What is Carbon Intensity and Why is it Useful?
Welcome to another jargon busting blog. The world of carbon accounting is full of terminology that can be hard to wrap your head around. Here, we explain all about carbon intensity, what it is, how to calculate it and why it is a helpful metric.
What is Carbon Intensity?
Carbon intensity is a key performance indicator (KPI), used by businesses to track progress on reducing their carbon footprint.
Carbon intensity is a figure that tells us how much CO2 is emitted for one unit of output or per specific activity.
Companies often link carbon carbon intensity to revenue which is the CO2 emitted for every unit of revenue. They may also calculate the average CO2e emitted per employee, or the average CO2e emitted per item sold.
If we consider the electricity we use, the carbon intensity figure is the number of grams of CO2 used to produce 1 unit of electricity (kWh in this case). This tells us how carbon efficient our electricity is.
It also helps us compare progress or compare businesses against each other.
Check out this example of the carbon intensity of a typical unit of electricity produced in the UK:
2020: 233 grams of CO2e per kWh
2021: 212 grams of CO2e per kWh
2022: 193 grams of CO2e per kWh
Electricity pylons at sunset. They always look nicer at sunset, don’t you think?
We can see that the amount of CO2 emitted per typical unit of electricity generated in the UK is going down. Great news!
In the comparison below, we can see from the carbon intensity figure that the amount of CO2 generated by electricity differs from country to country:
In 2020 the US produced 385 grams of CO2e per kWh
In 2020 the UK produced 233 grams of of CO2e per kWh
When it comes to us as consumers, information like this allows us to identify the suppliers with the lowest carbon intensity.
How do you calculate carbon intensity?
This is the easy part (once you have measured your carbon footprint anyway). You simply divide the emissions by the relevant measure of activity.
Take the example of a pint of beer. A brewery would take their total carbon footprint for a given year (say 100 tonnes of CO2e) and divide it by the number of pints of beer they produced that year (say 200,000 pints). This would give them a carbon intensity of 0.5 kgs of CO2e per pint.
Have you ever considered the carbon intensity of a pint of beer? No? Just me then.
If we were working with them, I would challenge them to reduce the amount of CO2e per pint to 0.4 kg of CO2e next year.
Basically, I want to continue drinking beer, but I want to do so with a company that is reducing its carbon footprint each year. Wouldn’t it be amazing if we could get to a stage in the future where we can drink beer with a truly zero carbon footprint?
Why is a Carbon Intensity figure useful?
Per the examples above, carbon intensity figures are extremely helpful for one thing: making comparisons.
Working out your carbon intensity means that regardless of whether your company grows or shrinks from one year to another, you can keep an eye on your carbon intensity and take action accordingly.
A carbon intensity score is agnostic of business size. This means you can use it to compare like-for-like products, companies and even countries. With the carbon intensity score, you could compare how much carbon is emitted per pint of beer from one brewery to another, per hotel room per night in different hotels, differentiate electricity providers and even countries. This could be useful to help individuals decide which product to buy. It can also help companies consider which suppliers to work with.
We hope this answers any questions you might have had about carbon intensity. If you have any further questions or want to work out the carbon intensity of your operations, get in touch.
