72% of SME managers have never considered carrying out carbon accounting, according to the collective research project "Accounting and Carbon Strategy for SMEs" funded by ADEME, the French Agency for Ecological Transition.
Yet it's a subject that's becoming increasingly important as the climate emergency takes center stage. So what is carbon accounting, and why is it so important in ecological transition policies?
Heating premises, moving around using fossil fuels (gas, petroleum fuels...), burning our garbage, producing raw materials, raising livestock, using agricultural fertilizers or decomposing our waste, etc. all our activities emit greenhouse gases (GHGs), like CO₂.
Every company, even in the tertiary sector, uses energy, products or services whose design, use and end-of-life have produced GHGs. Directly or indirectly, they therefore have a carbon footprint. The first step in a reduction strategy is to measure this footprint using carbon accounting.
While the first traces of accounting date back to antiquity, the discipline of carbon accounting is much more recent. The first tools for carbon accounting date back to the early 2000s: 2001 for the first edition of the GHG protocol, 2003 for the first version of the Bilan Carbone® method developed by ADEME.
While there is no single definition of carbon accounting, there are several common elements, according to researchers Kristin Stechemesser and Edeltraud Günther:
According to ADEME, carbon accounting involves quantifying all the emissions produced by a company's activity. The aim is to take stock of the situation in order to identify levers for action to reduce emissions.
There are several methods for doing this. The first, developed by ADEME in the early 2000s, is comprehensive and covers all a company's emission sources: energy, goods, services, freight, fugitive emissions linked to air conditioning, travel, fixed assets, waste, product end-of-life, etc. It is currently managed by the Bilan Carbone Association, which holds the rights and trains companies and consultants in its use.
A later development, the Bilan GES (orBEGES ) is a regulatory method introduced in 2010 when the French government decided to make carbon accounting mandatory for very large companies. In practical terms, it is also an assessment of the annual quantity of greenhouse gases emitted by a company's activities. The regulations use a predefined classification: scopes.
To draw up a GHG balance sheet, you need to calculate the emissions relating to these scopes - although only scopes 1 & 2 are mandatory for publishing your balance sheet - and report them using a predefined format. They correspond to the origin of emissions:
In France, since 2010, the Grenelle II law has obliged large companies (+500 employees in mainland France, +250 in overseas territories), local authorities with more than 50,000 inhabitants (regions, départements, communes, etc.), public establishments (+250 employees) and government departments to publish a GHG balance sheet.
For companies with fewer than 500 employees, particularly small and medium-sized businesses, there is no legal obligation at this stage, but the subject is increasingly coming to the fore in public debate. The Citizens' Climate Convention (CCC), for example, has proposed extending the scope of the regulatory BEGES to all companies.
While this CCC proposal has yet to be put into practice, the Finance Bill for 2021, which was voted on in December 2020, has already conditioned aid from the post-COVID Recovery Plan on the establishment of a simplified carbon footprint measurement for companies with more than 50 employees (awaiting clarification by decree).
To help companies, Keewe has developed Photo Carbone, a tool that provides a comprehensive estimate of their carbon footprint. Developed in partnership with the Bilan Carbone Association, Photo Carbone gives you an overview of your emissions, classifying them into intuitive, easy-to-use categories. Photo Carbone also enables you to calculate the BilanGES scopes 1 & 2 and report it in the form required by current regulations.
According to Kristin Stechemesser and Edeltraud Günther, carbon accounting assesses greenhouse gas emissions for both internal (management accounting) and external (financial accounting) purposes.
At Keewe, we believe that the internal goal is paramount: knowing where your company's main sources of emissions are located is essential to implementing reduction actions. It's the formula " Count to know, Know to act, Act to reduce " set out in the parliamentary report published ahead of the Grenelle II law in 2010. What's more, given the future trend in fossil fuel prices, it's important to assess our carbon dependency in order to build alternatives today.
We also believe that the purpose of external reporting is crucial, as carbon accounting could become an integral part of the "classic" (or financial) accounting that we are used to handling in our companies. Firstly, because of the regulatory changes we mentioned earlier, which are considerably strengthening carbon accounting requirements. But also because of the market, which is increasingly sensitive to companies' commitments (consumers, large companies looking at their suppliers, employees, etc.).
That's why Keewe wants to provide its customers with the tools they need to manage carbon internally (to identify and reduce your emissions) and to present and communicate this data to the outside world. to anticipate future regulatory changes and demonstrate your commitment to your partners, customers, suppliers, government and local authorities, etc.