Ecological Footprint case study - PACIA

The Plastics and Chemicals Industry Association (PACIA) used EPA's Ecological Footprint Calculator for offices in 2003 as the key measure of environmental performance for its Melbourne office. PACIA was able to track the annual environmental perfomance of its office and the impact of environmental improvement plans as they were implemented.

PACIA reports these results through its annual report to communicate with stakeholders about its commitment to sustainability. PACIA has recently moved offices so the office measurements have changed. The Ecological Footprint calculation included electricity, gas, water, goods and food, as well as waste produced and recycled, and work-related travel undertaken.

To calculate its office Ecological Footprint in 2003, PACIA needed to collect:

  • Building information such as size of the building with assistance from the landlord.
  • Information such as electricity, water, fuel consumption and catering from accounting records.
  • Travel data by asking staff for estimates.
  • Waste and recycling data by observation; PACIA has a good recycling system, so the data was easy to estimate.
  • Data on toner cartridges and printer consumables using accounting records.
  • Other data such as staff numbers, energy use and paper purchases from accounting records.

By calculating the Ecological Footprint of its office-based activities, PACIA found that:

  • Electricity was the largest contributor (43 per cent) to the office Ecological Footprint.
  • Domestic travel (primarily air) was the second largest contributor (26 per cent).
  • Building life, paper and 'not purchasing Green Power' each contributed about 6 per cent to the Ecological Footprint.

PACIA chose to focus its 2004 effort on reducing electricity consumption, which is the biggest contributor to the Ecological Footprint and is a controllable variable. Also PACIA minimises air travel by teleconferencing extensively. A further reduction in air travel would adversely impact on the services that PACIA provides for its members.

PACIA then examined the contributors to electricity usage. Power consumption of computers, printers, heaters, air conditioners and other appliances was obtained from operating manuals, nameplates, websites and Sustainable Energy Authority Victoria (SEAV), now Sustainability Victoria.

PACIA found that air-conditioning and heating accounts for 81 per cent of electricity consumption, followed by lighting (10 per cent), then fridges and water heaters (6 per cent total), and computers and other appliances (3 per cent).

This data helped PACIA to focus on reducing power consumption from air-conditioning and heating by turning off units when not required and by adjusting the temperature set points up in summer and down in winter.

Value of the calculator as a measurement tool

The calculator:

  • gave PACIA insights into the key contributors to its office Ecological Footprint and which ones are more important to manage.
  • allowed testing of different scenarios to reduce the Ecological Footprint as a basis for developing improvement plans.
  • provides a means of annually calculating the impact of improvement plan implementation.

The intent of the calculation was to establish a baseline from which improvements can be measured. As such, annual changes in the Ecological Footprint are more important than the absolute number.

For this reason, estimating some of the variables is appropriate, for example, the building life. PACIA is a tenant and therefore has little control over the future of the building. Moreover, this component will be constant from year to year. It is important not to over-work the accuracy of data that is either constant from year to year, or which the tenant cannot control, at the expense of the critical variables that can be controlled.

PACIA made an initial estimate of the Ecological Footprint to identify the critical variables, such as electricity consumption. More work was done to ensure the accuracy of the major contributors to PACIA's office Ecological Footprint, while little time was spent on accurately measuring minor contributors to the Ecological Footprint, for example, taxi usage.

Value of the calculator as a communication tool

The Ecological Footprint is an excellent vehicle for communicating the environmental impact and performance of the office to staff. By changing assumptions, staff can readily see the impact of different behaviours, such as taking public transport more often.

Limitations of the calculator or concept

Environmental impact is communicated in a single number which has minimal value without other examples to compare against. It would be more useful if data was available to benchmark PACIA offices with other similar offices. As more statistics are accumulated from a wide range of users, comparisons will be able to be made.