Abstract
Given that the pressure of climate change action on companies is increasing, it is recommended to measure the improvement of mitigation activities in terms of GHG emissions. This paper aims to highlight the still-open aspects that characterise simplified GHG accounting tools, starting from the outcomes of a case study. This study was performed using a simplified Italian software for the CO2 eq accounting of composting and anaerobic digestion, two mitigation activities that contribute an important share of global GHG emissions reduction. The tool is based on the life-cycle thinking approach. It has been applied to an Italian company that treats the organic fraction of municipal solid waste. The tool analysis has made it possible to stress several issues that are currently the object of debate in the literature, for example, the trade-off between the flexibility of the software and its user friendliness or the multifunctionality issues and their different interpretations. However, focusing on just one impact category, i.e., climate change, may lead to an incomplete picture of the overall environmental performance of the process analysed. Therefore, this tool could be improved by including other impact categories, such as eutrophication and acidification, which may be affected by the studied activities.
Highlights
The role of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions as a major cause of climate change has long been stressed by the scientific community [1,2,3,4] as well as the urgency to make effective decisions [5]
To avoid giving an excessive feeling of accuracy, the software developers decided that the GHG emission values are to be displayed on the overview page by showing only a few significant figures
The computational model calculates the emissions balance starting from non-approximate values; this may result in inaccuracies in the displayed balance [54]
Summary
The role of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions as a major cause of climate change has long been stressed by the scientific community [1,2,3,4] as well as the urgency to make effective decisions [5]. Substituting fossil fuels with renewable energy and decarbonising the energy sector [12] can help addressing climate change. Renewable energy promotion is amongst the goals of the European Union’s energy policy [13] and several other international commitments, such as the Paris Agreement [14]. In such a context, it is essential to adopt cleaner technologies aimed at mitigating global warming and, at the same time, to measure their climate performance in order to verify their effectiveness
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