Adding a Waste Card
Continia Sustainability Environmental Accounts include a default emission source for waste, enabling companies to report and monitor GHG emissions associated with waste produced through the company’s operations. With the Environmental account, the user can track and calculate emissions related to the treatment, recycling, disposal, and incineration of produced waste.
Scope
Waste treatment and disposal activities contribute to emissions categorized under Scope 3, Category 5 – Waste Disposal. Emissions that result from both wastewater treatment and waste transportation are classified under the same category.
To gather the data
When assessing emissions related to Waste Disposal, it is crucial to gather comprehensive data. Best practice involves collecting physical metrics such as the volume or weight of waste generated during the reporting period. Additionally, it is essential to capture data on the treatment methods applied to each waste fraction, including recycling, composting, incineration, or landfilling. Companies can easily access this information from waste management service providers or national waste registers, depending on the regulatory framework in their respective countries. While it's acceptable to gather expenditure data, it's not the best option because costs can change rapidly due to market fluctuations, currency variations, and inflation.
Note
The GHG protocol allows companies to report transportation emissions related to waste, but Continia Sustainability doesn't support this reporting feature.
To add a Waste card
After understanding how you can gather data to track Waste emissions sources, you can implement Waste cards. These cards provide flexibility in categorizing operations with as much granularity as necessary. For example, you can create broad categories encompassing all emissions related to waste types (plastic, paper, etc.), or you can delve into various materials distinguished by their chemical and structural properties (HDPE, PVC, etc.). Providing detailed information facilitates a more thorough assessment and enables proactive measures to optimize material sourcing and usage, ultimately leading to a reduction in overall emissions.
To add a Waste card:
Use the
icon, enter Waste, and select the related link.On the action bar, select New.
On the Waste card, you can now enter information for, for example, the account type and the Emission Factor Set that you want to connect your data to. Additionally, in order for the system to use a meaningful emission factor, you must either provide the Disposal Method Code or choose a fixed emission factor. For more information on disposal methods, refer to the Setting up Waste Disposal Methods article.
Once in use, the card also shows you the total accumulated carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) emissions balance, the last data modified, and so on. For more information on how to fill out these fields, refer to The Fields on the Environmental Account Card article.
After adding the relevant categories of Waste, the main page will provide an overview of the types and emissions balance, among other details. This page can be particularly useful for analyzing how various item types or suppliers impact your company’s footprint and help you better manage each of them.