Caption Data’s Marketing Manager, Danielle attended a workshop provided by The University of Birmingham’s ATETA project with Go Green Experts, the workshop which helps to offer SMEs simple solutions to reduce their carbon footprint and ultimately onto the path to carbon neutral.
The theme for the workshop is helping businesses towards net- zero based on the 6-step plan to carbon neutral.
What is ATETA?
- Low Carbon Energy innovation support for local SMEs
- 9 Research fellows
- Mechanical, Chemical, and Electrical & Systems Engineering
- Lab testing, prototyping, and desktop research
Key Project areas:
- Electrical: PV, battery storage, smart grids, power generation
- Thermal: heat storage tech, industrial heat recovery
- Mobility: Electric charging, battery, hydrogen fuel cells, alternative fuels for internal combustion engines (biofuels), energy waste tech
- Plus, whole energy system solutions, Carbon footprint analysis, new material development, and renewable power solutions.
Caption Data is committed to becoming carbon neutral and looks forward to sharing our aims and progress in the coming months. Data is a key part of understanding exactly ‘where we are now’ and highlighting ways to make both quick and long-term improvements on an organisational level. Part of the CDL sustainability strategy is to collect and monitor measurements including kWh, Currents/AMPS, Incoming Voltage, and Power Factor with the use of CDL’s Energy Remote Monitoring Solution.
What is Carbon footprinting?
- An estimate of the greenhouse gases emitted by an individual, event, organisation, or product
- Expressed as carbon dioxide equivalent
The Carbon cycle:
Greenhouse gases include:
Cost
Weight
Miles
Volume
Data from services
Kilowatt Hours (kWh) and energy measurements
Supplier, goods, or services carbon intensity
Freight Miles
Mode of transport
The 6-step plan for carbon neutrality is:
- Define the scope of aspects to be analysed
- CDL is both a service provider and a manufacturer
Gather and Collect Data
- Gather data on all aspects of the scope
- Collect data into one place
- Calculate carbon footprint
- Plan emissions reduction and monitor
- Mitigate and offset
- Communicate and influence
Define the scope to be analysed
Scope 1 emissions
Scope 1 covers emissions from sources that an organisation owns or controls directly – for example from burning fuel in our fleet of vehicles (if they’re not electrically powered).
Scope 2 emissions
Scope 2 are emissions that a company causes indirectly when the energy it purchases, and uses is produced. For example, for our electric fleet vehicles the emissions from the generation of the electricity they’re powered by would fall into this category.
Scope 3 emissions
Scope 3 encompasses emissions that are not produced by the company itself, and not the result of activities from assets owned or controlled by them, but by those that it’s indirectly responsible for, up and down its value chain. An example of this is when we buy, use and dispose of products from suppliers. Scope 3 emissions include all sources, not within the scope 1 and 2 boundaries.
The types of data we will collect
- Cost
- Weight
- Miles
- Volume
- Data from services
- Kilowatt Hours (kWh) and energy measurements
- Supplier, goods, or services carbon intensity
- Freight Miles
- Mode of transport
CDL’s Remote Energy Monitoring solution will be used to identify waste in energy usage and identify inefficient assets in order to increase operational efficiency whilst also maintaining and monitoring changes for success in overall energy usage reduction and reducing energy costs. This will be especially effective in scope 1 and scope 2, all this useful insightful data will be visible in the CDLSmartHub to be actioned.
Danielle said “There is no denying that sustainability is a big issue, and we all must take responsibility where we have control to reduce our impacts on the environment and carbon footprint, on both an individual and organisational basis. The workshop offered valuable insight into the next steps CDL need to undertake and what that could look like. The workshop also provided assurances on how CDL can help their clients present and new towards their carbon net-zero goals. I’m looking forward to being a part of these changes with CDL and creating a more sustainable future.”
How can CDL help you reach your business sustainability goals?
Many companies don’t have an asset-level understanding of energy consumption – this means they might have a view of total energy usage for a facility, but won’t know how much of this is lighting, heating, or production.
As part of Caption Data’s dedication to a sustainable future, we are committed to helping organisations understand their energy usage and energy-associated costs, we will work alongside your team on an operational level to help identify both quick and long terms gains to achieve your carbon net-zero targets and objectives. If this is something, you would like to speak to one of our experts about please get in touch here for a free demo.
