Track: Sustainable Manufacturing

Abstract

The objective of the research is to determine the organizational carbon footprint of a company that produces welding electrodes, based on the Greenhouse Gas Protocol  Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard  (World Business Council for Sustainable Development and World Resources Institute 2004) in order to establish strategies to reduce Greenhouse Gases (GHG). The type of research is applied and uses the GHG Protocol methodology.  The study considered scopes 1 and 2 established by the methodology. Scope 1 represents the direct emissions produced by the consumption of Natural Gas, Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LP gas), and the generation of organic waste within the company. Scope 2 considered the indirect emissions resulting from the consumption of electrical energy. The results showed that the largest amount of CO₂eq was generated within Scope 1 (1,807.34 Ton CO₂eq), followed by the emissions considered in Scope 2 (1,694.03 Ton CO₂eq), generating a total carbon footprint of 3,501.38 Ton CO₂eq. The proposals to reduce CO₂eq focused on reducing the consumption of natural gas because it is the fuel with the highest generation of CO₂eq. In conclusion, this study can be used for companies interested in applying this methodology to calculate their organizational carbon footprint. The research gap is that there was no GHG inventory, and the ideal would be to have an annual GHG inventory emitting less than 15,000 Tons of CO₂eq.