1. Sustainable business and organisations:
The Development of Commercial Local Area
Resource and Emissions Modelling.
Peter Bradley
RESOLVE
27/11/12.

2. Emissions accounting and
reporting gaps
• The presentation addresses the vexed issue of
operationalising environmental reporting and resource
efficiency.
• UK GHG, waste and water use targets: action required;
• Some progress but many businesses are not accounting
and reporting in the required manner, let alone
referencing wider targets;
• Detailed government and non government datasets on
GHG emissions, wastes and water use do not exist to fill
the gaps;

3. Methodological gaps
• Gaps between ‘micro’ and ‘macro’ top down models.
• Lack of an environmental input-output modelling
perspective consistent with life cycle analysis, that can
inform sustainable procurement of business.

4. Resource efficiency and
environmental reporting
Need for a ‘champion’
Need for environmental Development of networks
credentials in business
Avoiding diversion from
Need for support in acting core business
Elements of need:
business
Difficulty in understanding Infrastructure support
importance of acting
Need to encourage changes in More quantitative data to help
behaviour businesses benchmark
The need for scale
Elements of need: business

5. Resource efficiency and
environmental reporting
To aid sectors realisation of
economic and environmental
benefits
To help ensure that national To provide understanding &
targets are met reports of businesses impacts
and opportunities
Elements of need:
Government
identify the importance of acting To provide and prioritise
and changes in community support to businesses
behaviour and
To facilitate economies of scale To develop and prioritise
infrastructure to aid business
resource efficiency
Elements of need: government

6. RESOLVE models
Output: direct SELMA
and indirect Estimation of embodied
emissions GHG emissions attributable
attributable to to final demand (excluding
households exports) at the national
consumption and level.
lifestyle choices
Output: direct and
indirect GHG
emissions, wastes
CLARE and water use LARA
Estimation of estimated for Estimation of
direct & indirect GHG businesses direct & indirect resource
emissions, wastes and & emissions attributable
water use resulting from to households at
businesses activities a local level
at a local level Output: direct and indirect
household resource use and
emissions

7. Definition of direct and indirect
• Direct: those emissions and water use occurring on site
• Indirect: broadly, those emissions and water use
generated off site but within the supply chain of the
business
• Broadly in line with Publicly Available Specification 2050
(BSI 2008);

8. Specific objectives of CLARE
GHG
1.
Direct for Individual
waste businesses
water
GHG
2.
Direct for all businesses
in an area
3. Indirect for one business
or all businesses
in an area

9. CLARE Applications:
Educates business
on their impact and
the expected
changes to be
achieved
Breaking down
of targets Provides business
identifies, an with a starting
obligation benchmark
Estimates for
individual business
Enables national or Allows local
sector specific targets authorities to put into
to be broken down by action efficient ‘soft
business, to a locality, regulation & progress
and individual monitoring’
business targets to be
set.

10. CLARE Applications:
Allows efficient estimation
in specific areas and by
whom, of use for planning
infrastructure and strategy
Provides local
Allows local
authorities with an
government to
estimation of GHG
go further than
emissions, wastes
just waste Estimation for
and water use in a
diversion business within an
given area
area
Tool potentially
Allows targets and
enables businesses
priorities to be set for
of a local area to be
specific areas
confronted with
their impacts as a
group of leaders

11. CLARE Perspectives
Production perspective: emissions and water use that
directly arise from direct activity in different sectors;
Provision perspective: emissions and water use that
occur upstream of a business in order to provide the
inputs to a businesses production.

12. Framework and methods
CLARE
EIO
CLARE-direct
CLARE-indirect
Estimates of GHG emissions, wastes and
water use for business in a local area
Copyright of University of Surrey and ONS

13. System diagram of CLARE–
direct
Business Structure Annual Respondents Data- UK emissions &
Database base turnover (or GVA) by sector
Number of employees Average annual turn-
(size band) and SIC code of Emissions
over (or GVA) per employee per £1M turnover (or GVA)
business in a specific for SIC sector employee
geographical for SIC coded sectors
size band (£M)
location
Turnover of
the business (o)
Emissions of a
SIC coded business (o)
within a specific
area
Copyright of University of Surrey and ONS

14. System diagram of CLARE-
indirect
Total embodied indirect Total turnover
Annual Respondents
Business Structure emissions attributable to the for the sector or sub sector
Database
Database sector from environmental from the Annual Business
input-output Enquiry
Number of employees (size
Average £ turnover per
band) and SIC code of a
employee for a size band
business in a specific
business of a specific
geographical
sector
location
Total estimated £ of
Embodied indirect emissions
turnover for business (o),
per £ of turnover
which has a specific SIC
sector and size band
Embodied indirect
Emissions of
business (o) in a specific
geographic location
for a year
Copyright of University of Surrey and ONS

