Information you will need to Collect• Number of staff and sites
• Annual electricity, gas, oil consumption in KwH
• Amount of waste disposed to landfill and incinerated in
• Annual distance or fuel consumption of company owned vehicles
• Annual business travel distance or fuel consumption in non company owned vehicles
• Annual  business journeys taken by taxi or train
• Annual number of long/short haul flights
• Annual number of nights stays in hotels
• Annual commuting distances by staff

General help
Commonly used terms and general conversion factors:
kWh -  kilowatt-hour. A measurement of energy most commonly used on site meters.
Kg -  kilogram
LGV – Large Good Vehicle (anything over a payload of 1.5 tonnes)
kg/C02 – kilograms of carbon dioxide
Tonne – 1 metric tonne
LPG – Liquid Petroleum Gas
Pass. – Passenger
Payload - The total weight of passengers and cargo that an aircraft carries or can carry
DEFRA – Department of Environment Food and Rural Affairs www.defra.gov.uk
WBCSD - World Business Council for Sustainable Development www.wbcsd.ch

In some cases assumptions have been made using averages; types or distances. These assumptions have been taken from published surveys (mainly government) and have been used to create a more user friendly assessment. For your reference all assumptions are stated below, in the relevant sections.

Premises helpWhen entering data concerning your annual energy consumption and waste disposal make sure that you enter figures for all sites related to your business. To be as accurate as possible all figures should cover a period of 12months.  If you do have more than 5 sites, please contact us directly at sales@carbonneutral.com

Office Area
When entering information about your office please make sure that the total internal floor area used by your company and communal areas such as stairwells and bathrooms are included.

Site Energy
The Electricity and Gas figures (kWh) can be easily found on utility bills.  Again, remember to input data covering a 12 month period. If you do use heating oil (litres), we advise that you refer to your source of purchase to access accurate data.  Energy usage usually makes up a large proportion of your overall emissions.  Switching to a green energy provider is a great way of reducing your energy emissions to zero.  The following are current examples of energy companies offering green tariffs to businesses in the UK:  EDF Energy, green energy (UK) plc, London Electricity, Scottish and Southern Energy, ScottishPower/MANWEB, SWALEC, Bizz Energy, Good Energy and Ecotricity, all of which can be Googled for more details. 

Waste
Please provide figures for non-recycled waste produced by weight in kg. On average 7kg of office waste will fill a bin bag.

Cars help
This section is for all vehicles which are used for business travel but are not owned by the company e.g. hire cars, leased vehicles, employee owned cars.

When an employee uses their own car to commute daily, this should not be included here, however if they take their car to an occasional client visit to Bristol (for example) then it should.

 Actual fuel consumption data will provide a more accurate result. 

Assumptions/factors:
CO2 emissions for an average UK petrol car - 0.209kgCO2/km (DEFRA 2007)
CO2 emissions for an average UK diesel car - 0.199kgCO2/km (DEFRA 2007)
CO2 emissions for LPG medium - 0.15kgCO2/km (DEFRA 2005)
CO2 emissions for hybrid (Toyoto Prius) - 126g/CO2/km (DEFRA 2007)
CO2 emissions for an electric (G-whiz) - 63g/CO2/km (GoingGreen.co.uk)


Taxis help
Either enter the distance travelled in taxis or the number of (taxi) journeys taken over a period of 12months.  Obviously your results will be more accurate if you can enter the distance travelled. 

Assumptions/factors:
Average distance of a taxi journey - 7.567km (Dft 2001)
CO2 emissions for an average UK diesel car - 0.199kgCO2/km (DEFRA 2007)

Trains help
Distance travelled by rail over a period of 12months. 

Assumptions/factors:
CO2 emissions for train travel - 0.06kg/CO2/pass.km (DEFRA 2007)

Flights help
Please enter details of all employees (full time, part time or contract) annual business travel by air, either the distance travelled or the number of flights (one-way) taken.  Again, it is better to use the distance travelled for more accurate data. 

Assumptions/factors:
Short-haul flights are categorised as those up to 1,600km; long-haul flights are 1,600km and over. (As a guide, London Heathrow to Rome is 1,500km).

Average length of a short haul flight - 500km one way (DEFRA 2005)
CO2 emissions for short haul flight - 0.13kgCO2/pass.km (DEFRA2007)
Average length of a long haul flight - 5000km one way (DEFRA 2005)
CO2 emissions for a long haul flight - 0.11kgCO2/pass.km (DEFRA 2005)

Hotels help
Please enter the amount of nights spent in hotels, over a 12 month period, whilst on business by any contracted or full time employee.

Assumptions/factors:
CO2 emissions for UK hotel room - 34.32kgCO2/room/night (DEFRA2007, CIBSE 2004, IEA 2006)
CO2 emissions for International hotel room - 33.87kgCO2/room/night (DEFRA2007, CIBSE 2004, IEA 2006)