You produce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from this activity if your organization ships goods through a third-party provider that drives packages to their destinations. This includes goods you deliver to clients as well as goods that are delivered to you. This is a Scope 3 (indirect) emission.
Enter your shipping data into Climate Smart to calculate the emissions from your inventory period.
On this page:
- Examples of emission sources
- Prepare the data you need
- Find your emissions data
- Enter data into your inventory
Examples of emission sources
Not sure if you should report this emissions source? Here are some examples of activities that you should consider tracking in your inventory.
Outbound Shipping
- A local courier delivers documents or equipment to nearby clients
- A courier company such as FedEx, UPS, or DHL delivers products to clients by ground shipping
- You mail parcels to clients or other organizations through the postal service (for example, Canada Post) by ground shipping
Inbound Shipping
- Your organization receives products or materials from suppliers to assemble your products
Prepare the data you need
To get your emissions data ready for Climate Smart, choose one of the following options based on the information that’s available to you. This will be the method you use to calculate the GHGs emitted by your organization’s activities.
Remember to collect information for the relevant inventory year.
Option 1: Estimate by distance (portion of shipping vehicle)
Your shipping provider might deliver goods for other businesses at the same time as they deliver yours. To estimate the GHGs emitted just by shipping your goods (in other words, your portion of the vehicle), you’ll need to know:
- Weight of each shipment (preferably in tonnes)
- Distance of each trip (kilometres or miles) OR origin and destination of each delivery
- Cost of each shipment (optional)
If this is your first inventory year, some of this information might not be available yet. In that case, you’ll need to estimate the averages of the data you need, based on the data you have. For example, if you only know the origin and destination of a delivery, you’ll need to estimate the shipment weight. If you’re averaging the data you enter into Climate Smart, you’ll also need to provide:
- Number of shipments you made
To prepare this data for Climate Smart, learn how to determine how many tonnes of goods per kilometre you shipped.
Option 2: Estimate by distance (entire vehicle)
If a vehicle only ships goods for your business, you’ll need to know the following information to estimate your emissions:
- Distance of the trip (kilometres or miles)
- Vehicle type (for example, gas car, gas SUV, or diesel truck)
Note: Different vehicles produce different levels of emissions. For example, a truck might emit more GHGs than a car. Add separate entries to your inventory for each type of vehicle used to deliver your goods.
For small courier vehicles, assume that a package goes directly from its origin to its destination.
Option 3: Total emissions
If your shipping provider tells you how much greenhouse gas was emitted by transporting your goods, you’ll need to have the following information ready:
- Total amount of emissions
- Weight of the greenhouse gases your shipment emitted (kilograms or pounds)
Find your emissions data
Not sure where to get the data you need to measure your emissions? Try the following suggestions:
Ask your accounting department
Your accounting department might already have the information you need! Ask your team about collecting data for your inventory.
Check invoices and records from your shipping provider
Your shipping provider can provide important information you need from your inventory, such as:
- Cost of shipping
- Weight of freight or goods and distance travelled
- Total emissions produced
If your business has an online account with your shipping provider, you might be able to download a spreadsheet with the dates, weights, destinations, and cost of your deliveries.
Note: You can reach out to your shipping provider and request this information if it isn’t already available. However, some companies, such as Amazon, don’t have traceable shipments. If this is your situation, you might choose not to report this activity in Climate Smart.
Measure distance travelled with the distance calculator
Not sure what the distance was between the origin and destination of a shipment? To measure how far a vehicle travelled, use the distance calculator.
Enter data into your inventory
When you’re ready to track emissions from this activity, you can start entering the data you’ve collected into Climate Smart.
Note: Lots of shipments to enter at once? Try importing your shipping data.
Add this activity to your inventory
Before you can enter information about your emissions, you need to add this activity to your inventory. Learn how to add new activities to your inventory.
Add an entry to your inventory
To enter your data into Climate Smart:
- Choose a calculation method:
- If you estimate by distance (portion of shipping vehicle), enter the weight as 1 and the distance travelled as the value you calculated for D.
- If you estimate by distance (entire vehicle), enter the total distance travelled and select a vehicle type.
- If you want to enter your total emissions, enter the total amount of emissions and select its unit of measurement.
- Enter the start and end dates of the activity you’re measuring. These will usually match the start and end dates of your inventory year.
- Enter the total cost of shipping (including taxes) for this entry. If you’re estimating the amount, select the checkbox next to Cost is estimate. Tell us if you paid in Canadian Dollars (CAD) or United States Dollars (USD) from Currency the drop-down list.
Note: If you don’t know the cost of shipping, enter 0 as Cost.
- Under Description, enter information such as:
- Courier name
- Type of shipment (inbound or outbound)
- In the Note box, enter optional information such as:
- If you estimated data (for example, if you found the average weight of shipped goods)
- Any details that will help you (or a Climate Smart Advisor, if applicable) understand your data better in the future
- When you’re done, click ADD ENTRY. Your entry will appear in the table below.
Comments
0 comments
Article is closed for comments.