Magisteruppsats Master's Programme in Applied Environmental Science 60 Hp

Magisteruppsats Master's Programme in Applied Environmental Science 60 hp

A tool for calculating CO2 emissions in the manufacturing industry

Use of GHG protocol

Environmental Science 15 hp

Halmstad 2020-06-24 Henrik Olausson

A tool for calculating CO2 emissions in the manufacturing industry – Use of GHG protocol

Henrik Olausson Halmstad University, School of Business, Engineering and Science, Master’s Program in Applied Environmental Science

Project in collaboration with Albany International AB

Supervisor, Marie Mattson, Halmstad University

Supervisor, Eva Eliasson, Albany International AB

The date for uploading on DIVA 2020-06-24

ABSTRACT

With the Paris Agreement comes targets to reduce emissions and mitigate the temperature increase in the atmosphere. One way to move towards reaching these targets for companies is by using the greenhouse gas protocol reporting standard (GHG protocol). The goal of this study was to critically evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the GHG protocol with the use of a case study, a calculation of Albany International AB’s emissions. Using the GHG protocol as a foundation the study show that Albany International AB emitted 10 673 CO2 equivalents 2019 and with recommended changes in energy acquisition emissions for coming years can be reduced with 17 %. There are some questions and uncertainties raised surrounding the created tool but also the use of the GHG protocol. Converting processes to CO2 equivalents means calculating conversion rates. These rates are sometimes precise but can also be only estimations. With a yearly update of greenhouse gas emissions Albany International AB increase their environmental awareness. It also prepares the company for a future with increasing demands of sustainable manufacturing. The GHG protocol is useful when it comes to increasing the knowledge of your emissions. Although there are many different variables that are not always reliable which makes the total emissions rather difficult to determine.

CONTENTS

1. INTRODUCTION ...... 4

1.1 GHG Protocol ...... 4

1.3 Aim ...... 6

2. MATERIAL & METHOD ...... 6

2.1 Case study ...... 6

2.2 How I used the GHG protocol when creating the measuring tool ...... 7

3. RESULTS ...... 10

3.1 Emission results ...... 10

3.2 Calculating tool ...... 11

4. DISCUSSION ...... 13

4.1 Strengths and Weaknesses of GHG protocol ...... 14

4.1 Albany International AB ...... 15

4.2 Excel-tool and GHG protocol ...... 16

4.3 Conclusion ...... 16

5. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...... 17

6. REFERENCES ...... 17

1. INTRODUCTION

One of the targets for the world’s climate policy of today, set by the Paris agreement, is to stay beneath an increase of 2.0°C. In the agreement there is also the “hopeful” target of not going above 1.5°C (Rogelj et al. 2016). As mentioned in the “Special Report: Global Warming of 1.5°C” by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), past emissions alone will most likely not force global average temperatures to overshoot the 1.5°C target. This means that the actions we do today will affect the outcome of the temperature increase (IPCC 2019). One of the measures that will have a positive effect on the environment and for reaching this target is to lower the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) that is emitted into the atmosphere. In September 2016, a month when CO2-levels are usually at its lowest, the global average concentration stayed above 400 parts per million (ppm) which was setting an unwanted milestone in the fight against climate change (Kunzig 2019). The concentration of CO2 has continued to increase and data from NASA (2020) measured at Hawaii, Mauna Loa observatory, showed a concentration of 413 ppm of CO2 in February 2020. The concentration will probably never go below 400 ppm again in our lifetime (Kahn 2016). Knutti & Rogelj (2015) argue that natural science can shed light on global carbon budget by stating facts but the work to reduce our CO2-emissions is most likely dependent on societal and political decisions. The lion’s share of CO2-emissions come from a relatively limited number of countries. USA, China and the European Union (EU) are the three biggest emitters, in that order, but the EU is on seventh place when it comes to emissions relative to GDP which shows that increased GDP doesn’t have to mean an increase in greenhouse gas emissions (C2ES 2017). Diving into details the biggest CO2-emissions in the EU come from combustion of fuels which is 54 % of all emissions. These emissions come from the generation of electricity and heating so combustion from transports are not counted. The transport sector come second with 25 % followed by agriculture, 10 %, industrial processes, 8 % and waste management, 3 % (EC 2020).

