Climate Crisis

Are the tools for measuring greenhouse gas emissions fit for purpose?

Thinking in a Climate Emergency: The more you look, the more climate and environmental impacts you find. So lines must be drawn and this is where legal responsibility tends to trump ethical responsibility

A close reading of Ryanair's strategy shows the company has no coherent strategy to stay within national or science-based carbon budgets or meet the EU’s likely 2040 target of reducing emissions by 90 per cent. Photograph: Chris Radburn/PA Wire

Sadhbh O'Neill
Thu Jun 27 2024 - 06:00

Firms, organisations and even state bodies are all busying themselves with climate and sustainability reporting these days. In theory, measuring emissions better should help reduce them. But greenhouse gas (GHG) reporting standards are becoming rote tick-box exercises instead of challenging companies and institutions to rethink economic and business models.

The Greenhouse Gas Protocol, the leading tool for measuring a company’s emissions, is a useful and transparent methodology. However, it too has been criticised for its complexity as well as the potential for double counting of emissions.

A serious challenge for emissions reporting is that Scope 3 (or indirect emissions from activities in a company’s supply chain) are notoriously difficult to quantify, much less control. Embarking on a GHG assessment throws up what is almost a metaphysical problem of determining system boundaries: what should be counted and what should be left out.

Take a pair of jeans for example. There is the energy involved in making the jeans, also that for weaving the fabric, the threads and manufacturing the zips and buttons; the transport back and forth of all these materials, and the consumption of energy and resources all the way to the end consumer. The more you look, the more climate and environmental impacts you find. So lines must be drawn and this is where legal responsibility tends to trump ethical responsibility.

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There is also growing pressure for changes in the methodology to allow companies to report avoided emissions (which would be termed Scope 4 emissions) and give themselves credit for emission reductions as a result of, for example, more efficient appliances or services. For some companies whose “products” have long shelf lives and payback periods like roads, aircraft or pipelines, this would lead to them reporting emissions reductions with, for example, recycled aggregates and biomethane in the gas grid. Unfortunately, the GHG protocol does not capture the problem of cumulative effects, induced demand or carbon lock-in as a result of new path dependencies created.

Even if a company or agency is transparent about its climate impact, this does not always translate into the actions and strategies that will lead to immediate emission reductions. For example, Ryanair’s 2023 sustainability report “Aviation with Purpose” states the company supports the Paris Agreement, the UN Global Compact and the Sustainable Development Goals. However the company is still planning to approximately double its overall emissions to 2035, while reducing emissions on a per passenger kilometre basis.

In Ryanair’s case, the climate impact of each passenger kilometre is relatively low, but a close reading of its strategy shows that the company has no coherent strategy to stay within national or science-based carbon budgets or meet the EU’s likely 2040 target of reducing emissions by 90 per cent. In fact, all of Ryanair’s impressive-sounding targets are set against a backdrop of an unsustainable growth in passenger numbers and overall emissions.

Ryanair aims to achieve its “net zero” goal by 2050 largely by improving emission intensity rather than reducing its absolute greenhouse gas impact, using technology (32 per cent), sustainable aviation fuel (34 per cent) air traffic control improvements (10 per cent), and offsetting (24 per cent).

The company has no strategy for managing travel demand sustainably (though it has made considerable improvements in operational and technical efficiencies) and in fact reports heightened public awareness, a shift away from air travel and the potential for climate-related constraints on short-haul flights as potential risks for its revenues. There is no sense reading this report of an industry that might be facing an existential challenge, since the cost of sustainable aviation fuel – even if it were available in time – is likely to be quadruple that of kerosene.

When it comes to sustainability strategies, Ryanair is at least honest in putting its goal of maximising profit in front of everything else and of mitigating climate risks with aggressive communications and branding strategies. This is common across industries whose business models are premised on significant growth and expansion. Targets and baselines are chosen to reflect what is convenient, profitable and doable, not what is scientifically necessary.

If every industry was reporting its GHG emissions accurately across its entire supply chain, then surely sustainability officers would be backing up the claims by scientists that we are on course to see somewhere between 2.5-3 degrees of catastrophic global warming.

I would expect them to be clamouring for stronger mitigation policies, restrictions on fossil fuel supply and use and the regulation of advertising claims. They would be shouting from the rooftops that their data is showing we are on course to blow through the carbon budgets and planetary boundaries.

They would be alerting their shareholders, customers, policymakers and investors to the heightened risk of financial system meltdowns, higher insurance premiums, liability for climate and environmental damages and the most obvious impact of all, lower profits.

Sadhbh O’Neill is a climate and environmental researcher

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