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Carbon Footprinting in Supply Chains

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Sustainable Supply Chains

Part of the book series: Springer Series in Supply Chain Management ((SSSCM,volume 4))

Abstract

This chapter presents an overview of the methods and challenges behind carbon footprinting at the supply chain level. We start by providing some information about the scientific background on climate change. This information is necessary to clarify the overall methodology behind carbon footprinting measurement. We also briefly review the main motivations for carbon footprinting. Then we propose an overview of the main methods available to measure a carbon footprint at the supply chain level. We propose to organize these methods in function of the quantity of information required, and we highlight a trade-off between the scope of measurement chosen and the accuracy of the estimation made. We continue by emphasizing the importance of supply chain (Scope 3) emissions in many supply chains. Finally, the chapter also discusses some challenges related to supply chain carbon footprinting. We specifically consider how to get information in practice, what level of accuracy is needed and how to extend the horizons beyond carbon.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    IPCC is the leading international body for the assessment of climate change (http://www.ipcc.ch/).

  2. 2.

    The Kyoto Protocol commits its parties by setting internationally binding carbon emission reduction targets (UNFCCC, 2014): 5 % against 1990 levels during the first commitment period (2008–2012) and at least 18 % below 1990 levels during the second commitment period (2013–2020).

  3. 3.

    The CDP is an international organization that holds the largest collection of climate change-, water-, and forestry-related data reported by companies (https://www.cdp.net/). More than 5 000 companies report to CDP every year. For instance, in 2013, 334 firms in the S&P 500 index have disclosed their emissions to CDP (CDP 2015).

  4. 4.

    See https://www.cdp.net/en-US/WhatWeDo/Pages/investors.aspx, last accessed December 2, 2015.

  5. 5.

    Where appropriate, we quote extensively directly from the GHG Protocol throughout this chapter.

  6. 6.

    See http://www.ghgprotocol.org/standards/corporate-standard, last accessed December 1, 2015.

  7. 7.

    This section draws on “The GHG Protocol Corporate Value Chain (Scope 3) Accounting and Reporting Standard” (WRI and WBCSD 2011a) and on Caro et al. (2013), both of which sources we cite at various points throughout this section.

  8. 8.

    See for instance http://www.dhl.com/en/logistics/green_logistics_solutions.html, last accessed December 2, 2015.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laval University, Leiden, Netherlands

    Tasseda Boukherroub

  2. Axe Logistique Terre Mer Risque, Ecole de Management de Normandie, Le Havre, France

    Yann Bouchery

  3. Anderson School of Management, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Charles J. Corbett

  4. School of Industrial Engineering, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands

    Jan C. Fransoo & Tarkan Tan

Authors
  1. Tasseda Boukherroub
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  2. Yann Bouchery
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  3. Charles J. Corbett
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  4. Jan C. Fransoo
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  5. Tarkan Tan
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Tasseda Boukherroub .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Axe Logistique Terre Mer Risque, Ecole de Management de Normandie, Le Havre, France

    Yann Bouchery

  2. Anderson School of Management, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USA

    Charles J. Corbett

  3. School of Industrial Engineering, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands

    Jan C. Fransoo

  4. School of Industrial Engineering, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands

    Tarkan Tan

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© 2017 Yann Bouchery, Charles J. Corbett, Jan C. Fransoo, and Tarkan Tan

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Boukherroub, T., Bouchery, Y., Corbett, C.J., Fransoo, J.C., Tan, T. (2017). Carbon Footprinting in Supply Chains. In: Bouchery, Y., Corbett, C., Fransoo, J., Tan, T. (eds) Sustainable Supply Chains. Springer Series in Supply Chain Management, vol 4. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-29791-0_3

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