The EU the target for 2020 is to reach a reduction of 20 % in CO2 emissions compared to the emissions established in the base year 1990. That target was reached 2017 and preliminary estimates suggest numbers for 2018 to be a reduction of 23 % compared to 1990 levels. This is positive news although the next target is a 40 % reduction for 2030 compared to the base year. Projections today show that emission reductions are not happening fast enough to reach this goal (EEA 2019). It is good to know your CO2 emissions and where they come from in order to put in efforts to manage them towards a decrease. Several tools for measuring and reporting have been developed (Green 2010). One of them is the Greenhouse Gas Protocol.

1.1 GHG Protocol The Greenhouse gas protocol corporate accounting and reporting standard and the Global protocol for community-scale greenhouse gas emission inventories (GHG protocol) was founded 2004 and 2014 by the World Resources institute (WRI) and the World Business Council on Sustainable Development (WBCSD). Together with help from governments, other firms and NGOs they created this base for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reporting (Green 2010). With the names comes a tool and reporting standard that are being used by numerous

companies, organizations, countries and cities. The reporting tool is built to be usable by everyone no matter size or development stage. Its foundation is to report relevant data that reflect the emissions of the entity, give a complete and transparent insight on emissions, reduce uncertainties for best accuracy and use a consistent measuring method (Protocol & Greenhouse Gas Protocol Initiative 2004). In 2016, 92 % of the Fortune 500 (biggest 500 companies in USA based on revenue) reported their CO2-emissions based on some variant of GHG protocol (GHG protocol n.d.). Also, the city of London, Madrid (population-wise number three and six in Europe), and Kampala (capital of Uganda), are reporting following the three scopes in the GHG protocol (Andrade et al. 2018;Lwasa 2017).

Scopes The GHG protocol is based on identifying and measuring the total emissions from three Scopes (see table 1). They are divided to differentiate direct and indirect sources of emissions and to give different types of organizations a way to report transparent data which can be compared between companies and sectors. The first and second scope is the minimum requirement for reporting as the third scope might be more difficult to evaluate. Although all added quality data will give a more correct result. Together they summarize the analyzed entity’s total emission of CO2-equivalents.

Table 1. The three scopes for GHG protocol reporting that together summarize the total greenhouse gas emissions of an organization (Protocol & Greenhouse Gas Protocol Initiative 2004).

Scope 1 Direct emissions that comes from owned sources.

Scope 2 Indirect emissions from purchased electricity. The emitted CO2 from the generation of electricity.

Scope 3 Other indirect emissions from processes not owned by the company but related to company activities.

CO2-equivalents (CO2e) means that all processes from digging for raw materials, transports, energy consumption, energy origin, manufacturing, waste management, travel etc. are converted into CO2 (Protocol & Greenhouse Gas Protocol Initiative 2004). It is important to remember that this conversion sometimes leads to gaps and lower the quality of reporting since the conversion rates for processes to CO2 can differ a lot depending on region, methods, quality of data or even lack of data (Lwasa 2017;Mendoza-Florez 2019). Further on this subject in the Discussion.

By getting to know your total CO2-emissions and being able to pinpoint what processes are the worst emitters you can start setting plans and goals for future decrease of emissions. The knowledge could also be used to compare emissions with other organizations even outside of your sector or grouping (Protocol & Greenhouse Gas Protocol Initiative 2004). One company

that wants to have better knowledge of its CO2-emissions is Albany International AB. The company produces parts for the manufacturing industry and is located in Halmstad, Sweden (see Case study in Material & Method). The county of Halland already have several users of the GHG protocol. The organization EMC, which is a network of organizations and companies that aim to develop sustainability and environmental efficiency, have yearly summaries of members CO2-emissions. They are all reporting their emissions according to the GHG protocol standards. 17 members reported their emissions in 2019 (EMC n.d.) and some members are indirectly linked with Albany International AB’s production chain.

1.3 Aim The goal of this study is to evaluate if the greenhouse gas protocol (GHG) is an effective tool when calculating a company’s CO2 emissions and with the help from this protocol, use Albany International AB as a case for studying this. The study will also by critically evaluating the data, identify strengths and weaknesses with using the GHG protocol for mitigating emissions in companies. Research questions: 1. Is the GHG protocol an effective tool when calculating a company’s total emissions of CO2 equivalents? 2. Which are the strengths and weaknesses with using the GHG protocol for mitigating emissions from companies?

