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Figure 8: Scope 1, Scope 2 and Scope 3 emissions
3 Wagga Wagga City Council’s carbon footprint
This section describes types of greenhouse gas emissions and Council’s current carbon footprint.
3.1 Scope 1, scope 2 and scope 3 emissions
To help differentiate between different greenhouse gas emission sources, emissions are classified into the following scopes according to the GHG Protocol11 – Corporate Standard:
• Scope 1 emissions are emissions directly generated at your operations such as the production and treatment of waste, burning natural gas, driving company vehicles and plant, or leakage of refrigerant gases from your air conditioning equipment.
• Scope 2 emissions are caused indirectly by consuming electricity. Emissions are generated outside your organisation (e.g. coal-fired power), but you are indirectly responsible for them.
• Scope 3 emissions are also indirect emissions and happen upstream and downstream of your business. Typical examples are air travel, the consumption of goods and services, contractor emissions, or leased assets.
FIGURE 8: SCOPE 1, SCOPE 2 AND SCOPE 3 EMISSIONS
Under this strategy, emissions from waste are analysed as a scope 1 source. The landfill site is owned and operated by Council and therefore these emissions are regarded as directly produced by Council even though they represent emissions resulting from the community’s activities.
At this time, Wagga Wagga City Council’s carbon footprint coverage is limited to emissions relating to energy and waste from Council’s operations, including energy for facilities and transport, and emissions from waste for both landfill and wastewater operations. A full scope 3 assessment of emissions has not been conducted, and this can be considered by Council as its journey towards net zero emissions progresses. At that time, Council’s emissions analysis would likely be done in accordance with the Australian Government’s Climate Active Standard12 .
11 https://ghgprotocol.org/ 12 The Climate Active program is delivered by the Australian Government Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources (DISER)
