Annex 4 - Assistance for boundary determination

What practical advice to delimit the study boundary?

Assistance in determining the boundary

⏳[WIP] A scoping annex and guidance for delineating boundaries is being drafted. It will be made available shortly.

The organisation may refer to sectoral work, such as those carried out by ADEME and French professional federations, which provide advice on determining the boundary.

The General Carbon Plan is also an exploitable resource, which aims to address these practical questions by sharing the best practices of the carbon accounting community.

⏳[WIP] A forthcoming resource will be produced and made available to provide a reusable flow mapping template. Variants of this template for certain major sectors will be offered as sources of inspiration. These variants present sectoral trends and do not guarantee the exhaustiveness of identified flows, which will remain to be analysed on a case-by-case basis.

Assistance in determining significance

It is accepted that certain sources of indirect GHG emissions within the operational boundary of an organisation, do not contribute significantly to the total indirect emissions. The notion of significance can be useful for setting priorities during accounting, when choosing actions or when monitoring results.

⏳[WIP] A scoping annex and guidance for determining significance thresholds is being drafted. It will be made available shortly.

🔎 The notion of significance derives from theISO 14064-1 and is taken up within the BEGES-R. It proposes a step-by-step procedure for identifying significant indirect emissions.

For an emission to be considered significant emission, it must meet at least one of the significance criteria :

• Magnitude criterion : Indirect emission categories estimated as substantial from a quantitative point of view are to be retained. A minimum magnitude threshold to consider is expressed as a percentage. It establishes the minimum proportion of the operational boundary's indirect emissions to be included in the reporting boundary. The magnitude threshold must not be lower than 80%. Note that the ISO 14064-1 standard refers to the same notion as materiality criterion .

• Level of influence and action levers : the extent to which the organisation can monitor and reduce emissions and removals (for example, energy efficiency, ecodesign, customer engagement, terms of reference).

• Strategic importance and vulnerability according to a risk or opportunity approach: concerns indirect emissions or removals that contribute to the organisation's exposure to risks (for example, risks associated with climate change such as financial risks, regulatory risks, supply chain risks, product and customer risks, litigation risks, reputational damage risks) or to its commercial opportunities (new market or new business model, for example).

• Sector-specific guidance : GHG emissions deemed significant for the sector concerned, according to sector-specific guidance.

• Outsourcing : Indirect emissions and removals resulting from outsourced activities that are generally core activities.

• Staff engagement : Indirect emissions likely to motivate employees to reduce their emissions or that foster team spirit around climate change.

In summary, emissions are considered significant if they represent more than 80% of the assessment's emissions (magnitude or materiality criterion), if they are directly influenced by the organisation (influence and leverage criterion), if they contribute to exposure to risks and opportunities (strategic importance and vulnerability criterion), if they are deemed significant for the organisation's sector of activity (sector guidance criterion), if they result from core activities outsourced by the organisation (outsourcing criterion), and if they are likely to engage employees (staff engagement criterion).

The organisation can rely on several resources to identify its significant indirect emissions:

• Having carried out an initial Bilan Carbone®, or relying on the Bilan Carbone® of a similar organisation (OCCF)

• Refer to sectoral work, such as those carried out by ADEME and French professional federations, or by think tanks like the Shift Project, which provide advice on determining the boundary. Video example.

• The General Carbon Plan is also an exploitable resource, which aims to address these practical questions in a consensual manner. Sectoral approaches are useful for knowing the common emission sources for a given sector.

• The step-by-step procedure for identifying significant indirect emissions of the If the Bilan Carbone® is to be used for reporting to the.