2. MATERIAL & METHOD

This chapter describes the procedure and the structure behind this study. As this project is the product of an inquiry from Albany International AB, two targets were to calculate the company’s emissions and to create a tool for calculating CO2-emissions based on available data from Albany International AB. At the same time, this is a thesis in environmental science, the main target of this study is evaluating the reporting standard the created tool is based on. Methodology, limitations and key information are presented below.

Databases In the search for data and information I used one search, google and google scholar. Some key words for searching were “ghg protocol”, “ghg protocol cities, “ghg protocol industry”, “carbon footprint Sweden”, “ annual report” and “ carbon footprint”.

2.1 Case study The goal of the case study is to, with the help from reporting standard GHG protocol, create a working tool for Albany International AB to help increase the knowledge of their CO2-

emissions. The tool will be re-usable to update each year’s emissions giving Albany International AB the ability to pursue a more sustainable production and fight against climate change.

Albany International Created in 1895 with headquarters in USA, Albany International Corporation have about 4 400 people employed at 23 plants in 11 countries all over the world. The company split into two core businesses (Albany International Corp. n.d). The first one is specialized in machine clothing which produce custom designed fabrics purchased and used mainly by paper manufacturers of all kinds of quality. Different composition, material and design have a major impact on the quality of paper that are created in the paper mills. Forming, pressing and drying fabrics are used in the creation of paper as well as process belts for the press section. The machine clothing section produce and supply all of these variants for customers all over the world. The second business is the engineered composites which create advanced composite structures to the aerospace industries (Albany International Corp. 2019). One production plant of machine clothing, based in Halmstad (Sweden), wish to increase their knowledge on the emissions of greenhouse gases that is generated by their activities. Albany International AB have about 360 employees and has a long history producing machine clothing. The company was bought by Albany International Corp. in 1968 but the original company was founded in 1905 called Nordiska Filt. The plant was rebuilt and moved in 1990, from central Halmstad, Sweden, to the outskirts of the same city which gave opportunity to improve production lines and decrease unnecessary internal transports. Albany International AB have a reporting standard in place where they report many environmental factors each year called “Miljönyckeltal” (environmental key performance indicator) which have some emissions reported but the intention is to expand on the reporting followed by more focus on lowering their carbon footprint or environmental load (M Ek 2020, personal communication, 25 May).

2.2 How I used the GHG protocol when creating the measuring tool As mentioned earlier the GHG protocol is based on emissions from the three scopes. The tool that was created is based on these scopes and there are many guides that give assistance when constructing your own tool. Many of these can be found on “ghgprotocol.org” under “guidance” (n.d.). The focus of the created tool was to work with easy-to-understand instructions so that Albany International AB can continue to use this tool without complications and misunderstandings (see fig. 1). That is why it is created to be as similar to the GHG protocol as possible. The factors used for each scope is shown in table 2 and the factors chosen was based on what data was possible for me to attain during this study. Together with Albany International AB and their suppliers I managed to gather data for most of the factors that exist in the GHG protocol (Protocol 2004).

Fig 1. Screenshot from the created excel-tool. It shows the worksheet “Scope 1” where the person using the tool will fill in the red cells with the correct data (as said in instructions) and the tool will convert and present the total emissions in t CO2e in another sheet for summarizing.

Conversion rate

A conversion rate is the number used to recount your processes to CO2e and there are different rates for different processes or materials. For most of the factors in table 2 there was a need for a conversion rate. In order to find out this rate I used different methods. First, I investigated if the connected company (supplier, water/wastewater company, travel, electricity and natural gas) had this specific data in the form of a lifecycle analysis (LCA) or other methods to know their own carbon footprint. I also analyzed if there were other studies done that measured the CO2-emissions from similar processes through a literature search. Lastly, I checked governmental data to see if there were any conversion rates used as a standard by e.g. EU or Sweden. Data directly from suppliers or with direct connection to processes in Albany was ranked as the most trustworthy. Followed by data to similar processes from studies made in Sweden or other Swedish companies. Emission averages from countries further away from Sweden was ranked lowest in credibility.