15. Case study: carbon(e) and food
waste for Hospitality,
Southampton 2004

16. Hospitality carbon(e) added by
postcode district
45
40
35
30
Thousands tonnes
25 Production perspective
carbon(e) added - CO2e
20
Provision perspective
15 carbon (e) added - CO2e
10
5
0
SO14 SO15 SO16 SO17 SO18 SO19

17. Hospitality food waste added by
postcode district
3
3
2
Thousands tonnes
Production perspective
2 food waste added
Provision perspective
1 food waste added
1
0
SO14 SO15 SO16 SO17 SO18 SO19

18. Hospitality food waste added by
postcode sectors
1600
1400
1200
Indirect
1000 food
waste
Tonnes
800 (tonnes)
600
Direct
food
400
waste
200 (tonnes)
0
SO14 0 SO14 1 SO14 2 SO14 3 SO14 5 SO14 6 S014 7

19. Restaurants located in postcode
district SO14

20. Scenario: A restaurant’s food
waste
60
50
40 Indirect
food waste
Tonnes
(tonnes)
30
20 Direct
food waste
10 (tonnes)
0
Retaurant business with 25 employees

21. Elements of need that can be
addressed
?
Need for a ‘champion’
Need for environmental
credentials in business
x Development of networks
Avoiding diversion from
Need for support in acting core business
Elements of need:
business
?
Difficulty in understanding Infrastructure support
importance of acting
Need to encourage changes in ? More quantitative data to help
behaviour businesses benchmark
The need for scale
Elements of need: business

22. Elements of need that can be
addressed
To aid sectors realisation of
economic and environmental
benefits
To help ensure that national To provide understanding &
targets are met reports of businesses impacts
and opportunities
?
Elements of need:
Government
identify the importance of acting To provide and prioritise
and changes in community
behaviour and ? support to businesses
To facilitate economies of scale To develop and prioritise
infrastructure to aid business
resource efficiency
Elements of need: government

23. Discussion
Two key contributions:
1. A new model
2. A new perspective.
Bridging the gap: CLARE enables efficient estimation
of very detailed direct and indirect emissions estimates,
with coverage of all relevant businesses in an area.
Bridging the gap: Estimates comparable across
different entities, using consistent data, methods and
system boundaries and a transparent approach;

24. The new model
Provides detail and coverage and accounts for
production as well as provision impacts
Without detail and coverage – cannot effectively engage
recognition and action of businesses in an area
Without detail and coverage – cannot prioritise products,
businesses, areas and inform local planning activities
CLARE estimate – not a substitute for actual
measurement and reporting

25. The new perspective
Provides an understanding of the amount of upstream
(indirect) emissions embodied in purchases (of inputs)
by a business; the indirect carbon(e) added when
summed up.
Identifies the amount of indirect emissions that a
business can have influence over via sustainable
procurement.
Production + provision perspective = total emissions
attributable to production.

26. The new perspective
Complements the production and consumption and
shared responsibility perspectives, but provides a more
holistic picture, consistent with LCA and specific to
sustainable procurement.
Care must however be taken when applying across
different sectors - risk of double counting if estimates
from different sectors are combined. See Bradley et al
(2012a):

27. Next steps
Extend the model to estimate upstream emissions
emitted within the reference jurisdiction;
Apply the water model in conjunction with local water
availability data to inform potential local resource
‘bottlenecks’
Use CLARE to provide the basis for new systems as
called for by Jones (2009) and Lamberton (2005);
Apply the provision perspective to other sectors

28. Acknowledgments
"This work contains statistical data from ONS which is
Crown copyright and reproduced with the permission of
the controller of HMSO and Queen's Printer for Scotland.
The use of the ONS statistical data in this work does not
imply the endorsement of the ONS in relation to the
interpretation or analysis of the statistical data. This work
uses research datasets which may not exactly reproduce
National Statistics aggregates.”
I wish to thank the Engineering and Physical Sciences
Research Council and the Economic and Social
Research Council for their funding of my work.

29. Thank you for listening!
☺
p.bradley@surrey.ac.uk

30. Journal papers
Bradley P, T Jackson, A Druckman (2012a). “Commercial local area resource
and emissions modelling – navigating towards new perspectives and
applications”. Journal of Cleaner Production (accepted and in Press).
Bradley P., M. Leach and J. Torriti (2012b). “A review of the costs and benefits
of demand response for electricity in the UK”. Energy Policy (accepted and
in Press). Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2012.09.039
Bradley P., C. Thomas, A. Druckman and T. Jackson. (2009) “Accounting for
Waste: comparative analysis within the UK.” Institution of Civil Engineers,
Journal of Waste and Resource Management. Vol. 162, issue 1 pp. 5-13.
Druckman A, P. Bradley, E. Papathanasopoulou, T. Jackson (2008).
“Measuring progress towards carbon reduction in the UK”. Ecological
Economics vol. 66 issue 4, pp. 594-604.