Carbon Footprint Assessment of a Company in the Advanced Tertiary Sector

The global environmental challenge of climate change, largely driven by human activities such as greenhouse gas emissions, is growing increasingly urgent. Businesses are considered important contributors to this issue, especially in light of the Covid-19 crisis, which has prompted interest in remote work as a strategy to reduce emissions. This master's thesis aims to assess the carbon footprint of Engineering Ingegneria Informatica for the year 2022. As a company operating in the tertiary sector, it widely adopted remote work that year. The carbon footprint assessment followed guidelines from the GHG Protocol and involved data collection through business records, calculations, estimates and employee surveys. Only scope categories with reliable data were included. International or global emission factors were used when specific national factors were unavailable. The analysis began with the Italian sites and focused on Scope 1 and Scope 2 categories. The results showed that 55% of emissions came from the company's vehicle fleet, with the remainder from data centers and offices’ fuel and electricity consumption. The assessment then narrowed to the Turin site and included Scope 3 emissions. The total 2022 carbon footprint for this site was 2,489.10 tCO2eq, of which 57% was associated with Scope 3, particularly concerning employee commuting and teleworking. This outcome highlights the importance of considering indirect Scope 3 emissions in the carbon footprint evaluation of service companies that heavily opt for work-from-home. Methodology and findings were then compared to similar studies from academic literature. Finally, opportunities for emission reduction were identified and discussed using scenario analysis.