Table 2. Factors used when measuring the emissions in total CO2e for Albany International. *Green carbon is not part of the GHG protocol guidance (see Material & Methods - Green Carbon). Scope 1 Natural Gas

AC-leakage Internal Carpool Scope 2 Electricity Scope 3 Water Supply Wastewater Material / Production Material / Packaging Business travel / Air Business travel / Car Green Carbon* Recycled Material

Limitation Not all emission factors from the GHG protocol were used when making this tool. Scope 1 and 2 are complete which the GHG protocol judge as a minimum. Scope 3 have a few categories missing and here I will present which ones and give a short explanation why. According to the guidance for scope 1 there are also emissions in processes such as smelting of metals or the creation of concrete. Albany International AB does not have any of those emissions, so this part was excluded in the tool. There are no limitations for scope 2 since everything, according to the guidance, is accounted for. There are many factors that are not accounted for in scope 3. Looking at the GHG protocol, scope 3 could include transport of purchased material or goods, transportation of sold products, transportation of waste, waste treatment, employees commuting to and from work and use and disposal of sold products and services (Protocol 2004.). Most of these are not accounted for because there is a lack of data reported by Albany International AB but also because of the lack of time in the project to secure trustworthy data. Limitations based on what data was available and what data could be made available had to be implemented. A special solution was made for waste and recycling from Albany International AB which I called “Green Carbon”.

Green Carbon Albany International AB send a big part of their waste for recycling to a local recycling plant. This plant is giving its customers a return data on how much CO2e they save by recycling material. There is a big difference in emissions between secondary production and primary production (Hillman et al. 2015). Scope 3, according to GHG protocol, should add CO2e to your total emissions based on how you handle your waste (GHG protocol n.d.). Since there is a big part of purchased material already accounted for in scope 3 there would be risks of double counting emissions by adding more CO2e to a product that is already produced (Turner et al. 2011; Gentil et al. 2009). I, together with representatives from Albany International AB, decided to use the data received from the waste treatment company as a factor for emissions

which present how much CO2e are saved because of recycling the material instead of primary production. Data for saved CO2e is gained from the waste treatment company each month, which is total weight of each type of material and using the waste treatment companies own conversion rates.

3. RESULTS

The results are divided into two parts. First part explains the results for the calculation of Albany International AB’s emissions as calculated by the created tool from the case study. In the second part I will present the tool itself. What data I used for each factor and what conversion rate I used for each factor.

3.1 Emission results

Albany International AB’s total emissions for 2019 was 10 673 t CO2e where the biggest emissions came from Scope 3 and purchased material for production. Total emission from scope 3 was 5449,91 t CO2e and purchased material for production represented almost 90 % of scope 3 emissions. The second largest emission factor came from scope 2 and the generation of purchased electricity, 3919,38 t CO2e for 2019. Scope 1 was the lowest emitter with a total of 1775,31 t CO2e where natural gas was the biggest emitter (about 95 % of scope 1). The company saved 471 t CO2e by recycling material (see figure 2). CO2e for each factor within the scopes are not be presented. It was treated as sensitive data from Albany International AB.

Fig 2. The main page from the created excel-tool. It presents total emissions in t CO2e for each scope and grand total for chosen year (2019 in this case).

The five largest emitting factors, in size order (largest first), for 2019: 1. Material / Production (Scope 3) 2. Electricity (Scope 2) 3. Natural gas (Scope 1) 4. Material / Packaging (Scope 3) 5. Internal Carpool (Scope 1)

3.2 Calculating tool In this part the factors used from GHG protocol to tool is presented. Also, information on how data for each factor and the conversion rates to CO2e was gathered. This is the second part of the result of this study and it is divided into the three scopes.

Scope 1 Data The direct emissions from Albany International AB are the combustion of Natural Gas, leakage from their air conditioners and emissions from transports such as owned or leased car-pool. Data for combustion of natural gas come from receipts within the company for

purchased gas for 2019 and was presented in megawatt hour per year (MWh/y). Data for AC- leakage come from a control on leakage for 2019. You have to do regular inspections according to regulation no 517/2014 (EC 2014). Inspection results presented leakage in ton CO2e. Emissions from the car-pool, both owned and leased, was reported by Albany International AB and their leasing company. Total km driven by private cars for business trips was recorded by Albany International AB. Conversion rate Combustion rates for natural gas is presented by the supplier of gas. The average combustion rate of 2019 was used in this study which give 203,54 kg CO2e/MWh (Swedegas n.d.). No conversion rate is needed for AC-leakage since the inspection report already present data in t CO2e. For privately owned cars that are driven for company business purpose the average emission for privately owned cars in the EU (130 g CO2e/km) was used as conversion rate (EC n.d.). There is no conversion rate for leased cars since rates for each car and km are already provided by the leasing company.

