Methodology for Carbon Footprint Calculation Towards Sustainable Innovation in Intangible Assets

Edurne Loyarte-López, Mario Barral and Juan Carlos Morla
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Edurne Loyarte-López: Vicomtech, 20009 San Sebastián, Spain
Mario Barral: Vicomtech, 20009 San Sebastián, Spain
Juan Carlos Morla: Sonder Consulting, 48630 Elexalde—Gorliz, Spain

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 4, 1-14

Abstract: Calculating the carbon footprint is fundamental to understand how an organization’s activities impact global sustainability. The main challenge is how to calculate it when environmental aspects are intangible assets. The present paper investigates in what ways the environmental effects of 13 aspects in relation with R&D activities in an applied research center could contribute to sustainable development. For this purpose, we described methodology to routinely measure greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and calculate the carbon footprint (CF) of all research activities related to intangible assets (R&D projects, researchers’ knowledge and software libraries) with real-time data being provided. Selection of conversion factors to express all GHG emissions are described, in particular those related to air travel on account of its greatest contribution to CF. In addition, these data were used as a factor in assessing the environmental impact of the center, under ISO 14001. As a result, our center can manage its CF and make decisions about how to enhance sustainability awareness at all levels of the organization and gradually improve CF data, of which the main contributors were transportation and travel (66.4%) and electricity (33.1%) in 2018.

Keywords: carbon footprint; sustainability awareness; environmental impact; intangible assets; research; innovation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

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