The “Bilan Carbone®”. Overview of a carbon balance method allowing to evaluate company’s exposure to fossil energy costs fluctuation

Sylvie Padilla and Pierre Galio, ADEME – French Agency for Environment and Energy Management, Angers, France

Keywords

carbon balance, fossil fuel energy cost fluctuation, dynamic emissions reduction process

Abstract

90 % of the carbon dioxide emitted comes from the combustion of fossil energies (petroleum products, coal and natural gas) and is therefore directly related to energy consumption

The European Union has committed to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 8 % by 2008-2012 in relation to levels recorded in 1990 (Kyoto Protocol). This commitment involves for the European Union an ambitious policy aiming at making industries more energy efficient with three main goals:

cutting the high cost of energy ;
reducing fossils energies addiction ;
launching an emissions reduction process.

ADEME (French Agency for Environment and Energy Management) developed a simple method which is an effective solution for ranking emissions by source and for launching a dynamic emissions reduction process: the Bilan Carbone® Method.

Bilan Carbone® is both a tool and a methodology. The main component of the tool is a ready-to-use Excel spreadsheet that calculates the emissions caused by all the processes necessary for the existence of a given activity. Space heating, combustion for manufacturing processes, but also freight shipments, passengers travel, production of raw materials used, waste treatment … To take these items into account, simply fill in the spreadsheet (figure 1) with energy consumption figures, kilometers travelled, quantities of materials purchased, etc. For each source of CO2 or other greenhouse gases, theses data are then converted by the spreadsheet into the amount of carbon emitted, using fully documented emissions factors.

The general spirit of the Bilan Carbone® method is to provide the broadest possible panorama of emissions that are linked to processes used by a company or an organization. This is also the only approach that is pertinent for looking forward and anticipating the effect of possible trends, for instance a significant rise in the market price of fossil energy.

In practice, the accuracy of the results will depend to a large extent on the amount of time spent investigating emissions. The Bilan Carbone® tool has been elaborated specifically for the purpose of converting activity data (energy consumption, number of trucks driven and distance travelled, tonnes of steel purchased, etc) into estimated emissions, reasonably quickly, using “emissions factors”.

To estimate the greenhouse gases linked to the physical processes necessary for the activity wherever these emissions occur (figure 2); no distinction is made on the basis of ownership of the means or resources implemented.

A picture of overall impact is the best place to start to determine what can be usefully done to help lower emissions and energy consumption.