Comparative Assessment of Carbon Footprints of Selected Organizations: The Application of the Enhanced Bilan Carbone Model
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This submission provides interesting contribution to the organizational CF method development stream. Indeed, the global efforts on coping with carbon emission resulted the proliferation of different methodologies to measure CF at lower levels.
The method applied in this work and the results offer useful insights into the components and potential fields of development of organizational CF. However, I disagree with the relevance of comparing CF values of different organizations (and agreeing with the limitations of it presented in Section 3.4.). Calculating and presenting organizational CF can help of course highlighting the most influential components of CF and serve as a benckmark for future development.So of course it is useful to calculate the values for the 3 units, but not for the sake of comparing which is bigger, but to understand their structure, common patterns etc. On the contrary, temporal comparison of CFs for the same organizations can help in measuring the effectiveness in decarbonization. I recommend to elaborate more on these issues in Section 3.
Figure 4 ocvers data on per employee and per m2 CFs. In COVID times, when distance working gains more and more importance, how do you think the (structure of) organizational CFs will change? How does COVID influence meaningful organizational decarbonization strategies in the short and in the long term?
In the theoretical part, the authors provide a good review of the importance and development of organizational CF accounts. The only thing I missed here is covering the reliability issues of different calculation methods. Are there 'mainstream', easy to use calculation methods/calculators available for organizations? Or, is the results mainly depending on the calculation methods themselves? [For instance, a source on how different methods (and calculators) deliver significantly different results by using the same input - see e.g. Harangozo, G., & Szigeti, C., 2017: Corporate carbon footprint analysis in practice–with a special focus on validity and reliability issues. Journal of cleaner production, 167, 1177-1183.)].
Author Response
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Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The manuscript presents a detailed application of the Bilan Carbone model to estimate organisational carbon footprints. The methodology is well-explained, while the calculations adequately follow international standards, such as the WRI/WBCSD GHG Protocol Corporate Standard and ISO 14061 as well as the IPCC Good Practice Guidance to estimate uncertainties of greenhouse gas (GHG) inventories. In my viewpoint, the novelty of the manuscript (compared to other papers estimating organisational carbon footprints) is the use of process-based life cycle assessment (LCA) emission factors and physical activity data for inputs such as paper, plastic and meals as well as the introduction of amortisation in capital goods. Interesting and relevant comparison of carbon footprints using the GHG Protocol and the new ISO 14064 are discussed as well as the specific CF per employee and per heated area. Appropriate mitigation measures were selected to reduce the carbon footprints, and the estimation of the GHG reduction potential of the selected measures are adequately documented in a transparent manner. Overall, the manuscript presents the data appropriately with robust results supporting the conclusions. I believe that the article, methodology and results will be of interest to readers (academics and practitioners) in a wide range of fields, such as energy and carbon management, GHG accounting and climate change mitigation.
The general structure and order of individual subsections of the reviewed article have an adequate logic flow. The manuscript is also well written in an appropriate and understandable English language.
I would suggest that few aspects are clarified. Below are my comments in a consecutive order following the structure of the article.
Introduction
- Page 2, line 62: The article refers to GHG emission structures of organisations, but it is unclear what the authors specifically refer with “GHG emission structures”.
- Page 2, line 73: Similarly, what do the authors mean with “emission standards per unit of product”? The paper from Chen and Chen (2017) mentions these standards, but it is unclear how these standards can motivate organisations to improve their emission efficiency. Can the authors expand slightly on this?
- Page 2, lines 76-84: It may be advisable to use a common terminology to define emissions categories for regional or local carbon footprints, for example, in territorial and lifecycle-based or consumption-based. In my opinion, there are some internationally agreed methods to estimate carbon footprints at the city level, for example, the Global Protocol for Community-Scale Greenhouse Gas Emission Inventories (https://ghgprotocol.org/greenhouse-gas-protocol-accounting-reporting-standard-cities) or the EU Covenant of Mayors Climate and Energy Reporting Guidelines (https://www.covenantofmayors.eu/IMG/pdf/Covenant_ReportingGuidelines.pdf). However, these guidelines are not mentioned in the manuscript.
- Pages 2-3, lines 92-100: Although the GHG Protocol Corporate Standard and the ISO 14064 are discussed later in the manuscript, it would be advisable to also mention these standards in the introduction to provide a better context of organisational carbon footprints. For example, indirect scope 3 emissions are mentioned in line 95, but some readers may not be familiar with this categorisation of emissions.
Materials and methods
The methodology is explained in good detail and in a transparent manner, including data sources and assumptions.
Minor comments:
- Page 6, lines 218-219: If activity data for paper and plastic were estimated from bills, how was the activity data in spend transformed to kilograms of paper and plastic? Please clarify.
- Page 6, lines 219-220: Please clarify how the activity data for meals was estimated.
Results and Discussions
Results are explained in good detail, including the rationale behind the results and the differences among selected organisations and estimations of uncertainties Tables and Figures in the main text and in the supplementary material are well presented and adequately documented. Limitations for the comparison of CF results (section 3.4) are acknowledged, for example, not being able to use the same set of input data and emission factors for the estimation of emissions of the paper transport (page 9, lines 341-346). Comparison between estimation methods and specific emissions are critically discussed. Estimation of the GHG reduction potential of selected measures are adequately explained in section 3.5 and the assumptions considered are well documented in Table 4.
Conclusions
Conclusions adequately summarised the main results of the manuscript and potential applications, while previous sections present a discussion of results compared to previously published papers and some limitations of the results.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
The proposed research «Comparative assessment of carbon footprints of selected organizations: The application of the enhanced Bilan Carbone model» falls within the scope of Sustainability. According to the reviewer’s opinion, minor revisions are required in order to accept this research study for publication in Sustainability.Please, comply with the following suggestions and comments:
Comment 1: The paper is in general well accompanied of clear explanations.However, questions that need to be answered: Why your study is important? How it extend the existing knowledge on the issue/topic? Concluding remarks – authors must elaborate more on what is their contribution to the literature.
Comment 2: I think that some additional figures would help to the better analysis of the subject.
Comment 3:Finally, when you submit the corrected version, please do check thoroughly, in order to avoid grammar, syntax or structure/presentation flaws - please seek for professional English proofreading services or ask a native English-speaking colleague of yours in order to refine and improve the English in your paper.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
Dear authors
After careful reading of the manuscript entitled "Comparative assessment of carbon footprints of selected organizations: The application of the enhanced Bilan Carbone model "; here are the comments.
- Figure 1. Classification of GHG emissions into the corresponding scopes and categories// can you explain elaborately.
- When calculating GHG emissions, all relevant activities in the following ten categories were considered// Better to discuss why it needs to.
- Table 1. CFs of three organizations by the BC emission categories in 2017// Don't have any recent reports?
- Again in Table 2 also.
- Uncertainty @ L280// Why don't you discussed the Uncertainty in section 2. Please provide the formula.
- Figure 3. The CFs of three organizations (bars) and uncertainties of calculation (black line).// error bars belong to Standard deviation of?
- Figure 4. The three organizations compared by their CF per employee (a) and per heated area (b).// kindly suggest to adding the error bars.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