Scope 2 Data Indirect emissions for scope 2 come from the generation of purchased electricity. The data for used electricity come from Albany International AB’s receipts for purchased electricity 2019 and was presented in MWh/y. Conversion rate

The supplier of electricity is presenting the amount of CO2 that each MWh is emitting. In Albany International AB’s case, using Nordpools residualmix 2018, the conversion rate is 250,76 kg CO2e/MWh (Energi-Sverige n.d.).

Scope 3 Data Other indirect emissions for scope 3 was selected based on Albany International AB’s reporting. Basically, all other emissions that are an effect from the activities of the company that are not explained in scope 1 and 2 are presented in scope 3. This scope is the most difficult and the most prone to estimations (See Discussion). For scope 3 the created tool calculates total CO2e for 2019 for water supply, wastewater management, material used for production and for packaging the products and business travel by air and by car. The data for water supply comes from total used water for 2019 which is reported by Albany International AB. It is presented in cubic meters per year (m3/y). Data for wastewater is also reported by the company and presented in m3/y. In the production process Albany International AB use large numbers of filaments and fiber to weave their products. These filaments and fiber are not produced at Albany International AB, but their production processes (and transports) emit CO2e nonetheless and should be accounted for. Products were separated into groups of polyamides (PA) and polyester (PE) filaments and fiber. Then further separated into groups of

different suppliers. Total purchase of each product group, in ton, and from each supplier come from Albany International AB. When packaging the finished product Albany International AB wraps the machine clothing around steel or aluminum pipes or paper tubes. They are then loaded into wooden boxes ready for transport to customer. The emissions from manufacturing these are converted into CO2e and used in scope 3. Data for total amount of steel and aluminum pipes, paper tube and wooden boxes came from Albany International AB’s receipts for purchased material 2019. Albany International AB have working routines for reporting business travel. Air travel is described as total flight km for 2019 and is divided into two groups. “Short flights” for flights shorter than 3500 km and “Long flights” for flights longer than 3500 km. Travel by car is reported from cars rented on business trips. The company that most cars (56 % of total) are rented from have reports of which car is rented, how far it travelled in km and how much CO2e it is estimated to emit per km. Further estimations were made to account for the rest of the car rentals based on the average emissions of these 56 %. Conversion rate Emissions from fresh water is based on a master thesis by Sophie Jutterström (2015) where she did an LCA on the creation of fresh drinking water at Norrvatten, Stockholm. The electricity emissions in the LCA were too low so I manually recounted emissions for water production with the electricity emissions from Energi-Sverige (n.d.) (250,76 instead of 15 3 kgCO2/MWh) which give the conversion rate of 0,128 kg CO2e/m water usage. The rate for wastewater is taken from a study by Delre, ten Hoeve and Scheutz (2019) who did an LCA on wastewater treatment plants. The conversion rate is taken from Ryaverket, Göteborg and it is 3 0,15 kg CO2e/m wastewater. One of Albany International AB’s supplier of filaments have done an LCA on one typical PA-filament and one typical PE-filament. This LCA includes transport of the products to customers. Because of lack of data the same conversion rate is assumed for all suppliers. For PA-filaments it is 11,98 t CO2e/t product and for PE-filaments it is 3,94 t CO2e/t product. The conversion rate for fiber was taken from a report by Thomas et al. (2012) which give the number 0,008 t CO2e/t fiber. Steel pipe conversion rate is 2,4 tCO2e/t product and paper tubes are 1,1 tCO2e/t product. Both of these rates are from Hillman et al. (2015) which presents average emissions for primary production in different types of material. Aluminum pipes have a conversion rate of 5,106 tCO2e/t product and the rate is from the supplier. For wooden boxes the conversion rate is the same as for “planed timber” from a study on wood products and carbon footprints by Ruuska (2013). The rate is 0,152 t CO2e/t product. Emissions per km differ between long haul and short haul flights. The emissions for short flights are 79,5 g CO2e/km and for long flights 104,1 g CO2e/km (Hill et al. 2015). For 56 % of rented cars the total CO2e were measured. The rest of rented cars were estimated based on the average of reported cars giving a total emission value. Together with Albany International AB we have chosen to not write the company names of suppliers of packaging and production materials.

