Neutral Territory’s simple ‘Measure – Reduce – Balance’ operational model has served us well for many years but came into question recently when we finally switched to all renewable electricity from Ecotricity. We will of course continue to Measure & Reduce, but do we need to Balance if electricity is theoretically carbon-free?
The short answer is ‘yes’ and means that we will continue to charge tenants 50p per square foot carbon offsetting charge that is passed to World Land Trust as part of their Carbon Balanced Business programme.
The answer comes from Suffolk County Council’s ‘Greenest County’ Project Manager Ned Harrison. The long answer is below; if you want to discuss further please contact Ned directly.
As promised here are some thoughts on how to treat green tariffs when calculating your carbon footprint.
The short answer is that so long as the electricity is coming from the grid, it’s still all the same electricity being used, and the market isn’t fluid enough for extra green tariffs to lead directly to equivalent extra green generation. Using a green tariff does help to decarbonise the grid (and is definitely a good thing to do) – if everyone used a green tariff, all the electricity would be green; and extra tariffs drive more renewables. But it doesn’t change the fact that there is an environmental benefit to using less electricity.
Essentially once the renewable sources have been built, if people on green tariffs use less energy, that energy is used instead to displace non-green energy elsewhere in the grid.
We normally recommend that businesses report both figures – i.e. the gross total using the current electricity factors, and then the net figure taking account of any green tariffs and offsets. Thinking about that, it may actually make sense to see a green tariff as an alternative to an offset, which I think is what you were asking. In both cases it depends on having reasonable confidence in the credibility of the provider. Some background below.
The Official line
There is quite a clear summary of this from some years back at https://ecometrica.com/assets//Summary-Paper-Green-Tariffs-V1.1.pdf. The issues identified here are double-counting (that renewables in the grid are already accounted for in the low carbon factor) and additionality (that the renewables would have been (partially) in place anyway).
I have just noted that the latest published guidance (Jan ’19 – https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/775601/environmental-reporting-guidance-including-secr.pdf p.114) says that the “This section (Accounting for renewable electricity) – and the approach for quantifying emissions from purchased electricity in general – is still being reviewed and will be updated in due course. In the meantime, please use the grid average conversion factor for calculating emissions from purchased electricity”. That suggests they are maybe looking at a more nuanced approach to capture the benefits of a green tariff.
Not all ‘green’ tariffs are created equal
- Some green energy providers will only offer electricity from green sources, but that will include wind turbines that are already in place.
- Some will provide a mix that includes fossil fuels, but commit to investing in their own renewables.
- Some large utility providers offer a green tariff drawn from the portion of green electricity that they are legally obliged to provide
There was a huge controversy over which of those first 2 approaches was better, especially in a row between Good Energy (option 1) and Ecotricity (option 2) (both now offer 100% green electricity) but essentially either is good, and it’s very hard to answer empirically which leads to more renewables being built. Most mainstream green tariffs now are option 1 anyway. Basically Good Energy won the argument.
The third option is marginally useful in showing demand for green energy, but essentially has no direct impact on green electricity provision.