detailed corporate waste measurement, and we will use these real measurements if available.

Although the measurabllity and comparability is less that ideal, we include corporate waste on the report because corporate waste is often an important issue to stakeholders.  It makes sense to include it if only to show the small impact it has on emissions.

How we make the Organisation Footprint - Greenhouse comparable

Planet Footprint divides councils into separate groups based on whether they operate their own municipal waste collection fleet (a high consumer of fleet fuel) and/or their own water and sewer infrastructure (a high consumer of electricity).  That grouping makes it possible to accurately benchmark council greenhouse emissions on an 'apples with apples' basis.

Full Fuel Cycle factors used

On the Greenhouse Report we use the so called 'Full Fuel Cycle emissions factors' wherever available.   These are the best factors to use for your 'Corporate and Social Responsibility' reporting, and will be consistent with adding issues such as Air Travel, Corporate Waste and Employee Commuting.

If you need to report for NGER, you can ask us for an additional dataset that uses only the basic Scope 1 and 2 emissions factors. as required by NGER.

To explain briefly, stationary energy and fleet emissions can be calculated in two ways.  The first just counts the direct  emissions from burning the fuel.  The other, called the Full Fuel Cycle, adds indirect factors such as the emissions created in mining, transporting and processing the fuel.

What's excluded and why?

Planet Footprint will probably include street lighting in a Community Footprint Greenhouse report, subject to availability of community energy usage data.

Municipal waste

Managing municipal waste to landfill is a major environmental issue for most councils.  It is the major issue afffecting NGER reporting and CPRS  for local government.  So why doesn't Planet Footprint include municipal waste in its Greenhouse report?   There are three reasons:

1. Municipal waste is such a large source of greenhouse gas emissions that it would dwarf all other sources on the report.

2. Council has little influence over municipal waste, compared with waste generated from its own operations ('Corporate waste' - see below).

3. Most councils already have engineers dedicated to measuring and reporting waste.

Planet Footprint provides separate reporting and benchmarking of municipal waste in its Community Footprint  - Waste  report by measuring tons of general, green and hard waste collected via kerbside collection and sent to either landfill or for recycling.  It provides consistent measurement and therefore benchmarking of the parts of the waste cycle that councils have the most control over (ie by providing kerbside recycling of general, green and hard waste).  We are the first to concede that this is not a full waste analysis, but that's why you have council waste engineers on staff.

Waste water

Even though Scope 3 emissions from wastewater are a significant source of emissions (generally around 1 quarter that of the largest emissions source: waste to landfill), nearly all metropolitan councils have wastewater managed by their local water authority.  Scope 1 emissions from wastewater (ie that generated by council's corporate operations) is not a material source of greenhouse gas emissions.

If there is significant demand we will consider developing a separate report for councils that manage wastewater on behalf of their community.

Air Travel

Planet Footprint is considering introducing a simple service for collating emissions data from air travel for local government.  If there was sufficient participation by councils then this issue could be included in the Greenhouse Report.

Employee Commuting

Planet Footprint is considering introducing a simple service for collating survey data about employee commuting habits.  If there was sufficient participation by councils then this issue could be included in the Greenhouse Report.

Using Planet Footprint's Scorekeeping Service to develop tailored Greenhouse Reports

In many cases issues that aren't covered in Planet Footprint's Organisation Footprint  - Greenhouse report are still very important ones for council to manage, or at least remain informed about.  For that reason, many are covered in separate reports.  Councils can obtain data for various reporting programs simply by adding together or subtracting the totals from the relevant reports.

See also

Quick Guide - NGER, CPRS and Local Government