4. DISCUSSION

This part of the report will have a general discussion about the GHG protocol. Presenting the strengths and weaknesses found when working with this tool together with discoveries from other studies regarding GHG protocol. It also contains a discussion about the result of Albany International AB’s emissions and recommendations for future work for Albany International AB when it comes to reducing emissions.

4.1 Strengths and Weaknesses of GHG protocol By using the GHG protocol a company can definitely increase the knowledge of own emissions. Whether those emissions are close to the “real” total or not is difficult to ascertain. When emulating the GHG protocol and creating a tool there are some problems that should be highlighted. The GHG protocol has no demand to create a complete carbon footprint or that all emissions are accounted for. The minimum reporting is that emissions for scope 1 and 2 are calculated (Protocol 2004) which gives more or less a free pass on the third scope. Will the GHG protocol only be viable to compare scope 1 and 2 emissions? Looking at Albany International AB the biggest emissions come from scope 3. With the knowledge that this project’s scope 3 are missing measuring factors the true emissions from scope 3 will most certainly be higher than what is calculated for 2019. Should Albany International AB present scope 3 when it is not fully complete? Patchell (2018) discuss Scope 3 and concludes that there will not be many organizations that can create a complete calculation close to what the GHG protocol aims for. There is also the problem with reliable conversion rates. In order to have a complete (100 % correct) emission calculation, according to the GHG protocol, all suppliers and sub-suppliers to the reporting company must also know their emissions. The conversion rate for the aluminum pipes, in the tool created from this project, is created by data retrieved from supplier that manufacture pipes and the sub-supplier that create aluminum for the pipe manufacturer. Together their tons of CO2e give the total emission rate per ton product purchased by Albany International AB. From the same reference where the conversion rates of steel and paper is obtained the aluminum pipes have a conversion rate of 11 t CO2e per t aluminum product (Hillman et al. 2015). The created tool from this project uses 5.106 t CO2e per t aluminum pipe since this is the rate obtained from the supplier and sub-supplier. There is a big difference between the numbers and the choice of which conversion rate to use, will have remarkable effects on the total emissions. Even when there are conversion rates available it is difficult to know if those numbers are complete or created in a correct way. One can argue that if everyone is using the same conversion rates there would be no problem. Although that would only mean that in most cases we move away from the real emissions from the analyzed entity. The British government are presenting conversion factors for water and wastewater that can be used when measuring emissions with reporting tools such as GHG protocol (Gov.uk 2019). Those values are 0,344 kg CO2e per m3 for fresh water and 0,708 kg CO2e per m3 for wastewater. Compare that to the values used in this study, 0,128 kg CO2e per m3 for fresh water and 0,15 kg CO2e per m3 and Swedish companies will always have lower emissions for water and wastewater when reporting.

Green (2017) suggest that the GHG protocol is not a product you buy or an organization you pay membership to enter which brings revisions and quality stamps from a third party to your products. It can more be seen as a public good. She says that you enter a “club” which are working on presenting and lowering their CO2-emissions. The benefits gained from joining this “club” could be minimal depending on your own level of participation. The standard could help highlight areas of your company that needs changing which will save emissions and at the same time reduce the operating cost. Advertising the company with the GHG protocol is also useful to gain a better reputation. This can be done in the annual report or through other medias of information. Is this the only reason companies decide to calculate and present their emissions? Hickman (2017) argues that the worldwide climate discussion has put pressure on companies to start their emission reduction to be ahead of time when tougher GHG regulations are implemented. Green (2017) mention that the success of GHG protocol comes from great timing at filling a void where there was no organization that filled this role when it was needed. Although, Hickman (2017) says that similar development, increase in awareness of own emissions, was seen after the Kyoto Protocol was implemented in 1997 and later companies reduced their climate work overtime.

