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ACCT5961
Carbon Footprinting Exercise (20%)
Accounting
Summary
This activity will encourage students to start measuring their carbon footprint with the view that this
activity will persuade them to make a conscious effort to reduce their carbon footprint in future.
In Week 4 students were introduced several carbon footprinting tools/calculators to measure carbon
emissions. There is another method to calculate a carbon footprint. For example, carbon emissions
may be indirectly calculated using an Input-Output Analysis. This allows an individual or household
to keep track of their carbon footprint by keeping track of their expenses (or making an estimate) on
each line item provided. The amount spent on each item is converted into kg of CO2-e using a
formula derived by Integrated Sustainability Analysis (ISA) based on averages of the carbon footprint
of different products and producers using the Input-Output method.
Required:
1. Estimate your expenses on each item shown on the calculator for a week (by looking at credit
card bills or bank statements). Try to achieve the principle of completeness to make the
calculator more meaningful and reflective of your carbon footprint. In Addition, identify other
material expenses that you may have that was not considered (e.g., travel expense, rent
expense, car payments, large one-off purchases etc.).
2. Decide on the boundary. Some expenditures may be part of a household and therefore you
should make adjustments to obtain your share in the expenses. Note that this is your personal
carbon footprint so should be calculated from your perspective (one person only).
3. Calculate annualised expenses so this will result into a more meaningful depiction of your
emissions for a year allowing comparability with other data in the ISA calculator. Convert to
A$ using most recent exchange rate. If the line item is not applicable to you, leave this blank.
4. Input annualised expenses in the appropriate line item of the ISA calculator. If not specified,
put expenditure(s) under others.
5. When complete, take a screen shot of the calculator.
6. Prepare a report covering:
a) Brief explanation of what is an input-output analysis in the context of carbon foot printing.
b) Brief explanation on how you derived or calculated each input (e.g., information needed
and where obtained and how you determined your expenses, boundaries etc.)
2
c) Classify each activity (from expense line items in ISA worksheet) into sources of emissions
(i.e., Scope 1, Scope 2 or Scope 3).
d) Analyse and discuss the results derived from ISA GHG Calculator regarding your emissions
including hotspots (significant sources of emissions) and a reflection on the sources of
uncertainty/inaccuracies of the output derived.
e) Based on the excel spreadsheet, Identify your 3 “hotspots” (high carbon emission
activities). For each “hotspot” suggest an action that will reduce your future emissions.
f) Pick 2 inputs from Part b) and explain how you can improve the accuracy of the carbon
footprint. For example, you may use a different method to calculate the emission factors.
g) Submit no more than 3-Pages (including excel spreadsheet and references). Cover
page is excluded from page count.