Reducing a Companies Carbon Footprint through Energy Saving Best Practices at a Dairy Manufacturing Facility

Abstract

Today global warming and the issues that cause it are a high priority to consumers. They want the companies that provide their products and services to reduce the global warming gasses in the atmosphere and as such consumers are willing to reward these companies with increased sales. These global warming gasses are made up of both naturally occurring and non-naturally occurring gasses. Naturally occurring gasses are carbon dioxide (CO2 ), methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone gasses while non-naturally occurring gasses are chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), and perfluorocarbons (PFCs). To accurately measure these gasses in relationship to each other they will need to be converted into a common measuring unit and the most widely excepted common unit is the carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e). There are also several different ways to look at tracking a company’s production of the CO2e and each way have a slightly different definition of what CO2e are counted. This paper will use the Greenhouse Gas Protocol Corporate Standard (GHG Protocol) to insure that we have a uniform way to identify, track, and compare company’s carbon footprints. The GHG Protocol only considers the GHG emission in which the company has control over and such will be counted in the company’s carbon footprint calculations. Using the eleven step process, as defined in this paper, to reduce a company’s carbon footprint and introducing some helpful tools that will assist in this process. The XYZ Company facility found through this process that their greatest area of opportunity was the lighting of their facility and by installing efficient lighting reduced their carbon footprint by 3.4% and realized an electrical savings of $ 14,000.00 per year.