Carbon footprint is the amount of carbon dioxide emissions associated with the activities of an entity

A carbon footprint is the total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions caused directly and indirectly by an individual, organization or event. A carbon footprint measures the impact our activities have on our environment, and in particular climate change. Even though the focus is on carbon dioxide, there are other gases that contribute to this greenhouse effect such as methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O). In order to calculate the contribution of each gas, there is a parameter called the Global Warming Potential (GWP) that compares the heating power of a certain mass of this greenhouse gas with the heating power of the same amount of CO2, so that the effect of these different gases can be calculated with the same unit of measurement, called CO2 equivalent (CO2e). The emission of 1 kg of nitrous oxide (N2O) equals 298 kg of CO2 equivalents, and the emission of 1 kg of methane (CH4) is equal to 25 kg CO2 equivalents. Companies, institutions and government agencies are increasingly responding to customer and regulatory demand for carbon footprint reporting. Stakeholders are looking for independent verification that organizations are meeting their net zero promises and are on track with both near (2030) and long (2050) term targets. The GHG emissions must be verified annually to demonstrate your progress against defined targets, and it should follow an internationally accepted standard, such as: ISO 14064-1 – International Standard for GHG Inventories and Verification. Your annual GHG inventory report should contain evidence of your data collection system, consolidation approach, operational boundaries, emissions and exclusions, base year recalculation policy and GHG calculations.