4.1 Albany International AB The emissions from Albany International AB, as already presented in Results, is 10 673 t CO2e. What is next now when the company knows this number? First, we can recalculate the number, so it is more comparable to other companies. Big companies will most of the time have bigger emissions than smaller companies. Presenting total emissions will not suffice unless you compare with someone that is very similar. There are different ways we can make these comparisons more valuable. We can divide total emission with the number of workers at 2 Albany International AB which give 29,65 t CO2e per employee. If we look at the m of the Halmstad plant, 46 000 m2 (M Ek 2020, personal communication, 25 May), Albany 2 International AB are emitting 0,23 t CO2e per m . We can also use total revenue of the company or ton of finished product to create values that are easily comparable with almost every other entity that reports according to GHG protocol. The way forward for Albany International AB is to continue to update this tool with new data every year, use resources to develop and widen the tool to add more factors to scope 3 and delve deeper into the created tools conversion rates. The numbers need to be updated and some of the conversion rates can be more precise from e.g. LCA. The company should also decide on targets for reducing their emissions. A recommendation would be to follow the reduction targets set by the EU. Creating a base year 2019 and lower the emissions by 20 % by 2030.

How can Albany International AB reduce emissions The easiest way to reduce big parts of the company’s emissions would be to adjust the contract for electricity. A lot of energy is needed to produce or manufacture goods and products as it is the driver of most processes (Martínez & Silveira 2013). Energy can come from fossil fuels, such as coal, natural gas and crude oil, but also from renewable resources,

such as solar, wind and geothermal power (Gaabour et al. 2019; Cheng et al. 2019). By choosing different sources for energy, for each process of transport, production and waste management of a product, the emissions will differ. Energi-Sverige, which is Albany International AB’s supplier of electricity, have a deal for energy which would change the conversion rate from 250,76 kg CO2e per MWh to 134,93 kg CO2e per MWh. This change in electricity contract would lower total emissions for scope 2 to 2108,96 t CO2e (from 3919,38 t CO2e in 2019). This will lower the total emissions by 17 %, almost reaching the recommended target. Albany International AB should also focus on the biggest emitting factor (Material / Production) and try to make improvements there since each improvement will give the biggest reduction in emissions, if assuming that the reduction is in percentage. Improvements could be for example better use of purchased material and less waste. It could mean both a reduction in emissions and expenditure. Maybe there is opportunity to investigate if it is possible to switch natural gas for biogas. Natural gas has a much higher global warming potential (CO2e) than biogas (Brynolf et al. 2014) since biogas is a renewable fuel.

4.2 Excel-tool and GHG protocol The tool contains reporting factors that can also be found in the GHG protocol with the only exception of the “Green carbon”-factor. That factor is applied outside of all scopes which makes it easy to disregard if there are wishes to compare results with another reporting entity strictly following factors that only appear in GHG protocol. The author of this report is certain that this tool follows the guidelines of the GHG protocol. That does not mean there are no issues with this tool and the GHG protocol reporting.

4.3 Conclusion The GHG protocol is a well working tool when the goal is to increase a company’s knowledge of their own carbon emissions. It does come with some weaknesses which apply when presenting emissions or trying to compare results with other measuring companies. Reporting total emissions is very difficult due to so many factors with different conversion rates from different regions, suppliers and based on different knowledge. If the goal is to compare own emissions with previous years, then the GHG protocol is a very good tool since correct conversion values does not play an important role. A reduction in natural gas combustion each year will lower emissions from natural gas even if your conversion rate is way off. Albany International AB’s move towards environmental awareness and as the greenhouse gases continue to increase in our atmosphere all actions towards reducing emissions are welcome. Lowering emissions is not bound to higher costs or great sacrifices. In Sweden a CO2 tax was introduced in 1991 forcing companies to rethink how to manufacture goods and products. Before the tax was introduced, Swedish GDP and CO2 emissions followed the same trendline but after (the tax) the lines got separated and after that an increase in GDP did not necessarily mean an increase in CO2 emissions (Lindmark et al. 2011). It is not unlikely that tougher laws and restrictions will be implemented if Sweden, the European Union and the world are serious in trying to reach the target of the Paris agreement. With experience in

greenhouse gas reporting companies such as Albany International AB will be able to have a smoother transition into that future.

5. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Big thanks Albany International AB for giving me the chance to work with this exciting project. A special thank you to Eva Eliasson for the help with getting information and listening to my ranting. Thanks to other Albany International AB employees Maria Ek, Daniel Berntsson, Christina Petterson, Marcus Kaschner, Kent Sjögren, Åsa Klintefors and Johan Savsäter. Thanks to employees of other companies that are involved in this project. A special thank you to Marie Mattsson for supervising my project for Halmstad University, Antonia Liess for being the examiner of the report and Mohana Naidu for being my opponent.

6. REFERENCES

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Henrik Olausson

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