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Climate partners and their services

The first step towards climate neutrality should always be the same, for private individuals and companies alike: find out what your own carbon footprint looks like. You can’t work on reducing your own emissions until you know how much you are emitting.

For private individuals, there are a range of websites and resources available for this purpose, such as the carbon footprint calculators from the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) or the German Environment Agency (UBA). The UBA also offers a brochure, ‘A climate-neutral lifestyle’, which provides numerous everyday tips on reducing carbon emissions.

For companies, it can be helpful to have an initial analysis conducted by a dedicated climate partner; this analysis will thoroughly scrutinise all the company’s business processes, collate the necessary information and, based on this insight, deliver a recommendation regarding which processes can be made more environmentally friendly. The analysis creates transparency and is a good starting point for the rest of the process.

 

Service providers such as Germany-based ClimatePartner and Planetly offer all-in-one solutions for companies that hope to achieve climate neutrality. These climate partners collect all the relevant information about the company at the beginning of the process and use it to calculate the company’s carbon footprint. The carbon footprint is broken down into ‘scopes’[1] in accordance with the Greenhouse Gas Protocol (GHG Protocol):

  • Scope 1 comprises direct emissions, such as those from the company’s vehicle fleet 
  • Scope 2 covers indirect emissions, such as the electricity consumption of an office or building 
  • Scope 3 comprises a range of indirect emissions generated along the entire value chain, such as raw materials, logistics, business travel, employee commutes, and much more

Die größten Emissionsquellen in kg CO2 am Beispiel von Daten des gamegame’s largest sources of emissions for its entire operations, in kg CO2. The data was collected by ClimatePartner.[2]

This data helps the company identify the areas with the greatest potential for reducing emissions. It serves as the foundation for a company-wide climate strategy, with the aim of limiting the company’s own emissions and reducing the carbon footprint of the entire company. Even small changes can make a difference, such as switching to green energy, reducing the use of printed documents or establishing a car-sharing pool for employees.

In addition to reducing carbon emissions, offsetting is an important factor. Organisations such as ClimatePartner and Planetly can help here as well. They offer several certified climate protection projects that companies can support, for instance. Companies can offset their own emissions by supporting projects such as biogas plants in India, clean drinking water in Madagascar or forest protection in Kenya.

[1] https://www.climatepartner.com/de/leistungen/ccf

[2] Report on the carbon footprint of game – the German Games Industry Association for the year 2019, compiled by ClimatePartner.