Carbon footprinting upstream supply chain for electronics manufacturing and computer services

  • Authors:

  • Y. Anny Huang;Christopher L. Weber;H. Scott Matthews

  • Affiliations:

  • Department of Engineering and Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213 USA;Department of Civil&Environmental Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213 USA;Department of Civil&Environmental Engineering and the Department of Engineering&Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213 USA

  • Venue:
  • ISSST '09 Proceedings of the 2009 IEEE International Symposium on Sustainable Systems and Technology
  • Year:
  • 2009

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Abstract

Corporations and institutions, including the electronics manufacturing and computer services sectors have become concerned with their impacts on climate change and are participating in carbon footprint assessment and climate management discussions. Existing carbon footprint protocols classify carbon footprint into tiered “Scopes”: direct emissions as “Scope 1”, emissions from direct purchased energy as “Scope 2”, and all other indirect emissions as optional “Scope 3.” Because Scopes 1 and 2 footprints are generally less than 25% of the total direct and upstream footprint for a vast majority of businesses, Scope 3 emissions should not be ignored as knowledge of them can help inform more holistic approaches to address life cycle footprint across the supply chain. This research uses input-output life cycle assessment methods to conduct a “scoping analysis” that characterizes the carbon footprint profiles of 8 electronics manufacturing and computer services sectors. The results show that there are significant variations in the portions of total analyzed footprint captured by each footprint Scope among this sector group. Most of the footprints for the electronics manufacturing sectors do not come from their Scope 1 emissions, but from the embodied emissions in the supplies of parts, components, chemicals, and materials. Purchases of food, air transportation, and hotel accommodation from employees traveling to customer locations are found to be the largest sources of upstream Scope 3 footprint for computer system design services sector. The results presented in this work are intended to inform footprinting entities and companies of the potential Scope 3 subcategories to focus their footprint efforts.